By Ranjona Banerji
There is a very moving Facebook post doing the rounds about the fires in Uttarakhand. There are dramatic pictures of forests burning. The text is an impassioned and angry plea about how the media is ignoring these fires. It has been sent to me innumerable times by well-meaning people because I live in Uttarakhand. I suppose they assume that I can neither look out of the window and see what’s happening for myself, nor can I read newspapers or watch television.
As is so often true in such matters, the media gets the blame for nothing. I do not know the situation in Nainital, where the Facebook post originates from, but I can quite firmly declare that here in Dehradun, the media has been on the ball from day 1. I read the Garhwal Post, The Tribune, The Indian Express, The Times of India and The Hindu and the Asian Age in newspaper form every day. The Post is a local paper while The Tribune and TOI have strong Uttarakhand bureaus. All these papers have reported on the fires, starting with the devastating fire at Corbett and then moving closer to my home at least.
Although I spend much of my time in this column slamming the media or aspects of the media, I must also stand up for what I know. That it is a downright lie that “the media†– which is a bizarre classification in the sense that it is not one entity – has ignored these fires. I suppose by “the media†many people think only of television – alas! But even television news has covered the Uttarakhand fires very comprehensively.
It is true that no newspaper or news channels or news website has a reporter in every village in India so that it can immediately get every bit of information as it happens. I do not know if there is any institution in the world that has such a network. Perhaps people who post on Facebook and moan on Twitter work with or for such marvellous omnipresent and omniscient organisations. They should share their secrets with the world so that we can all benefit.
This is not to suggest that the newsrooms are never slow to pick up a story or that they do not sometimes ignore something that is at odds with a particular thought process or something that puts the owners’ friends in a bad light. This happens and not all editors can fight it. But does it not seem idiotic, even to someone who sees “the media†as the devil incarnate, that journalists would wilfully ignore forest fires? For what reason? How does it benefit them or anyone? I can understand if the same allegations were made about the Agusta Westland case or the Malegaon blasts case – both in the news right now – but I’m afraid I cannot understand the logic behind such an accusation. I use the word logic loosely.
But I know the source of such thought. It is the scourge of all good sense – the well-meaning person in the frenzy of self-righteous rage.
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The other story doing the rounds on social media is a piece by an Indian-American journalist taking potshots at a column by Shobhaa De. Now it has long been fashionable to attack Shobhaa De, for all kinds of things. And let us establish that De is a columnist and columnists expect all kinds of reactions to their opinions. That is usually why you put them out there.
But rather than merely disagree with De’s opinion – something about how Kate Middleton now Duchess of Something or the Other would not look good in a sari – this impassioned piece by the Indian-American journalist launches into a diatribe about how Indian journalists have it easy.
The writer’s contention is that every article she writes is checked for facts and suppositions by at least three editors in America whereas in India reporters can get away with whatever they write – like De has. Are you laughing yet? Because I am. While it is true that we can do with more fact-checking in India, this writer has missed a very basic point. De is not a reporter. She is a columnist. How is anyone to fact-check her opinions?
I see sour grapes and ignorance at work: which is all the more tragic, because it comes from a journalist who evidently does not know the difference between a reporter and a columnist. I really had more hopes from America.