As the USA is enthralled by its electoral processes, there is some conversation over how the normally rightwing media – like Fox News – appears to be tiring of former president and repeat Republican candidate Donald Trump. Apparently, Fox has a few times cut Trump off and switched to the Kamala Harris campaign. The implication is that Harris’s presidential bid has so enthused the Democrats and the nation, that no media house, no matter how committed to one ideology (Trumpism), can ignore the wider world.
However, knowing how the rightwing media operates, the more normal sections of society should not hope for any substantial return to balance. When push comes to shove, the right will switch back to its core competency. In most cases, this means pushing some form of bigotry and hatred over common sense.
Of course, when it comes to western democracies, the media totally aligns when it comes to approval of genocide committed by Israel on Palestinians. You don’t even need any investigation. The approval of deaths of Palestinians and the inability to even name Israel as the killer stares the observer in the face.
You can see in the three examples that I have provided below, even when there is disapproval of Israel, headlines are carefully calibrated to avoid any blame. Let us put this in context. In other instances, the media loves to sensationalise even trivial bits of pointless news and aim for “clickbait” headlines to draw you in. “Cure for cancer found!”: the article if you read it will tell you that no cure has been found but someone is working on something.
“Asteroid about to hit Earth!”: no asteroid is going to hit Earth is what the story will say. And so on.
But somehow outrage or even simple human compassion for the deaths of Palestinians is hard to find, whether you look right or left.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/29/eus-top-diplomat-seeks-sanctions-against-israeli-ministers
https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-eu-sanctions-relations-trade-7bdc4df36661081a2e408f3c7ff24863
https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/media-groups-call-on-european-union-to-suspend-treaty-impose-sanctions-on-israel/article68567762.ece
Palestinians are undeserving, it appears, across the board.
There are several obvious conclusions to be drawn from this. Do I have to spell them out?
No, I didn’t think so.
Meanwhile, back in India, it appears that some sections of the Indian media are doing some similar sidesteps with Rahul Gandhi. Unlike earlier, TV has not blanked out his latest Bharat Jodo Yatra. Videos of Gandhi giving martial arts demos are viral on social media and being discussed on TV. His name also appears to have changed from Pappu. I saw Aaj Tak had some sort of clip on “Rahul Bhaiyya” and “Modi Kaka”. So now, Rahul Gandhi is a relative. A sort of national brother while Narendra Modi has been relegated to an “uncle”. In internet terms, “aunty” and “uncle” are not compliments. Just saying.
However, when it comes to women’s issues, rape, safety of women in the workplace and everything else we get periodically worried about after a national incident, the legacy media is very clear. The ghastly rape in Bengal is more important than ghastly rapes elsewhere. Since the rape and murder of the junior doctor at RG Kar hospital in Kolkata on August 9, there are have been innumerable news stories about more awful rapes and murders of women and girls across India. But the legacy media will only pick them up and provide indepth coverage if they happen in non-BJP ruled states. Uttar Pradesh? No. Madhya Pradesh? No? Uttarakhand? No. Bengal? Well, obviously.
We like to be consistent it seems. And generally vile.
Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She writes on MxMIndia on Tuesdays and Fridays. Her views here are personal.