MxMIndia

Category: BLOGS

  • The tussle for supremacy between Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party and his former ally Kiran Bedi, now with the Bharatiya Janata Party has dominated airtime and cybertime in India., writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: News Entertainment UnLtd

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The tussle for supremacy between Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party and his former ally Kiran Bedi, now with the Bharatiya Janata Party has dominated airtime and cybertime in India. Kejriwal has asked for a debate before the Delhi polls, campaigning for which is now on,  and Bedi has refused. And both have added to the drama by their own actions. Bedi by deleting all her tweets criticising the BJP and Modi and Kejriwal by saving them and retweeting them. Plus there are all those tweets by Bedi about the need to debate during an election campaign. These are those rare occasions where journalists don’t have to do much work – the entertainment is laid out for them.

     

    Bedi provided extra grist to the mill by walking off on national television in the middle of a cross-interrogation by Arnab Goswami of Times Now. Although Bedi did indicate that she was in a hurry and had to leave soon, she chose to get up and take off her mike just as Goswami asked a question about her former mentor Anna Hazare. She did not answer the question. Anyone familiar with Indian TV knows what a gross error that can be. Goswami does not take these slights lightly. Technology being what it is, the gif was all over social media almost immediately.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKD0aE78d8s

     

    The funniest part of the interview however was when Bedi accused Goswami of “cherry-picking” and the conversation turned into one of those tongue-twisting rhymes for children, with cherry-picking being used every third word.

     

    The next day, Goswami had yet another debate on who ran away and why they ran and so on which turned into an expected slugfest between the AAP and the BJP. This was an Indian TV speciality: a debate about whether there should be a debate.

     

    In an aside, Sunil Alagh, once head of Britannia and now a BJP PR person of some sort, should have walked away from the show after being chastised by Goswami. However, as many evil journalists know, some people are so desperate for publicity that they are willing to put up with just about anything including being spoken down to on television.

     

    The battle for Delhi however does have big competition in the media. The mess in Indian cricket, the witch hunt for former BCCI chief N Srinivasan’s head and the Supreme Court’s pronouncements are putting up a strong competition here for media time. At least when it comes to cricket, there are number of serious issues at stake from match-fixing to the control of cricket to conflict of interest and the future of the Indian Premier League.

     

    But there’s a third party here as well: The renewed investigation into the death of Sunanda Tharoor also threatens to oust Kejriwal and Bedi. And if BJP spokesperson Subramaniam Swamy has his way, this investigation would never go off the air. So we have to listen to friends of Sashi Tharoor, friends of Sunanda Tharoor, various lawyers who say little other than the law and Swamy who says just what he wants. People discuss medicine and drugs and diseases without being doctors and pharmacologists and everyone who has read the FIR and post-mortem reports is now both a coroner and a forensic expert.

     

    **

     

    And then there’s the biggest problem of all for diehard publicity hounds: the visit of US president Barack Obama on Republic Day.

     

    Hmm. Tough call.

     

     

     

  • Also: for many of us now well into in middle age, RK Laxman was the last word because he was us: bemused, amazed, amused and horrified at what was happening around, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Any journo going to ask who paid for PM’s name-engraved pinstripes?

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The death of RK Laxman was not unexpected but is no less a loss for all that. India’s best known cartoonist without a doubt, his subtle, sharp wit and his use of an “ordinary person” as a hapless observer to world events made him stand apart from the others, no matter how talented.

     

    For many of us now well into in middle age, RK Laxman was the last word because he was us: bemused, amazed, amused and horrified at what was happening around. For me, my favourite cartoon remains one he did after Richard Attenborough’s film Gandhi was released. A well-fed minister-type walks out of the cinema, turns to the man next to him and says, “Very moving. A true story I believe.”

     

    And there, in a few words was everything wrong with what politicians have done with our legacy.

     

    **

     

    If there was one thing that was not on display during TV coverage of US president Barack Obama’s visit to India and the Republic Day parade, it was subtlety. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has two main cheerleaders in the upper echelons of TV, I use the word “journalism” here for want of a better alternative: Barkha Dutt of NDTV and Rahul Kanwal of Headlines Today. It is hard to tell who’s the bigger fan of the two because the competition is fierce. Dutt felt that people watched the parade because of Modi, thus demeaning the rest of us who have watched the parade for ourselves for decades regardless of who the PM is or was. Kanwal was overwhelmed by Modi’s fashion choices.

     

    However, am unsure whether either commented on what had emerged about Modi’s fashion choices: his suit for the parade had his name woven into the supposed pinstripes and is said to have been from Holland and Taylor, England and cost 10,000 pounds. Is anyone going to ask who paid?

     

    If anyone does, it will be “evil liberal Congi sickular paid newstrader presstitutes” since too many Indian journalists have ditched objectivity for hero worship. Or will those selfie-taking Delhi political journalists actually do their jobs?

     

    As it happens, the world’s media was on to the name in gold weave story and we are something of a cause for giggles around the world. Not a good day for a “patriotic” Indian.

     

    Meanwhile, as for the parade, you heard it here first: There has never ever been a Republic Day parade in India until Narendra Modi became Prime Minister last year. Whatever you thought you witnessed before was in your imagination or your delusions.

