MxMIndia

Category: BLOGS

  • SRK and Salman must understand that movie-making is an art, a creative process, it's not the same as selling cars and underwear, writes Anil Thakraney

    Anil Thakraney: Khans are misusing their charisma

    By Anil Thakraney

     

    I haven’t watched Chennai Express although everyone I know seems to have. Now, after reading the sad reviews, I am not sure I want to blow up three hundred bucks (plus popcorn). However, trade reports indicate that the film grossed a hundred crore plus rupees on the opening weekend, which means the junta is hitting the halls in hordes. Clearly, it has to do with Shah Rukh’s appeal, which shows no signs of waning.

     

    It is the same story with all those crappy Salman Khan flicks. These two Khans (and Akshay Kumar, to an extent) get the crowds in on the strength of star power and aggro marketing, and the producers make a lot of money even if the script sucks. While good movies with not-so-famous actors fare miserably at the box-office. And even if word gets out that the Khan film is a disaster, it’s too late in this age of multiplexes, satellite rights and brand tie-ups, the money has already been pocketed. I blame the masses for this blind idol worship; they seem to be okay with the two Khans acting themselves in every single film, no matter what the character demands. It’s quite a unique situation, this does not happen anywhere else in the world. Clooney, Pitt and Depp don’t carry their persona into the films, they get into the skin of the character.

     

    All this basically means a whole lot of moolah gets pumped into rubbish. And many Bollywood financers would give two hoots, they are here only to do dhandha. The onus then is on the two Khans. They need to evolve, hone their acting skills, and only agree to perform if the script is super-exciting. And they don’t need to tax their brains too much, the role model lives in their own backyard: Aamir Khan. AK has found the correct balance between star appeal and story. Despite the fact that a film from him gets a huge initial draw, he rejects most of the scripts. While the other two Khans continue with their hit-and-run strategy (er, in Salman’s case, that takes an entirely new meaning!).

     

    Bottomline: If Bollywood wants the world to take it a bit more seriously, its biggest stars need to get their act together. SRK and Salman must understand that movie-making is an art, a creative process, it’s not the same as selling cars and underwear. Which the two anyway do in the ads.

     

    PS: A collection of outstanding print work. A reminder for lazy Indian creative directors that you can have fun with press ads, that life does not begin and end with the TV commercial.

     

    Link: http://www.creativebloq.com/inspiration/print-ads-1233780

     

    Anil Thakraney is a senior journalist and commentator. He is also Editor-at-Large, MxMIndia. The views expressed here are his own. He can be reached via Twitter at @anilthakraney

     

  • Ill-informed anchors, half-baked stories from reporters, politicians who have their voices set at maximum volume rule our news channels today, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: How not watching news TV has helped reduce my BP

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Any dinner party conversation in a particular part of India somehow veers towards the difficulty of watching TV news. Where it was once a compulsion for English-speaking India to cancel all engagements to watch the nightly “debate” on TV, people now discuss the methods they have for staying away. Some people say they have stopped watching TV altogether and rediscovered books. Others have just switched to entertainment channels. Some stare into space and have a little peaceful navel-gazing. And perhaps some people have even revived that archaic practice of talking to each other between 8.30 and 10.30 pm.

     

    Regardless of whether the ratings show this or not, our yelling matches are reaching an end. Their entertainment value is now showing diminished returns and they have little marginal utility. Besides, everyone knows what the usual participants are going to say. The line of argument as far as each channel is concerned is also predictable. Headlines Today and Times Now will be hysterically jingoistic and in a state of quivering outrage. News X will try to be rational but will be hampered by its low star power and the difficulty in deciphering its anchors. NDTV will take a slightly different less hysterical line but will not always succeed. And CNN-IBN will sit on the fence, tending this way and that depending on the issue.

     

    Lok Sabha TV and Rajya Sabha TV both remain civilised and more intelligent but it is unlikely that they make much difference yet. At least until the scourge of tamasha has been scrubbed out of our minds.

     

    From a personal point of view, I have avoided primetime news for two months now and my doctor is really happy with my drop in blood pressure. Ill-informed anchors, half-baked stories from reporters, politicians who have their voices set at maximum volume, the same experts telling us about everything from which chocolate biscuit is better to whether we should go to war with Pakistan – how stupid do they think we are? I take that back. We know how stupid we are.

     

    **

     

    And bring a bunch of old journalists together and you know the story. As tears fall into glasses of Old Monk, they weep about things were better in their days and wish they had a little money to start a newspaper which was not so corporatised, not so rubbish-driven, had more imagination, had more perspective and had greater understanding of news.

     

    This is a pipe dream. Or should it be so. Perhaps it shows an even greater lack of imagination that journalists cannot indeed come up with alternatives to what passes for news today. The internet provides an ideal platform and needs to be exploited. What? What are you waiting for? Don’t stand there staring at me!

     

    **

     

    BBC News carried a well-choreographed discussion on cyber-bullying on their World Have Your Say segment this week. The peg was the suicide of a British teenager who had been attacked on ask.fm. The teenagers in the show – from all over the world – provided interesting perspectives of what passes for “fun” in the adolescent mind. The anchor was intrigued but not condescending. No one had tantrums or talked over the other or screamed when there was disagreement. Incredible. Maybe it was a show from another planet?

