Ranjona Banerji: Lacklustre coverage of a lacklustre Budget

By Ranjona Banerji

Lacklustre. That’s how the coverage of the Union Budget 2016 looked on television. Maybe it’s that the budget itself was lacklustre. But like all Union Budgets in recent times, it was a bit of this and a bit of that. No Big Bang, no Big Ticket reforms, no economic clichés for subeditors to drool over.

The Union Finance Minister begins his speech at 11 am. But news channels have to start salivating and hyperventilating from the time we wake up and rush bleary-eyed to our TV screens to check if a leaf fluttered in the night and we missed it. The formula was more or less the same on all channels: some pro-government economists, some anti-government economists, some cagey industrialists and some investment experts who speak a language no one else can understand.

The one journalistic scoop of the morning on television before the Speech was that the Budget would be farmer-oriented. This great nugget of investigative journalism came from the Prime Minister himself who said that his government was going to double rural incomes by 2022. The salaried class as usual hoped that income tax would be abolished. Corporates hoped that corporate taxes would be abolished and thus it was hopes and expectations beyond reality can deliver as usual.

Unfortunately for Budget mavens, the Oscars were also live in the morning hours and thus interspersed with “fiscal” and “deficit” and “subsidy”, were excited “oohs” and “aahs” about Bollywood and now Hollywood star Priyanka Chopra’s appearance on the red carpet and the Dolby Theatre Stage. This was in fact a welcome break from the tedium of financial jargon masquerading as prescience.

There was also an amusing interlude when one TV anchor who hadn’t seen or read up on the Oscars even though she was giving us the highlights of what was going on, fumbled while trying to explain what The Danish Girl was all about, forgot who was transgender and why Alicia Vikander won best supporting actress in the said film.

Of the morning lot, Rajdeep Sardesai on India Today TV was the most entertaining, Dr Prannoy Roy fans had to wait to get a darshan on NDTV and the only post-Budget programme I enjoyed was questions on personal taxes on CNN-IBN. Nowadays it is hard to tell the difference between Times Now and NewsX and as usual they decided that the Budget is best explained by party spokespersons who don’t understand economics, thus ensuring that we have the usual slanging matches one way or another.

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The morning papers seem equally lacklustre. However, since they had more time to think about it, The Times of India for some reason has channelled its inner Elton John and headlined page 1, “Glowing in the wind”. I however got utterly confused because the first few pages were about a new ipad, a new MotoG and the greatness of West Bengal. By the time I reached ‘Glowing in the Wind’ I forgot all about the Budget and thought there was a fire somewhere. Basically, the Budget could mean that India is a candle in tempestuous global gales or that we could be snuffed out in one puff. I think.

Meanwhile, in attempt to soothe the confusion in readers’ and viewers’ minds, the Times of India has explained the laws of federalism within the world of Bennett Coleman to its readers which basically says that the editors of all the newspapers, the Akond of Swat at Times Now and the tweets of owner Vineet Jain all exist in parallel universes. I will buy anyone who can cogently explain this edit page piece which appeared on Monday February 29, a drink at any press club anywhere in India.

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-editorials/federalism-in-structure-pluralism-of-views/

Newspapers like the Hindu and Indian Express focused on the government’s new-found love for farmers and harped on the indication that the “suit-boot ki sarkar” had been given a reality check. To be fair, TOI also mentioned this supposed shift by the government from its core voters to the voters who have felt abandoned.

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I did not make a New Year’s resolution on January 1, 2016 but I will make one now. I am not going to watch news television’s painful attempts at Budget coverage ever again.