     

    **

     

    One tragedy: the fact that India is so young that almost no one remembers the joy of listening to Melville de Mellow’s mellifluous tones taking us through the parade.

     

    **

     

    A cause for amusement: the hysteria in Indian media over Barack Obama’s visit. It’s true we do it every time. But it’s no less amusing, our patent inferiority complex. What they did, what they ate, where they went, body language, gestures, clothes and all the rest of it. No chance of the media of other nations behaving like that when our dignitaries visit so maybe we should petition the World Association of Newspapers and other such organisations asking for similar coverage? Actually, we provide that ourselves too, as we saw with Modi’s overseas visits.

     

    The US media I believe is preoccupied with a storm.

     

    Enough said.

     

  • This is a real "break" and exclusive, not the "today the sun is shining" sort of breaking news story that TV has made infamous, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: The Hindu breaks a great story with Jayanthi Natarajan’s letter to Sonia Gandhi

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The Hindu of January 30 has broken a fine story about former minister and long-time Congress spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan’s letter to Sonia Gandhi, talking about the way she was humiliated by the party and forced to resign in 2013. This is a real “break” and exclusive, not the “today the sun is shining” sort of breaking news story that TV has made infamous. The text of the letter is here: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/full-text-of-jayanthi-natarajans-letter-to-sonia-gandhi/article6835522.ece

     

    The Hindu also has a cover story about Natarajan’s situation and her reliance on Congress son and heir Rahul Gandhi’s advice. http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/i-honoured-rahuls-requests-jayanthi-natarajan/article6835930.ece

     

    Times Now has run away with the story and as usual, worked hard to confuse viewers. It is hard to tell from watching TV news alone whether Rahul Gandhi wanted Natarajan to clear projects for industrialists or to stall projects to save the environment. And from the morning, the channel has run BJP spokespersons rubbing their hands with glee. The Congress was missing in the morning at least which makes one wonder if Times Now has any “sources” (TV wallahs are so proud of flaunting them) in the Congress at all. Any viewer knows the channel has many direct lines to the BJP.

     

    Further, the point which Times Now has chosen to focus on is Rahul Gandhi’s involvement in the running of the government and what Manmohan Singh was doing. This seems an odd angle when there are so many more obvious ones in front of them. But the ways of Times Now are mysterious to all!

     

    The other news channels though continue to be obsessed with the Delhi state elections and the two most likely chief ministerial candidates, Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi. India being a massive country with over a billion in population it is only natural that a few million who live in the national capital are of any importance.

     

    As a plug, I post my view of the Delhi elections which appeared to the website DailyO: http://www.dailyo.in/opinion/kejriwal-vs-bedi-why-i-dont-care-who-the-next-delhi-cm-is-delhi-elections/story/1/1730.html

     

    **

     

    Narendra Modi’s 10,000 pound suit and Barack Obama’s visit to India continued to dominate media space not least because of general incomprehension about what this visit achieved especially when it came to the nuclear deal. India’s best commentators and experts (no, I am not talking about TV) have laboured to explain this to us.

     

    Social media and websites have had a blast about the Obama visit. Here are a variety:

    http://www.buzzfeed.com/regajha/pm-of-swag

    http://scroll.in/article/702854/Six-hilarious-ways-Modi-tried-to-match-Obamas-cool-quotient-but-failed-miserably

    And, http://www.dailyo.in/laugh/five-things-indians-would-not-have-noticed-about-modi-before-obamas-visit/story/1/1707.html

     

    **

     

    The Government of India put out an ad on Republic Day which carried the Preamble to the Constitution before the 1976 amendment which included the word “secular” and “socialist”. This has caused several uproars on social media especially between journalists who are proud of being partisan. Commentators have also weighed in, some pointing out that the Indira Gandhi government rushed through the amendment. Others have demanded the government come clean about whether it wants to remove or retain the words and still others have said that the change needs to come from Parliament and not from a government ad. Phew.

     

    Meanwhile Venkaiah Naidu has confirmed that this government is committed to being “secular”. A storm in a teacup or some exploratory steps to check how the nation reacts? We can have another fight about this on social media soon.

     

    **

     

    January 30 is also Martyr’s Day, the day Nathuram Godse killed a frail old man in cold blood. Indian Express traces some of Godse’s steps on his way to murdering Mahatma Gandhi:

    http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/retracing-godses-journey-in-gwalior-house-son-lives-with-a-locked-secret/

     

     

  • Should the morality of an individual reporter be magnified and portrayed as the morality of an entire society, asks Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Do TV reporters need to develop a sense of humour?

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    That we are somewhat short on humour as a nation is well known. And that we are somewhat too concerned about upholding the conservative aspects of our notions of culture is also well known. So it is hardly surprising that the various professional saviours of Indian culture have jumped up to protest against the All India Bakchod Knockout, a “roast” of Bollywood actors Arjun Kapoor and Ranveer Singh by filmmaker Karan Johar and a group of India’s top stand-up comedians.