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator based in Mumbai. She is also Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. She can be reached via Twitter at @ranjona. The views here are her own

     

  • Ranjona Banerji's round-up on the media: on predictable fare on Independence Day, government action on paid news and bleak job prospects in the media

    Ranjona Banerji: I-Day Blues

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Has marking Independence Day become a ritualistic exercise for today’s media? Both newspapers and news television showed a remarkable reliance on clichés. Long ago, Sunday Mid-Day’s logo used to be “Expect the Unexpected”. Now with the media in India, it’s more like “expect the expected”. A shout out to Forbes magazine however for its essays on the concept of freedom: Variations on a theme with some intelligent thought.

     

    Meanwhile, Independence Day in the media was consumed by discussion of the speeches of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. This shows how little depth we are now happy with in the media.

     

    Interesting that the deaths of 18 sailors in the fires of the submarine INS Sindhurakshak inspired much less love for “martyrs” than the deaths of five soldiers along the LOC. Was this just media fatigue at maintaining high-pitched jingoism or was it because the sailors were not killed by enemy fire? The Times of India now suggests – in what seems slightly irresponsible journalism – that the fires may not have been accidents or caused by human error. If the “enemy” waltzed once more into Mumbai harbour by the sea and blew up a submarine, then we have far bigger problems on our hands than the pre-election shenanigans of Modi. And we want more than the slivers of suggestions in the TOI story.

     

    As a side note, the use of the word “martyrs” for all armed forces personnel who die is possibly a mis-translation of the word “shaheed”. Both may be similar but they are not the same.

     

    **

     

    The government is planning to take up the menace of paid news by making amendments to the Press and Registration of Books Act. This is a serious issue which cannot be ignored by the media. There is nothing worse than government interference in the running of the media because it impinges directly on the freedom of expression. However, if the media does not combat paid news, then someone else will do it and that someone else will invariably be the government. Some thought required here but has thought become too expensive a commodity for the media to rely on? http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-08-15/india/41412682_1_paid-news-electronic-media-amendments

     

    **

     

    CNN-IBN has apparently laid off some 200 people with a total of 500 to go, according to rumours. The TV18 group has already had a little public relations problem with the sacking of senior people in Forbes. NDTV has been “downsizing” and the Outlook Group closed down three magazines which meant at least 100 people out of jobs. Outlook first treated its staff very badly, then some staff went to the labour court and then magically everyone reached an “amicable” solution.

     

    Immediate prospects in the media look bleak as everywhere jobs are frozen and managements are looking at cutting costs. DNA however now has a new editor, CP Surendran and many are looking hopefully in that direction. It remains to be seen whether this newspaper, once second in Mumbai and once able to give market leader Times of India a run for its money, can get back into the race.

     

    **

     

    I have to confess that I have cut back seriously on my TV time and for three months have not watched those ridiculous prime time “debates”. But I do check in on news channels through the day just to find out what’s happening. I would be interested to know from readers which news channels they trust the most and which they instinctively turn to (both may not be the same).

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator based in Mumbai. She is also Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. She can be reached via Twitter at @ranjona. The views here are her own

     

  • Once Upon Ay Time in Mumbai Dobaara, the sequel to Once Upon A Time in Mumbaai, gets a battering this time from most critics, notes Deepa Gahlot

    Reviewing the Reviews: 1.5-2 stars for OUATIMD

    By Deepa Gahlot

     

    Director: Milan Luthria

    Starring: Akshay Kumar, Imran Khan, Sonakshi Sinha

     

    At least the Mumbai is spelt correctly this time, even if the ‘a’ becomes ‘ay’. Numerlogical predictions, probably. The sequel to Once Upon A Time in Mumbaai and Milan Luthria gets a battering this time, not just for glorifying a gangster to absurd heights, but for its weak plotting and overwrought dialogue.

     

    Akshay Kumar gets way because he plays the don with the required swagger, but Imran Khan is not made to play a Dongri boy-he can’t get rid of his urbane personality.

     

    The film got 1.5 to 2.5 stars, with the Times of India coming up with the expected 3.5. Even Taran Adarsh’s generous count stopped at 2.5.

     

    Karan Anshuman of the Mumbai Mirror commented, “The Milan Luthria/Rajat Arora director-writer combo is back; this time with an even more baffling titled film: Once Upon Ay Time in Mumbai Dobaara. Stare at that for a moment and see if it makes sense on its own and then in context with the film. If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it. This mantra is entirely understandable from a producer’s point-ofview, but one wonders how many identical looking films can a creative mind keep cranking out. Unlike in Hollywood, where a franchise is usually handed over to another director while the original creator moves on, our filmmakers are content repeating themselves for most part.”