     

    All India Bakchod videos found on Youtube – so in a sense it is part of the free world of the internet. It makes fun of our attitudes and us and god knows we need someone to take us down a peg or two. For instance, after the Times of India versus Deepika Padukone fight over a tweet about her cleavage, it took on the TOI with a must-watch “Times of Boobs” edit meet. After actor Alia Bhatt revealed her lack of general knowledge on Karan Johar’s talk show, they made “Genius of the Year” where Bhatt goes to a “mind gym” to get smart.

     

    The AIB Knockout however was a live performance, done at Mumbai’s NSCI in Worli and the profits went to charity. The language was scatological and so were the jokes. But the humour was to the point, it followed the old American tradition of attacking the target and the result was great fun. The audience – which had bought tickets – and the stars were being roasted seemed to enjoy it.

     

    I can hear you thinking, where does the media come into this? Here you go. In the land of 24 hour news television, there is an understandable need to fill up the time. Especially, I assume, if you are bored with Narendra Modi, Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi and the Delhi elections. So India News decided to make the AIB Knockout its focus. It asked a series of questions which were more to provoke a negative reaction than to actually report on the news: Should such a show be allowed, does not such a show attack our culture, should such terrible language not be condemned and so on.

     

    The reporter then pulled out some people from some protesting group and gave them airtime.

     

    I have a question for India News as well: Should news channels report on news or create news? I thought we’d gone past those days when TV reporters begged people to immolate themselves just to get TRPs? And also, should the morality of an individual reporter be magnified and portrayed as the morality of an entire society?

     

    I know I know. Why do I even ask? Meanwhile, do watch the Knockout. Even if you are squeamish about people naming body parts, once you get past that, it’s great fun.

     

    **

     

    The new Times Now “Action begins here” ads are intriguing to say the least. You see images of India’s soul-destroying poverty. You hear a voice talking about numbers. You hear Arnab Goswami taking on the voice. Or, you see a woman being molested and chased by a group of men. You hear Goswami and a voice talking about women’s safety with Goswami attacking the voice’s claims.

     

    The screen says “Times Now. Action begins here”.

     

    Yeah man, great. But what does it all mean? How will action begin on Times Now? Will Goswami be a one-man crusade to solve the nation’s problems? If so, where does that leave the other two one-man shows Narendra Modi and Arvind Kejriwal?

     

    **

     

    In other news, all news on TV is about the Delhi elections and the fight between the various candidates. That is mainly the BJP and the AAP with the Congress lurking about somewhere. The rest of India will have to wait for another week.

     

  • MxMindia required a new discipline from me: to assess the media’s doings and then predict outcomes. Often when you do that, everything looks dire. So you relook at your views and try and separate the inherent journalistic cynicism to at least veer towards some optimism, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Three years of observing the media

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    It is three years since mxmindia.com was launched and three years since I started looking at the media as an observer and not just a participant. Three years since I forced myself to start watching Indian news television seriously and not just as an amuse bouche before moving on to main course TV.

     

    When Pradyuman Maheshwari, founder and editor-n-chief of mxmindia.com asked me to start commenting on the way news is presented and on the way the media operates, it required a rejig of my approach to the media. I had to try to be more objective than I was while trying to determine how many of my opinions were merely subjective or were based on years of experience. I had to set aside old loyalties to both places and people, which is always the most difficult to do.

     

    All of us in the media have an idea of where the profession is going and where we want it to go and then try and bridge that gap – if any – through our work. But mxmindia required a new discipline from me: to assess the media’s doings and then predict outcomes. Often when you do that, everything looks dire. So you relook at your views and try and separate the inherent journalistic cynicism to at least veer towards some optimism.

     

    So what have I learnt from this impossible exercise? The first is obvious: The primetime TV debate has to be reworked. Barring Nidhi Razdan’s Left, Right and Centre on NDTV and Karan Thapar’s To the Point on Headlines Today (taking off from his show on CNN-IBN), the rest is all noise masquerading as substance.

     

    Sooner rather than later, Arnab Goswami’s NewsHour on Times Now is going to implode. The very drama that was its selling point will become its downfall. Goswami has several skills as an anchor but he is now riding on momentum rather than strategy. The nation turned to him because he asked questions that no one else did. But now he is desperately scrambling for relevant questions and the slugfest that ensues every night ensures that no one ever answers.

     

    One hears that NewsX is considering getting some big name in to do its night-time show which may hopefully save us from a child’s view of politics, the same way Karan Thapar has taken Headlines Today from a college canteen idea of life to the adult world. CNN-IBN has lost its sparkle somewhat and perhaps one day its new owners will realise that no media house can thrive with direction mainly from the marketing department.

     

    The second is the degradation of print journalism: By following the agenda set by television, print has willingly demoted itself to a secondary status. If it does not wake up to this, it will find itself third on the list after the internet and in the same state as the print media throughout the world.

     

    Most newspapers and magazine in India still have the depth and strength of institutional memory and professional journalists but if they do not exploit these resources they will be dead in the water in the foreseeable future.

     

    The third is in fact the most obvious of all: Everything on the Internet. But there are many versions of life on the Internet and we seem to be confused about all of them. Indian newspapers often cannot comprehend that every newspaper which has a website is part of the cyberworld. It is not competition – it is an extension which may soon become the whole entity. Journalists also use social media like it is an easier way to get information than actually getting down on the ground and working. But Twitter and Facebook can be cacophony and reality both. They are only useful tools.

     

    Standalone websites are so far supplementary and like the real world, cater to different tastes. A quick glance through firstpost.com and scroll.in will prove that in buckets.

     

    Instead of a forecast, I’m going to end with some advice for today’s ambitious young journalists: Don’t look at this as a profession but as a vocation. Don’t look at your work as a way to a promotion but as a way to the next great story or the next great page or photograph or programme. Being on top is not just getting a bigger desk. If you don’t get that, then it’s all gloomy with a chance of oblivion. On that note, congratulations to mxmindia.com and may the force be with you!

     

  • It is truly a wondrous aspect of the human condition that we are able to manage so much anger over so little on primetime TV, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: No checks, no balance on News TV

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Sometimes you have to give thanks that you did not ever and will not either work in news television. The way 24-hour TV works, there is nowhere to run nowhere to hide. In India at least, it appears to operate minus news editors, subeditors, any kind of check or balance at all. Instead, you have the sense of a bizarre newsroom populated by reporters and anchors lost in an endless spiral of now what.

     

    Oddly, the few (admittedly few) times that I have been a guest on TV or radio, I have had a producer in my ear communicating with me. Obviously that is not possible with all reporters. But is there not some way in which someone can speak to them off air to prevent them from blabbing the same thing again and again and then have the anchor paraphrasing what they have just said?

     

    This morning I heard a young reporter mention the phrase “of course” about six times per sentence on a particularly boring report. If the reporter is not droning on and the anchor is not paraphrasing then both are editorialising.

     

    Meanwhile, it takes a viewer who has just switched on the TV ages to find out just what everyone is editorialising about: the kernel of the news is forgotten as the cycle moves on to reaction. Times Now is particularly good at this: the hysteria about the news is far more important than the news itself. The various running scrolls and stationary text matter on the screen reveal nothing either.

     

    It is true that none of what I am saying here is new but it is also true that nothing changes. For instance, something happened this morning (Thursday) with an aeroplane flying over Turkey. The scrolls were outraged about a) a pilot sleeping b) a plane losing altitude c) a co-pilot on a tablet d) a DGCA inquiry. However after 10 minutes of watching I cannot tell you which airline the plane belonged to, what exactly happened, what is the situation with the plane now and whether there was any damage or anyone suffered.

     

    I can tell you that outrage about looking for blame was beginning – as far as the running scrolls were concerned. The pictures on the screen however were about something else completely. I have to concede that my age and my experience in print journalism are of no possible use here at all. I still cannot fathom how the whole shebang functions and why a small dose of self-preservation if not professionalism cannot be introduced into news television.

     

    It’s a mug’s life as all TV journalists will tell you – even those who spend their free time signing autographs!

     

    **

     

    Primetime TV meanwhile continues with its nightly debates and it is truly a wondrous aspect of the human condition that we are able to manage so much anger over so little. We need to congratulate ourselves.

     

    **

     

    The death of actor Robin Williams – by his own hand, from reports – led someone on Fox News to call him a “coward”. Williams suffered from severe depression and Fox News has demonstrated once again why it is a pathetic excuse for a news channel. Imagine what we have in store for us if it actually arrives on Indian shores, as has long been speculated.

     

    **

     

    I watched 10 minutes of a programme on Zee Cafe called “Look who’s talking to Niranjan”. The problem was, I knew who was talking to Niranjan – first Karan Johar and then Kajol. But I had no clue who Niranjan was! Surely there was some way of letting me know before I inflicted this show on myself?

     

  • Bashing Ved Prakash Vaidik and then bashing anyone who has ever attended a seminar on India-Pakistan matters was taking a very serious matter into the realm of the ridiculous

    Ranjona Banerji: Foreign policy dictated by news anchors?

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The journalist as patriot was in full flow this week on Indian TV as a sometime journalist and sometime who knows what, Ved Prakash Vaidik revealed that he had met the dreaded Hafiz Saeed in Pakistan a few months ago. Saeed is suspected of being involved in the 2008 terror attacks on Mumbai, amongst other attacks on India, and his free movement in Pakistan has long been a bone of contention between India and Pakistan.

     

    But the high level of outrage on Indian television was extraordinary. Vaidik himself revealed that he had met Saeed and certainly, it is curious that he never wrote about it since it would have been something of a journalistic coup. There were also allegations that he was part of some “Track 2” diplomacy process, as a delegation that went to Pakistan. Connections between the ISI and Saeed are constantly talked about in India, so Vaidik’s meeting could well have had an ISI hand.

     

    The question is, should the Indian media have tried to prise out of Vaidik what he and Saeed had talked about – thus looking for a “story” and insights into a feared India-baiter and suspected controller of anti-India terrorists? Journalists meet all kinds of people, often those seen as unacceptable by society. Instead, the TV media jumped into jingoistic mode and decided that any contact with Saeed was equal to treason.