     

    Rajeev Masand of IBNLive slaughtered it. “This disappointing sequel to 2010’s Ajay Devgan-Emran Hashmi starrer is constructed around the premise of a love triangle…the laziest love triangle you could possibly imagine. Shoaib (Akshay Kumar) is a mob boss. Aslam (Imran Khan) is his loyal protégé. Both men develop feelings for struggling actress Jasmine (Sonakshi Sinha), who is close to Shoaib and Aslam. But Jasmin doesn’t know that Shoaib is a don, or that Aslam works for him, or even that Shoaib has designs on her. Shoaib and Aslam, meanwhile, are unaware that they’re both in love with the same girl. That’s way too many clueless people in one film!”

     

    Aniruddha Guha of Time Out was not kind either. “The sequel to the awkwardly spelt but rather enjoyable Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai was initially called Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai Again, before the “Again” was replaced with “Dobaara”. A closer look at the film’s poster will reveal that a “y” has been added to the “a” lately, and the name currently stands at Once Upon ay Time in Mumbai Dobaara. You could brandish a dictionary in revolt, or hold that Wren & Martin close to your chest and weep, but the idiotic title makes complete sense once you’ve watched the film. If anything, it reflects the mindset of its makers perfectly. The sequel’s a confused, botched-up attempt at reworking the formula of the first film, one that hurtles from point A to B without any sort of focus. The title is its least unintelligent feature.”

     

    Shubhra Gupta of the Indian Express wrote, “What did you expect from the sequel of Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai which came out in 2010? Given that its director and writer are the same, I knew that the clunkily-titled-and-spelt Once Upon Ay Time in Mumbai Dobaara! would tread the same territory: gangsters- muscle-flexing-in-Mumbai-which-used-to-be-Bombay, non-stop rat-a-tat of ’70s style dialogue-baazi, loud background music, and a plot riddled with predictabilities from beginning to end. What I wasn’t prepared for was just how similar it would be, despite the change in leads (Ajay Devgn and Emran Hashmi have been replaced by Akshay Kumar and Imran Khan, and instead of Kangna Ranaut, there is Sonakshi Sinha), and after a point, just how listless it would turn out to be.”

     

    Rediff’s Sukanya Verma panned it too calling it a “complete drag, unintentionally comical and painfully verbose unlike the prequel which hit quite a few right notes with its slick take on the anti-hero against the half-hearted immorality of the 1970s. Rivalry makes way for romance in the follow-up but for a film set against the mafia, the predominant action is the yak yak coming out of Akshay Kumar’s mouth. Though the actor, saddled with an absurd script against a gaudy set in a jaded love triangle, is a treat though conveying an extravagant personality and remorseless menace as the underworld kingpin.”

     

    Sanjukta Sharma of Mint was equally scathing. “The Dawood prototype in Milan Luthria’s new film, mindlessly titled Once Upon Ay Time in Mumbai Dobaara!, is a raunchy playboy who transforms into a wrathful and obsessive lover. Not a diabolical underworld don by miles. There is something incongruous about a Dawood remotely akin to Rahul in Darr. That Akshay Kumar plays the role with a lot of relish does not really help. The ersatz, 1970s-style dialogue-baazi, many notches worse than those in Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai (2010), combined with Kumar’s hammy, monotone performance-his tricks for the role include craning his neck to the left and a swagger that works only in slow motion-add to the banal claptrap that it is.”

     

    Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV.com was mild in comparison. “Stylishly mounted, Once Upon Ay Time in Mumbai Dobaara! is shot in muted hues, which captures both the street-level dread and the soaring sparkle of 1980s Bombay with consistent sharpness. What robs the film of genuine traction is that the action seems to unfold in a disinfected bubble that is out of bounds for the urban realities of the era.

     

    Moreover, there is very little chemistry between Sonakshi and the two male leads. The only time sparks actually fly is when Jasmine and Aslam lie under a small rail bridge and watch the wheels of a running train as it races by, generating electro-magnetic flickers in the darkness.  What makes matters worse is a overly sterilised narrative that presents every hint of passion between the girl and the two men only as flights of the febrile male imagination running riot to the accompaniment of ‘romantic’ songs.”

     

  • Ranjona Banerji thinks sacking CEOs and a couple of senior management honchos would be more effective than effecting massive layoffs

    Ranjona Banerji: Media sackings have little to do with incompetence

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari has taken a leaf from Markandey Katju’s book. He thinks that journalists should be given some kind of “licence” before they can work. Katju, in his early days as Press Council chairman, had felt that journalists needed some minimum qualification.

     

    All this concern about how and why journalists function! Should we be touched? Laugh it off? Or get really worried that the government is trying, in whatever way it can, to inveigle its way into press matters? Freedom of expression has always irked those in power and while they pay lip service to the tenets of the Constitution what they would really like is to control the press. There are obvious ways – like withholding government ads (see how many ads there are in newspapers today, August 20, about Rajiv Gandhi to see what I mean). And there are more subtle ways like these sly little suggestions on how journalists need to be controlled and cordoned.

     

    Do we need to have a licence to work? We already have some bizarre system of “accredited” journalists, which allows you some government freebies and perks. Is it strange that most of the names on the list are fixers and operators? Should journalists get freebies and perks from the government? I have a radical view on this: journalists should not even accept awards from the government and that includes all the Padmas. We as a tribe must maintain that distance from authority as well as from our sources. (All right, all right, I can hear the loud and raucous laughter you know. But this is a “high horse” moment.)