     

    The worst in this aspect was undoubtedly Arnab Goswami of Times Now. India was on red alert because Vaidik met Saeed months ago and the nation’s integrity and future was at stake. It is true that Pakistan is a sore point with Goswami and the cynic might suggest that since the terror attack of 2008 put his channel on the media map, he feels strongly about that too. But bashing Vaidik and then bashing anyone who has ever attended a seminar on India-Pakistan matters was taking a very serious matter into the realm of the ridiculous.

     

    One would suggest that if Times Now felt so strongly about any interaction with Pakistan at all, it should have picketed our neighbour’s prime minister Nawaz Sharif when he attended the new prime minister’s coronation ceremony. Because more than Vaidik and seminar-goers, it is the Pakistani establishment which has the closest ties to the ISI and to various anti-India terrorist organisations.

     

    Does this kind of enforced hysteria make for good television? How far is it sustainable before turns into farce? Has it reached there already? The point of journalism is not to hold a patriotism competition – journalists have to be able to rise above or below that level to search for the story. Even given that TV news is not always strictly journalism, do we want our foreign policy dictated by news anchors who foam at the mouth at just about anything?

     

    The funny thing is, in a week this great insult to India has been forgotten and we are now worried about the great insult to Tamil culture and the dhoti/veshti by some club in Chennai.

     

    **

     

    The crash of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine has divided the world and the world’s media. Was the plane shot down by Ukraine’s forces or by Russian separatist rebels? This question has now consumed the world’s media, with different sides making different claims. The western media believes the plane was hit by Russian rebels, the Russian media blames Ukraine. It is no longer possible to wait for the news before making allegations and jumping to conclusions.

     

    The most ridiculous coverage came from CNN where the anchor asked an American freelance journalist who happened to be at the crash site whether he had seen anyone find the black box. Stunned silence from the journalist who then said he had not. Meanwhile, other channels were assuring us that the black box had been found.

     

    **

     

    For the first time in many years, Israel has been getting very bad press the world over about its behaviour in Gaza. However if you are interested in some disingenuous defence of Israel, here’s CNN again, for a confused interpretation of the US policy on Israel and plenty of blame for Hamas.

     

    **

     

    Having slammed the weather bureau of the BCC World Service for years over its ignorance of the Indian monsoon and what it means for India, am happy to report that in the past week, we are hearing a lot about the monsoon all over the country. No breathless assurances of fine dry sunny weather in drought affected areas.

     

  • On NDTV 24×7 on Thursday night, the NDTV elections expert said: Women vote for the Congress because it is "wishy-washy" and lower income groups also prefer the "wishy-washy"

    Ranjona Banerji: How irresponsible! Dorab Sopariwalla makes a ‘wishy-washy’ remark on women & lower income groups on NDTV 24×7

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Patriarchy raises its head in the unlikeliest places. Like on Thursday night on NDTV during a discussion on gender vote shares this election. Statistics have shown that more men vote for the BJP and more women vote for the Congress – this is not news, it has been mentioned before. Election analyst Dorab Sopariwala – normally very astute in these matters – made a remarkable assertion on the vote share in Bihar in this election where in the third phase more women than men voted which could be bad news for the BJP. Men vote for the BJP, said Sopariwala, because it is seen as muscular and therefore masculine. Women vote for the Congress because it is “wishy-washy”. Oh yes, before I restrict this to a feminist rant, he added for good measure that lower income groups also prefer the “wishy-washy”. Talk about putting your foot in it.

     

    Whether the Congress is wishy-washy or not, is not my concern. But this idea that women prefer the “wishy-washy” and men the “muscular” is not just gender stereotyping, it also puts many other gender assumptions on their heads. For one, it could be wishful thinking that women like the wishy-washy – many claim that Indian men are wishy-washy anyway and that is what Indian women are used to. Or it could be that wishy-washy Indian naturally look with awe at the “muscular” and “masculine” BJP and therefore gravitate towards it. Or it could insidiously imply that women are by nature wishy-washy and cannot make “masculine” choices – perhaps Sopariwala has based his psychobabble observations on the amount of time some women take to decide which pair of shoes to buy. I joke perhaps, but I do not laugh.

     

    And as for the lower income groups, my what a travesty of democracy they are: consistently heading towards the wishy-washy when they could easily be like big, strong, masculine men and pick the muscular BJP. I would have thought that lower income men were more muscular than soft pudgy higher income men but it could be that I am also stereotyping. Perhaps muscular men would naturally pick the wishy-washy since that apparently denotes the feminine – satisfied perhaps in their own masculine muscularity.

     

    The mind boggles. But whatever the interpretations, the underlying implications are unacceptable. Those who appear in responsible positions on large media platforms need to be careful about what they say and how they say it.

     

    **

     

    The revelations about Congress leader Digvijay Singh’s relationship with a TV anchor have thrown the media in a quandary. So far, the personal lives of politicians have been tiptoed around. There may have been plenty of gossip but not the sort of media hysterics that happens in the US or the UK for instance. But since his political rivals and therefore the media made so much of Narendra Modi’s lately acknowledged wife, Singh’s l’affaire de coeur could hardly been ignored.

     

    So where do we go from here? Is everyone fair game? In the case of Amrita Rai, the journalist with whom Singh is involved, she claims that her email was hacked into and personal pictures posted on social media. The trouble is, once you are in the public eye – and a love affair with a public personality is that much – then all gloves are off. The dirty tricks departments of rivals will be doing what they can to mess up your game. C’est la vie.

     

    Still, even within the media, there are questions being asked. Has the Indian media bridged that last gap? Are we going to get into everyone’s personal lives now? Also, has there been a difference between the way TV and print have covered the story? Rai is after all a TV journalist and there is a tendency to look out for your own.

     

    Pradyuman Maheshwari has some ideas on the issue in his column for Mid-Day: http://www.mid-day.com/articles/is-news-tv-soft-on-diggy-raja/15267088

     

    If I would add anything it is this: I am no fan of Narendra Modi but the story of his ignored wife is an old one and of little relevance to his brand of “masculine, muscular” politics. Had his political rivals not made so much of it, Singh could have cooed his way into bliss in blessed silence. And most importantly, Singh’s wife has passed away. Rai is separated from her husband and in the middle of a divorce. So there is no impropriety here to create a massive story.

     

  • Television has dominated this election practically setting agendas and leading the battle from the front, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Election of the Trivial & Telegenic

     

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    If this general election is indeed a watershed moment for Indian polity then it is no less a groundbreaker for the Indian media. Television has dominated this election practically setting agendas and leading the battle from the frontlines when it comes to chosen candidates and parties. The battle is won by the trivial and the telegenic. The smaller India grows in terms of communication thanks to telephony and technology, the larger the disconnect from reality: or so it appears.

     

    If the media is going to play such a significant role from here on, then the elements within the media must come out and identify themselves by their ideological and philosophical bearings. The old argument used by journals that they are all things to all people cannot stand any longer. It is in many cases patently untrue. Further, it has reached a stage where you are taking readers for a ride.

     

    Television has no such argument at all and instead has created an atmosphere of rumours, allegations and gossip to thrive. Even within the media fraternity, there is a constant stream of stories about which channel has been sold to which political party or who favours which candidate. Some parties are barely being mentioned when it is evident that they will have some bearing on these elections. Thrown a few corporate houses into the mix and you have a great Indian muddle which barely resembles a delicious homemade khichdi.

     

    Who has financed all these opinion polls to project election results for instance? What is the consumer of news to make of them when ground reports from journalists are at odds with those surveys? In a two-month long voting schedule, a constant stream of opinion polls amounts in fact to trying to influence those who have not yet voted, even if the Election Commission has not cottoned on to it yet. The figures for conducting these polls which are going round the grapevine are astronomical.

     

    It is time therefore for all newspapers, news channels and websites to declare their political leanings. There is no shame in this. All over the world, the reader and viewer knows what their chosen media outlet stands for. This is not just about individual columnists to declare their leanings. This is about the organisation itself. Given the growth of the influence of the media – and these are strong words – to fool your consumer any more is tantamount to fraud.

     

    It is evident that it is not just a nudge from one corporate house and a wink from another that dictates media flow. We have seen epic and sudden changes of direction from left to right to centre and back. What most newspapers do to cover this up is provide a variety of columnists on their opinion pages to portray first one point of view and then another to prove that they are “neutral”. It no longer cuts it.

     

    TV of course is another jungle with its own rules, quite distinct in some cases from print. Editorialising and on the spot opinion-making is now par for the course. As a very senior editor who has a career in both print and television pointed out to me, if a star anchor, who is also the editor, asks a young reporter on live television, “Isn’t the political rally proving what I say?”, what is the young reporter to do? Disagreeing with the boss is not an option. And so news is created, not reported.

     

    For a long time in India, journalists were more left of centre than right but that was not an absolute truth. For instance Girilal Jain, a colossus in the Times of India was distinctly right of centre and the Indian Express was distinctly anti-establishment in the days when the only establishment was Congress.

     

    One must distinguish between the need for media outlets to declare their politics and the accusations and muck thrown at individuals on social media. Gutter language and threats will continue. But now the target will be clear and much larger. And in the interests of fairness, everyone will have a target!

     

  • The attack on former Hindu editor-in-chief Siddharth Varadarajan's caretaker is disturbing and must be condemned, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Journalists under attack

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Three Al-Jazeera journalists have been jailed in Cairo and are being tried as “terrorists” for apparently supported the now ousted government that was run by the Muslim Brotherhood. Al-Jazeera’s Egypt bureau chief, Mohammed Fahmy, Australian journalist Peter Greste and producer Bahir Mohammed have been charged with “joining a terrorist group, aiding a terrorist group and endangering national security”. They were brought into court in a cage. The Muslim Brotherhood has been designated as a terrorist organisation, although whether you agree with its politics or not, it did win an election after Hosni Mobarak was removed from power after the protests in Tahir Square in 2011.

    (http://www.news.com.au/world/australian-aljazeera-journalist-peter-greste-charged-with-supporting-terrorism-appears-in-cairo-court-locked-in-a-cage/story-fndir2ev-1226846598771)

     

    The Al-Jazeera case certainly needs more condemnation from the world’s journalists and definitely from the fraternity in India, insular as we are. It could well be that we are spinning into an Egypt-like situation. Day after day, journalists in India are being accused of being agents of one political party or the other. As long as these were snide remarks on social media, the allegations were harmless.