     

    In fact, there is no need to explain to the government how and why the media works the way it does. There are enough laws in this country to deal with transgressions. The media however needs to constantly assess how and why it works. This laughter is getting too loud. Moving on.

     

    **

     

    Tiwari however did make one cogent suggestion: that TRAI keep in mind how it impacts the media and business models when it makes its rules – like limited advertisement time. He was referring to massive layoffs at TV18 where more than 500 people are on the hacking list according to various sources. Some have already lost their jobs and as usual, they are people at the bottom of the food chain. I have always thought that sacking CEOs and a couple of senior management honchos would be more effective…

     

    **

     

    The loss of jobs in the media has only created little whirlpools of gossip and mires of misery. The “media” itself has been silent: as a senior colleague pointed out, contrast this silence to the raucous outcries of injustice when Jet Airways was on a sacking spree. In the past few months, I count over 100 from NDTV, 100 from the Outlook Group and now a supposed 550 from TV18. These are a lot of people made jobless and with dismal prospects because managements get infected very fast by the downsizing bug.

     

    What is worse is that the sackings (I refuse to give these actions legitimacy by calling them “downsizing” or even worse, “right-sizing”) have little to do with incompetence. They have to do with bad management which led these companies into unprofitable territory. Told ya, sack the CEOs first.

     

    **

     

    The Times of India’s edit page carries an intriguing opinion piece by Srijana Mitra Das which suggests that all the general carping about chaos and cacophony on Indian news channels reflects an outdated school of thought. “Shrill TV is not Indian media adopting loud, pushy Americana over polished Britannica – it is ordinary India reshaping its democratic space, demanding answers after 66 patient years, making an OB van the opposite of a red beacon car.”

     

    Without getting into the specifics of TV discussions on American, British, Russian, French or German TV, there is one suggestion that I would like to make. Ordinary India might just reflect on the fact that if everyone shouts at the same time, no one can hear the nuggets of wisdom falling from their eager lips. That’s all.

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator based in Mumbai. She is also Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. She can be reached via Twitter at @ranjona. The views here are her own

     

  • Many of us in the media cannot distinguish between a campaign that does not deliver to its objectives, and a campaign that is designed to meet wrong or strategically-flawed objectives in the first place, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    Shailesh Kapoor: What Do You Mean By ‘I Should Know Why I’m Doing This Campaign’?

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    They are omnipresent. They are on TV, in the newspapers, on the radio, on the hoardings, in the theatres, on Facebook, on Twitter. No matter where you go, a launch campaign of a new TV programme, a new TV property or a new (or being-presented-as-new) TV channel will find you out. Across just the national channels, more than 150 such campaigns of various sizes and shapes are executed every year in India.

     

    Everyone has a view on an ad: Bad ad, good ad, stupid ad, clever ad, and so on. It is natural then that TV campaigns are discussed with great interest in the media industry. “Did you see the promo of the new show on Colors”, “What do you think of the &pictures campaign”, “I really like the IBL promos on Star”, “Jee Le Zaraa looks interesting from the promos”, etc.

     

    One of the professional hazards of my work is that I invariably end up being dragged into these discussions. Either a question is posed to me, or an opinion is stated, more like a cue to respond with mine. Yes, like everyone else, I too have a view (sometimes a more confidential one, having “tested” the campaign in question). But I really don’t know what to say at most times, and my attention is focused on finding an escape route.

     

    The reason for my response is not diplomacy but something more direct and relevant to the idea of a “campaign” (or “ad”, for that matter) itself. Any campaign, across categories, should be designed to address certain sharply stated campaign objectives, i.e., the desired consumer messaging or response the campaign aims to achieve. Hence, the measure of a successful campaign is its ability to deliver on the campaign objectives successfully. Hence, how can one even begin to comment on a campaign without knowing its objectives?

     

    Many of us in the media cannot distinguish between a campaign that does not deliver to its objectives, and a campaign that is designed to meet wrong or strategically-flawed objectives in the first place. The latter is not a case of a bad campaign but a bad strategy. That’s a different discussion altogether. But invariably, the discussion gets mixed up and before we know, we are questioning why the brand even exists!

     

    But there is a bigger problem. Most campaign creators in television don’t even set objectives to start with. I have often tried asking the seemingly innocuous question: “What are the objectives of this campaign?” Some of the answers I have got, and I kid you not, have been:

     

    • To promote the show (as against promoting competition?)
    • To get eyeballs (you may as well have said “to make money”!)
    • To create awareness (rudimentary as it may be, it’s not entirely inane)
    • To create buzz (still more acceptable, given the ones above!)

     

    Recently, I met an MBA batchmate who is the brand head of a category in one of the leading FMCGs in India. As I shared my predicament with him, he looked wide-eyed and reasonably speechless, before gathering the courage to say: “I would have been sacked for saying any of that even in my first year of work!”