     

    But what happened to former Hindu editor-in-chief Siddharth Varadarajan is far more disturbing. He put up a post on his Facebook page which stated that the caretaker of his flat in Delhi was beaten up by four men and warned that his “sahib”, that is Varadarajan, should “watch what he says on TV”. They also threatened Varadarajan’s wife Nandini Sundar, who is a sociologist and has been studying the state of Naxals and tribals in Chattisgarh. Neither Varadarajan nor Sundar were at home when this attack took place.

     

    Varadarajan says he has no idea who these goons reported to and is also unsure which of his TV comments caused offence. As he pointed out on twitter, he is on TV every other day. However some people have decided that it was Varadarajan’s criticism of Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi. Others, sadly many of them journalists themselves, have decided that the best response is to make fun of Varadarajan, especially for having a “caretaker”.

     

    Now I’m all for a good joke but I feel humour is not going to alleviate the situation we as journalists may find ourselves in. The political atmosphere in this country is getting more and more divisive and corrosive. The street fights between the Aam Aadmi Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party, the constant attacks on Ashutosh for giving up journalism and IBN7 to get into politics and the Aam Aadmi Party, the sense that everyone has (including me) of several journalists abandoning the pretence of objectivity to support politicians are not good omens.

     

    Interestingly, I find the same journalists who attack Ashutosh are big supporters of Arun Shourie, who also gave up journalism for politics. But then Shourie did join the BJP, which only makes the schisms in journalism in India clear. I remember when a colleague in Mid-Day decided to stand for elections in the 1990s, we all helped in whatever way we could financially regardless of what we thought of his politics. But we did not make a public joke out of him. Different times?

     

    It is however disturbing that we cannot understand that threat that we are under from all quarters. Journalists have some rare moments when they can come together. Members of our fraternity or sorority if you like (tomorrow is International Women’s Day after all) have been under attack before and we have banded together better than we have now.

     

    I do not know if this is the influence of television journalism where the personality cult is so carefully cultivated and where it is easier to believe in your own importance and where personal rivalries are played out in nightly programming decisions. Print journalists appear to have a stronger camaraderie. But whatever the reason, we are pulling apart when we should be pulling together. This will only be to our own detriment. Even a rookie journalist ought to know that politicians and political parties will support you only as long as you are useful to them. After they’re gone all you have left is us. If you don’t feel like a journalist or one of us, it’s better to just join that political party you love and get it over with.

     

    Okay, end of lecture. Cue bugles.

     

  • The BJP rep's accusation that Arnab Goswami has taken money from lobbies in a discussion on Sec 377 is unacceptable, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Down with Meenakshi Lekhi!

    YouTube screengrab of BJP's Meenakshi Lekhi on Newshour on Times Now on Thursday, December 12

     

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    I have been both an admirer and a very harsh critic of Times Now’s editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami in these columns. But now I come as an admirer. His equanimity in dealing with an appalling personal comment on the News Hour debate on Thursday night is truly commendable. The BJP’s Meenakshi Lekhi accused Goswami of taking money from interested lobbies in a discussion on political reactions to Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which criminalises homosexuality.

     

    While Lekhi is free to have her personal opinions about homosexuality and morality, she perhaps found herself cornered in this discussion. Her stand was that the whole fuss about the Supreme Court recriminalising homosexuality was “much ado about nothing” – although the media and many sections of Indian society are up in arms. The media has sided with human rights, dignity and the rights of the LGBT community. These may not be the same views as the conservative part of society, which Lekhi’s party represents. But to accuse Goswami and the media of being paid to stand up for Constitutional freedom is unacceptable.

     

    It is to Goswami’s great credit that after a somewhat menacing exchange with Lekhi, he continued with the show. However, by then the atmosphere had changed and it was a very subdued and hurried end to what had until then been a lively discussion.

     

    Casual conversation nowadays often refers to “paid media”, thanks mainly to the media itself discussing it. But that does not give licence to people to point fingers at someone’s personal integrity without proof on national television. The idea itself is ludicrous: that the LGBT community will have paid everyone from the media to lawyers to politicians to speak out against a clear attack on human rights. If indeed the LGBT community could do that much, then Section 377 might have been struck down long ago by legislation.

     

    But logic is not part of this argument. The fact is that the Congress, unlike its normal pusillanimous self these days, came out strongly against Section 377. The BJP has obfuscated the issue. Lekhi herself first said that she was happy that Section 377 was not struck down. And then she came up with this “much ado about nothing” line, a blatant misuse of Shakespeare if any. Instead of being feted on news television the way it normally is these days, Lekhi found herself under attack. A mention of the RSS – the mother organisation from which the BJP draws its moral strength and raison d’etre – and Lekhi saw red.

     

    It is possible that Goswami will be the larger person and let Lekhi’s comments go. But they are no less reprehensible for all that and represent an attack on media integrity as a whole. In my view, Goswami should not let it go. Legal action is a possible recourse for him since Lekhi’s remarks can be seen as defamation. But the media and the BJP need to relook at the suitability of Lekhi as a spokesperson. Much as television in India has challenged all norms of civilised behaviour, this one crossed the line.