     

    Setting campaign objectives is not an easy task. It requires discipline and debate. In the earlier working model, ad agencies would own the brand and drive this area. Today, the strategy is reasonably scattered across functions: the brand team, the ad agency, the media agency and the research partner. Yes, there are some channels that are objectives-oriented in their approach towards some campaigns, but those are case studies that are far and few in between.

     

    Next time you have a big campaign coming up, try defining what you EXACTLY want the campaign to achieve. The answer may not be as easy as you think, and like it’s often the case, the God may lie in the detail!

     

    Shailesh Kapoor is founder and CEO of media insights firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. The views expressed here are his own. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor

     

  • Madras Cafe won some heartfelt praise, some grudging, and ratings from 2.5 to 4, which can confuse readers of multiple media

    Reviewing the Reviews: 2.5-4 stars for Madras Cafe

    By Deepa Gahlot

     

    Madras Cafe

    Director: Shoojit Sircar

    Main Cast: John Abraham, Nargis Fakhri, Rashi Khanna and others

     

    Shoojit Sircar’s Madras Cafe is one of those films that put critics in a quandary. It takes up a subject unusual for Hindi cinema, and treats it with a no-frills realistic style, so it deserves praise. But then, it is an uneasy blend of fact and fiction, has lapses of logic and below par performances, and that is a problem.

     

    In the end, it won some heartfelt praise, some grudging, and ratings from 2.5 to 4, which can confuse readers of multiple media. There was also the controversy raging, with Tamil groups protesting against its release.

     

    Anupama Chopra of Hindustan Times wrote, “Watching Madras Cafe is both frustrating and satisfying. The thriller, set against the backdrop of the Sri Lankan civil war, is, in equal parts, muddled and moving. There are sequences of power and eloquence. And passages in the first half that had me so confused that I couldn’t figure out who was chasing whom.”

     

    Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN was all praise. “Solidly directed by Sircar, who steers clear of typical Bollywood machismo and avoids oversimplifying characters or their motives, the film – at a little over two hours – is a compelling watch….  Until the climate is more conducive for filmmakers to boldly make real-life stories without fear of controversy or censorship, this may be the best way to approach important stories that must be told.”

     

    Sukanya Verma of rediff.com commented, “When done right, few combinations have the allure of fact meets fiction. The veracity of one pitched against the ingenuity of another can produce awe-inspiring results. Though not entirely above faults, Shoojit Sircar’s Madras Cafe marries the two to direct an engaging political thriller about a fictional character’s experience against real events and references, namely Sri Lankan Civil War and the assassination of ex-Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi.”

     

    Nandini Ramnath of Mint came close to panning it. “Madras Cafe hints at a conspiracy within the conspiracy, but it’s never really clear what exactly is the untold truth being revealed. The nationalities of the Caucasian men with whom LTF cadres are consorting? The extent of corruption within RAW? The notorious inefficiency of the Indian state?”

     

    Karan Anshuman of Mumbai Mirror was lenient. “In a predictable trend, if a film’s opening titles are a classic text-on-black you may assume with near certainty that it is going to be a sensible film. Not that experimenting with opening credits doesn’t often make for sensible cinema, but the simplicity of the concept usually foretells complexity of the story to follow. And Madras Cafe is a complicated film.”

     

    Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV.com was warm in his praise. “Madras Cafe is a sinewy and riveting espionage thriller that entertains without having to play to the gallery. That isn’t the only departure from norm that director Shoojit Sircar makes. He also attempts a risky tightrope walk between staying true to recent geopolitical history and the need to serve up an imagined, dramatised spy story. He succeeds on both counts. At no point does Madras Cafe appear to be in danger of losing its balance and plummeting into a void. Sircar hits the right strides, and blends fact and fiction with great narrative aplomb and visual flair.”

     

    Srijana Mitra Das of the Times of India raved, “Madras Cafe’s true star is its story which builds up to an agonizing end. It brings to life the Lankan war which many viewers were too young to have known. It highlights India’s ambiguous role, moving sensitively, taking no sides, except those of relationships involving respect – but no romance – between Vikram and Jaya, duty, victory and loss. Its second half grows more fraught and taut, conspiracies and compulsions becoming clearer. John stays low-key and competent as Vikram while supporting actors, like agents Bala, SP and Vasu, stand out. Restrained performances by the LTF suicide bombers are chilling.”

     

    Anuj Kumar of The Hindu was impressed too, “After a rather uninspiring start, Sircar has plotted a gripping tale where the action shifts from South Block to South India in almost real time. Here, it is not just the people in a scene that you have to listen to; you have to keep an ear out even for those who are not in the frame. Considering he starts with a handicap, where we know the end from the start, he manages to keep us riveted for the most part. His victory lies in the fact that he makes us believe that the tragedy could have been prevented. His hint at a larger conspiracy of a syndicate with business interests in the region echoes what Agent Vinod also hinted at, but Sriram Raghavan got carried away with the demands of the box office. Sircar chooses to keep it closer to reality.”

     

  • News TV is all about editorializing before the facts are known or processed. That is of course part of the reason why watching TV news can be so exasperating, rues Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Lack of professionalism and sympathy in gangrape coverage

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The morning on Twitter after the gangrape of a young photojournalist in Mumbai was an unnerving experience. Suddenly, the discussion was about how the media does not report rapes that happen in slums, about the class of the people raped and raping and how people react only when people of their class are raped.

     

    This is a stomach-churning sort of justification of rape and such reactions (the area was deserted, it was late in the evening, when women in slums are raped no one cares) are symptomatic of why rape is seen as a legitimate threat on social media. Sadly, some of these reactions were coming from journalists – showing, together with everything else, a lack of sympathy for a member of the community.

     

    Pop sociology is the scourge of journalists and of course of anyone who has access to a public platform. Which is fine as far as it goes. We are all entitled to our own opinions. But in Ye Olde Worlde, journalists had to clock in more than 365 days in the profession before they became final arbiters on just about anything. Now, of course, you turn on the TV and you are bombarded with the “new shrill India” – according to The Times of India’s worthy edit page – exercising its right to be heard.

     

    I am not sure however that being new and shrill is a justifiable excuse for lack of professionalism at least as far as the Indian media is concerned. Somewhere, editors have taken the backseat in a frenzied campaign to let youth have its say. No need to denigrate youth but no need to follow all its opinions and pronouncements either, minus discretion and better judgment.

     

    The fact that TV journalists get shrill and unprofessional in their coverage of such events does not help. On Times Now, the anchor wanted to know the class of the accused — a needless interjection at this stage. The Lower Parel area of Mumbai is introduced as a corporate hub – again making subliminal societal suggestions extraneous to the case, especially at this early stage. TV anchoring is all about editorializing before the facts are known or processed. That is of course part of the reason why watching TV news can be so exasperating. And dare I say it again, being bad for blood pressure.

     

    **

     

    The miserable side of all this is that despite all the largely excellent coverage of the Delhi gangrape of December 16 and the public upsurge of anger in the way women are mistreated in our society, nothing has changed. Our police, investigative and political responses are as incompetent and asinine. The Delhi case is limping along in the courts. And the cynic suggests that this Mumbai case will go the same way.

     

    Regardless of how people and people in the media get excited by the impact of their work, there is only so much that the media can do. Society and the system have to do their part as well to make a substantial difference.

     

    And there’s the rub.

     

    **

     

    In other news, the apparent collapse of the Indian economy has had varying reactions from different media outlets and big ticket commentators. A person with limited knowledge of money matters would be left impossibly confused if she read a variety of reports and comments. The rupee falling is good, is bad, is terrible, is wonderful, X is a genius, X has no idea about anything, listen to Y, Y is a fool…

     

    At the end of it, the media tracker is as confused as the economy. Mission accomplished?

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator based in Mumbai. She is also Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. She can be reached via Twitter at @ranjona. The views here are her own

     

  • Rape is a difficult subject to cover and on the run, mistakes are made. Yet where investigative journalism ends and intrusion begins is a tough call and both the media and its critics need to be aware of this, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Kneejerk reactions to gangrape coverage

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    “The Media” has been getting into a bit of trouble with the Mumbai gangrape case, for a variety of reasons. The silliest first: critics who assume that “The Media” is a single entity which thinks and moves as one gigantic slug. In fact, “The Media” is a bunch of separate publications, TV channels and now websites, all of whom are in competition with each other. “The Media” does not in fact attend the same meeting every day or week or month or year to discuss strategy and coordination. All the elements in “The Media” hold meetings everyday to try and trump each other.

     

    Then there is anger that “The Media” does not give publicity to, expose, investigate crimes against people of classes which are below their average newsroom class and never goes to remote hinterland areas. This is partially true but easily understood. Each individual publication and news channel caters to a particular readership in a particular language. Newsgathering will largely be restricted to that constituency. Sounds terrible? But somewhere there will be some media covering another constituency. That you have not heard of it is hardly “The Media’s” fault. Having said that, there is always scope for increasing coverage of the “other India” in both English language news publications and news channels.

     

    But I also know this: most people will read about film actor Om Puri’s marital troubles in today’s newspapers than anything at all on the edit page for instance. Usually a media outlet has to be at least as shallow as its readership or viewership.

     

    Then there are the serious problems with rape coverage. I am surprised at the transgressions made by The Times of India’s Mumbai edition here. Kalpana Sharma has gone into them in detail for The Hoot (http://www.thehoot.org/web/TOI-s-foot-in-mouth-rape-coverage/6990-1-1-25-true.html) and it is hard to improve upon that.

     

    It is true that calling a person who has been raped a survivor and not a victim reeks a bit of tokenism when you can’t get anything else right (including a sanctimonious front page declaration). Also, why senior journalists needed to invade so much of a victim’s privacy seems strange. Why inform people in the victim’s building? Why name the magazine where she worked?* Details of the extent of her injuries may have eventually become public knowledge, however. Where investigative journalism ends and intrusion begins is a tough call and both “The Media” and its critics need to be aware of this.

     

    However, TOI is not the only publication to blame. Rape is a difficult subject to cover and on the run, mistakes are made. Better communication between editors and reporters, good debriefing systems and a desk that is aware of the laws are vital here. Yes, I know that is asking for the moon.