     

    **

     

    The English media has been, as is evident, ranged against the Supreme Court after this judgment and came out in full support of the LGBT community. Newspaper coverage, from front pages to editorials, has spoken in one voice. So has news television. This is most welcome. Although there is likely to be a backlash from conservative and religious voices – letters to the editor already suggest as much – the media has not flinched. Indeed religious leaders of all colours have been made to explain themselves on TV, much to their discomfiture. Interviews with parents of gay children have given us the human picture of the families and support structures affected by this judgment. The grandmother on Barkha Dutt’s show on NDTV is most memorable, bringing tears to everyone’s eyes. Rahul Eeshwar – who often represents the right wing voice on TV especially on religious matters – was shot down when he tried to present his bogus science on Times Now on Wednesday night. Vikram Seth’s interview to Karan Thapar on CNN-IBN’s Devil’s Advocate presented the pain of the Indian homosexual in erudite terms.

     

    **

     

    Social media as ever was at the vanguard of the anger against the Supreme Court and Twitter certainly offers a quick idea of how the wind is blowing – even if it is limited socially and economically. For the most part, apart from some absurd tweets which said Sonia Gandhi was against Section 377 because all homosexuals are Christian, the rabid side of Twitter was less apparent.

     

  • While The Times of India has done a lot of damage to the media in general with its subsequent treatment of journalists, putting marketing above newsgathering and by introducing money-gathering practices like Medianet, it also took media in India into the contemporary world and set the standard for all other newspapers, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji | Times@175: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The word “sesquicentennial” was not familiar to most in Bombay when The Times of India splashed it all over the city in 1988. But since my school in Calcutta, La Martiniere for Girls, had celebrated its 150th birthday a few years before, everyone in that city knew what it meant. Those 150th celebrations of the Old Lady of Boribunder were a massive announcement in a sense of a new Times of India. Not so much an old lady but of a group that would transform the Indian media scene – in both good and bad ways.

     

    Although I did a story on the 150 year celebrations for the now defunct Bombay magazine, I must confess I remember very little about what happened. Except for the takeover of Victoria Terminus with massive artworks carefully placed between its ornate columns. Situated across each other, India’s most famous railway station and India’s most famous newspaper have long dominated Bombay’s skyline with their Indo-Saracenic architecture, control of commuter and long-distance travels and of course, people’s minds.

     

    But the sesquicentennial celebrations were actually a message to the world that The Times of India had transformed itself. Samir Jain, elder son of Ashok Jain, would now run the paper as his own – unlike his father who had left it to editors and journalists. In the early 1980s, I worked for a while with an advertising agency which handled Bennett Coleman accounts. There were no Jains in sight when you visited the Old Lady in those days. And of course there was Girilal Jain, the editor who was synonymous with The Times of India and ultimately the apparent cause of Samir Jain’s distrust of editors and journalists.

     

    Girilal Jain (no relation) was sacked in 1988, ostensibly for his pro-Hindutva leanings. But some of those stories about his disdainful treatment of Ashok Jain and Samir Jain’s anger at that must have played a part. After Girilal, no editor would be allowed to reach such dominating heights. The subtle hand of the young owner would be felt everywhere. Soon, his younger brother Vineet would make his own mark on the group.

     

    The Times of India has done a lot of damage to the media in general with its subsequent treatment of journalists, with putting marketing above newsgathering and by introducing money-gathering practices like Medianet which is essentially legitimising bribery. However, it also took media in India into the contemporary world and set the standard for all other newspapers. Over the last 25 years, as it now celebrates its 175th anniversary, The Times of India remains the country’s most-read newspaper and continues to mean all things to all people.

     

    I worked for The Times of India’s Ahmedabad edition from 2001 to 2004. In that time, I saw the best and worst of it. The support given to us in the editorial office during our coverage of the Gujarat riots of 2002 was remarkable and commendable. And it was also most welcome as the local government and civil society turned against us for the newspaper’s decision to be fair in its coverage of the riots and our refusal to give in to the sentiments of the Hindu majority. The newspaper’s management in Delhi dealt with most of the anger and the threats to the group.

     

    However, it was also during my time in Ahmedabad that Medianet was introduced and that led partly to my decision to leave the group. Sadly today most other media houses have followed the Medianet example, where people and corporates can get positive or useful news about themselves printed in the glamour sections of newspapers. Journalists either have to give in or find some other place to work. What happens there is not really journalism anyway.

     

    Yet in these 25 years there has been a lot of hard work and massive growth. The Times of India has complete control over Mumbai, its flagship edition, plays a neck and neck race with the Hindustan Times in Delhi and has editions which are either ahead of the others or serious contenders in major cities in India. Times Now is one of India’s most popular news channels. Radio Mirchi rules the FM waves. Indiatimes hogs internet space, especially for NRIs.

     

    Given the newspaper’s oddly distrustful relationship with culture and cultural activities since 1988, I doubt that Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus will be festooned with major artworks by Indian greats again. Perhaps Katrina Kaif and Hrithik Roshan dancing all over the building would be more appropriate? They can pay the newspaper to do it too.