     

    **

     

    What can be done within the media, since the victim/survivor and her accompanying colleague were part of the fraternity? It is ridiculous in the extreme to even entertain Maharashtra home minister RR Patil’s suggestion of police protection for working women journalists. If the police had worked harder at tracking/picking up anti-social elements in the Shakti Mills area, may be this crime may not have happened.

     

    Besides, the life of a working journalist is too unpredictable to make police protection practicable. Also, everyone needs help from the police, not just journalists. A media which constantly exposes the loss to effective policing because of VIP security can hardly appropriate some of that security for itself.

     

    Can or will media houses become more aware of the problems faced by their employees? It would be a shame if this “protection” idea led to a curtailment of assignments to women journalists who are still fighting hard to get equal status. We need more women, not less and we need less kneejerk reactions.

     

    * MxMIndia is also to blame for this. We did name the publication that the photojournalist interned at in our comment on Friday. We figured later that it wasn’t the right thing to do, and deleted the reference. Our apologies. – Editor.

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator based in Mumbai. She is also Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. She can be reached via Twitter at @ranjona. The views here are her own

     

  • While Anil Thakraney has taken a break from his writing (a well-deserved one, since he's been writing every day for nearly two years), he couldn't hold himself back from writing this one.

    Anil Thakraney: Rape: News channels get it all wrong

    By Anil Thakraney

     

    In a frantic attempt to come up with a new ‘angle’ on the gangrape incident, some television channels have taken off on a wild tangent. All the debates about ‘Two Mumbais’, ‘Clash of the Haves and the Have-nots’, ‘Influx of Migrants’, etc, have been keeping me quite amused. All bollocks.

     

    The problem in this case is clear: It was a plain and simple case of policing failure. And all these bizarre arguments are serving only one purpose: Get the cops off the hook. What happened inside the abandoned Shakti Mills compound is this: A few criminals got lucky. They had discovered a secluded adda to conduct their nefarious deeds, and had found it to be a cool pad to obtain free sex, read, rape women who happened to be passing by. Mirror’s headline, which revealed the exchange between the rapists, says it all: ‘Mehmaan aaye hain, khatirdari karne aaja.’ While only further investigations will (hopefully) reveal the truth, it’s clear that the gang had assaulted women before, perhaps on several occasions. And these unfortunate victims could have been ragpickers, maids, college students, couples looking for a private dating spot… just about anybody. Because the woman who reported the incident happens to come from the middle class does not mean the dregs of this city were out to fix the rich city girl. She just happened to be at the wrong spot, it could have been anyone in her place.

     

    Instead, the media pressure should be on the bumbling cops. While they have done a good job post the rape, one has to ask why they aren’t patrolling such desolate spots that are located right in the center of the city, why they aren’t evicting all the squatters from out of there?  Surely their khabris would know that Shakti Mills has been taken over by anti-social elements. And this has nothing to do with shortage of police staff. Try parking your car in a Lokhandwala or Bandra or Colaba lane at 11pm, with your partner sitting beside you, and within minutes a patrol team will arrive to kick you out of there. Even if you are only chatting. This tells me the cops find it great fun to harass the aam aadmi, but getting after drug addicts who are happily chilling in lonely places is too much of a bother. And perhaps boring.

     

    In short, all these crazy debates are only ensuring the cops don’t take responsibility for what is very clearly their fault.

     

  • Ranjona Banerji: Which news channel do I watch? Help!

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The media is now a topic of conversation as much as it is a vehicle for topics of conversation. In spite of the irritation of explaining how journalism means to “outsiders”, on due consideration this has to be a good thing. Given the intrusive nature of television and the discursive nature of social media, the days of newspapers being a medium twice removed from you are long over. The rather classist ads by I think Airtel about a liftman asking to become a Facebook friend or a girl being rather rude to a woman at a bus stop who offers use of her phone’s email facilities point to the way technology is breaking barriers.

     

    How much this will make journalists take objections into account is another matter. I see no difference in the way TV news operates in spite of their many transgressions. This brings me to a question: which English news channel does one turn to for the best all round news through the day? The prime time debate dramas I discount as they come under the entertainment sector.

     

    CNNIBN used to be good but I feel that their standard has slipped since all the sackings – or perhaps that’s my imagination. Times Now is so full of errors and editorialising in the day that it is useful only when something happens in Mumbai since that is where they are based. NDTV is bearable in the day but they have a tendency to branch off into long docu stories and entertainment guff right when some big news is “breaking”. Headlines Today is very shrill and sometimes operates at a disturbingly high level of jingoistic outrage. No longer smart news for smart people I think. News X is a sober option but their anchors are so bad that it is impossible to understand what they’re saying.

     

    I have given up on grammatical errors on TV but pronunciation errors still amuse me, I’m afraid. There is so much emphasis on getting some faux phoren accent right that much-used words are completely mangled. “Register” and “available” are common casualties and in fact and of course are in fact of course overused.

     

    The day may well be coming when we have to give up on the idea of English news channels. In any case, the news gathering skills of the language channels are often superior – the gem stone, astrology and ghost hunting programmes notwithstanding.

     

    **

     

    The insularity of India as a putative superpower is quite fascinating. Economies across the world have been suffering since 2008 for a variety of reasons. But the situation in Syria is quite frightening, with Europe and the US poised for military intervention. We however are so obsessed with our internal petty dictators and their fan clubs and our corruption scandals and the falling rupee and poverty alleviation schemes that we seem unaware of the horrors going on and imminent not that far away from us. I know the media does what its readers want but here perhaps the media needs to step away from management principles and apply some basic journalistic thought to Syria.

     

    **

     

    For the past two days, the Mumbai edition of The Times of India has been telling us Saturday’s rainfall figures. Tomorrow is Saturday so they have one more day to get away with this…

  • Audiences confused again by the mixed ratings of the Prakash Jha film will either check out the film themselves on opening weekend or wait till it's shown on TV

    Reviewing the Reviews: Serious critics give ‘Satyagraha’ 1-2.5 stars, rah-rahs upto 4.5

    By Deepa Gahlot

     

    Satyagraha

    Director: Prakash Jha

    Starring: Amitabh Bachchan, Ajay Devgn, Kareen Kapoor

     

    Prakash Jha doing his patented small-town politics, issue-waving films, draws a line between the serious critics and the ones who provide the rah-rahs for the purpose of providing 4 stars ratings for ads.

     

    The serious critics ripped the film apart and give it 1 to 2.5 star ratings, while the rah-rahs went up to 4.5.  So audiences confused again and will either go check out the film themselves on opening weekend, or wait till is shown on TV.

     

    In a line, Jha took a topical theme and made a hash of it, but is saved by the stars.

     

    Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express ranted, “The trouble with cobbling together your film’s plot from current headlines is glaringly evident in Satyagraha, Prakash Jha’s latest take on What Ails The Nation. It becomes a case of putting on celluloid events that have just finished unfolding, and are still unravelling in front of our eyes: if it is happening in real life, why do we need a reel version? Especially a version which doesn’t add anything of significance to the narrative: it’s all been-here-seen-this-and-that before.”

     

    Sanjukta Sharma of Mint was scathing: “Jha is more a pamphleteer rather than a director here. Besides the blinkered view on the politics of the common man, he is surprisingly blind to some film-making basics. Lighting by cinematographer Sachin Krishn could suit a TV soap opera. Editing is slack. The production design of this film is so poor, that even if there are some weighty scenes and some snatches of moving performances, you are unlikely to notice them.”

     

    Vinayak Chakravorty of India Today is a little kinder. “Raajneeti got it right. Aarakshan messed it up midway. Chakravyuh looked like Prakash Jha was not even sure of what he was doing. The writer-director’s fetish for cocktailing topical realism and box-office friendly masala continues with Satyagraha. A comparative analysis of Jha’s recent oeuvre becomes essential because in look and rendition Satyagraha reminds you of every film the director has made Raajneeti onwards.  If the Prakash Jha film in itself has become a formula, his latest does not break the pattern. The film is well-intentioned film, its message relevant. Unfortunately, not every well-intentioned film with relevant message leaves an impact. Satyagraha is more Aarakshan than Raajneeti in quality.”

     

    Sarita Tanwar of DNA made a valid point: “The thing that troubles me is: why make a fictional version of a subject like this? The only valid reason seems to be to not piss off the powers that be. To ensure a release. Admitting this is based on the Anna Hazare movement would have meant many hurdles. From political pressure to censor trouble to say the least. So director Prakash Jha chooses to call this a drama/love story, thereby defeating the whole message/point of making a film like this. You can’t make a film about what is wrong with the system, while surrendering to the system. It is a cop-out.”

     

    Anupama Chopra of the Hindustan Times commented: “If good intentions were enough to make good movies, Satyagraha would be a masterpiece. Prakash Jha is one of the few directors in Bollywood who has consistently championed political cinema. His rage at the rotten state of the system has simmered through his movies for nearly three decades. But from the National Award-winning Damul in 1984 to Satyagraha, his stories have become increasingly simplistic, star-driven and heavy-handed.”

     

    Rajeev Masand  of IBNLive expressed disappointment too. “With Satyagraha director Prakash Jha once again raids the headlines, this time turning his gaze on the growing public resentment towards the deep-rooted corruption in the system. Jha borrows liberally from real events and the lives of real people, including famed anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare and the Jan Lokpal Andolan he inspired. Unfortunately Jha’s heavy-handed direction turns this well-intentioned drama into a plodding sermon.”

     

    Karan Anshuman of Mumbai Mirror wrote: “Prakash Jha came a full circle with his brand of cinema with Gangaajal in 2003, returning to what put him on the map in the first place with Damul (1985). He gave himself a mandate – activism through mainstream cinema – and embarked on a series of films on remarkably diverse subjects ranging from the Bhagalpur Blindings case to the state of education in the country, from an assessment of Indian dynastical politics to the Naxal quandary; always subtly offering to weigh in on a position that may not be the prevalent opinion.  But Jha’s films try too hard to sell themselves in this escapist market. Whether it’s the item song or the melodrama – in the last decade his style has been too consistent, and hence predictable – there’s reluctance to evolve.”