MxMIndia

Category: BLOGS

  • One Big Idea by Ranjona Banerji: Time to reclaim lost territory

    Ranjona Banerji

     

    The media – print and television – is under greater public scrutiny than ever before. And thanks to the internet, there’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Every person with a smart phone thinks that he or she has all the skills to become a journalist, the way all bloggers believe that they are writers.

     

    The only way forward for the print media is to reclaim lost territory. No point going as far back as to the ivory towers but at least to disconnect from television news and win back some credibility. It’s going to be a long haul because once doubts creep into a relationship – well, you know that it’s not always a happy ending.

     

    The media has reached a kind of Abraham Lincoln point – where it can’t fool all of the people all of the time. So the intelligent thing (yes, am going out on a limb here) might be to cut back on all those clever little fool-the-reader devices like “promotional feature” without mentioning that it’s the same as an advertisement and those nifty private deals with corporates which ensure editorial that’s, well, you know…

     

    As far as the English media is concerned I know there are many people who want to jump back on to the grammar bus but I give you a mixed metaphor here: that ship has sailed. Instead, a little more leg work, a little less PR-dependency and you might get readers more worthwhile stories.

     

    The best thing about 2013 though would be a few more old-style editors. You know, the type that didn’t let PR and marketing people even enter the newsroom. Ah well, a girl can dream…

     

    — The writer is a senior journalist and commentator. She is also Contributing Editor, MxMIndia

     

  • Ranjona Banerji holds her head in anguish at the lack of perspective in TV, all over again!

    Ranjona Banerji: Dear TV news, please don’t send us to war

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    After all the encomiums heaped on television media since the night of December 16th and its coverage of the gang-rape in Delhi and its aftermath, one has to now hold one’s head in anguish. It is hard to know whether TV wants India to go to war with Pakistan or whether it felt that the Indian government should do a tandav nritya at the United Nations. The beheading of an Indian soldier on the Line of Control in Kashmir is definitely a shocking act and in contravention of the Geneva Convention. It is not a matter which India can let drop. But some perspective is required and the sort of hysterical sabre-rattling or AK-47 waggling which we saw on Indian TV was unwarranted and unnecessary.

     

    That the Indian media should become so sentimental is in direct contradiction to its largest mandate – to provide information to the general public which it cannot gain for itself. There is definitely a place for opinion but for that opinion to degrade itself into uncontrollable rage and verge on war-mongering is dangerous. I was amused to see Rahul Kanwal of Headlines Today tweet for some responsibility on the issue as far as the media is concerned when his own channel was no less over-the-top. I thoroughly enjoy Arnab Goswami’s attempts to save the nation every night on Times Now but am equally grateful that India’s foreign policy is not in his hands. I fear we might be at war every other day. As for Barkha Dutt’s faux misery whenever something happens which affects the Indian army, it only leads me to search for another channel. If I want pap there are enough soap operas available.

     

    **

     

    While on the army, there was a discussion on Karan Thapar’s Last Word on CNN IBN which turned out to be quite amusing, but for the wrong reasons. The subject was whether former chief of army staff VK Singh’s antics were an embarrassment to the army. (I would have thought that the answer is a resounding yes, with no need for a discussion). All the worthies on the show had earlier twirled their luxuriant moustaches and given Singh the benefit of the doubt through his bizarre battle over his date of birth. This time round there was almost unambiguous condemnation. I suppose even army discipline and camaraderie cannot allow a former chief of staff to sit on a dharna with Baba Ramdev!

     

    **

     

    I have never liked Piers Morgan on CNN – he is often both smug and smarmy as if such a contradiction is possible. But one has to admire the way he has taken on the gun lobby in the US in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook school shootings. His interview with Alex Jones who has started a petition to deport Morgan back to Britain was a study in journalistic fortitude and the proverbial British stiff upper lip in the face of the most insane rant TV has perhaps ever seen. Jones even used the Delhi rape to make a case for guns! Morgan however is not always as polite – he has also demolished the gun lobby people quite effectively. Also, having sucked up to Americans and the American way of life, he now seems very quick to establish that he is British! Hopefully he has come into his own and will not go back to licking the posterior ends of celebrities.

     

    **

     

    The weather people of BBC World need to get over their obsession with rain and understand that the World Service is not about telling Brits where to go on holiday (searching for “dry fine” weather which could be the Sahara Desert given the British weakness for extreme sunshine) but for natives of that area to know what to expect. The cold wave in North India which has killed over a hundred people is therefore of no consequence to the BBC’s weather wing since it did not involve rain. Instead, there is every attempt to chase down any possible rain system starting from Tierra del Fuego and taking the round the globe route to Fiji.

     

  • Is media paying too much attention to Kejriwal's 'crusades'? Ranjona Banerji takes a look in her review of the news on television, the papers and elsewhere

    Ranjona Banerji: Does Kejriwal hog the media? Duh!

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    On Monday night, Sagorika Ghose’s Face the Nation on CNN-IBN examined whether the media had given too much attention to Arvind Kejriwal. As young people say: “Duh?”! There is little doubt that Kejriwal’s attempts to form a little political party would not have lasted 10 minutes if he wasn’t always surrounded by TV cameras. Therefore, correctly, CNN-IBN should have distinguished between print and television but one suspects that in the omnipotent universe of television, print journalism barely exists.

     

    The guests included Madhu Trehan of Newslaundry.com, Nandini Rao, lawyer, Anjali Bhardwaj, RTI activist and Anjali Damania, India Against Corruption member. Trehan initially played the role of a spokesperson for the India Today group (a family concern), Rao was from the outset (and not onset as one TV reporter kept saying outside Salman Khurshid’s house on Sunday!) quite clear that the media was only interested in corruption because it pandered to its middle class viewership. She made the vital point that the media did not offer 24/7 coverage to the protest by women activists against the high incidence of rapes held at Rohtak. Bhardwaj also said that the India Against Corruption was within its rights to use the media but the group’s attempts to bypass or destroy institutions was questionable. Trehan very pointedly put the question back to Ghose – why was television giving Kejriwal 24/7 coverage – which Ghose deftly deflected!

     

    In a salute to the TV serial Two and a Half Men, one might say this “31” coverage (24+7) is Kejriwal’s lifeline.

     

    **

     

    Arnab Goswami on Times Now was furiously angry at Union steel minister Beni Prasad Verma’s patently silly remark about Rs 71 lakh being too small a figure to accuse Salman Khurshid of embezzling – or words to that effect. Verma is known for making somewhat politically incorrect remarks and if the media goes into apoplexies of rage with every foolish comment, people will soon stop talking and the reading and viewing public would be the biggest loser. Verma’s comment was ridiculous but did not require a rigorous 10 minute cross-examination.

     

    **

     

    It was interesting to see Deepak Sharma, Aaj Tak reporter, on Rajdeep Sardesai’s programme on CNN-IBN. He was nowhere near as belligerent or as aggressive as he had been at Salman Khurshid’s press conference. Quite polite in fact.

     

    **

     

    Press Council of India chairman Markandey Katju has been quiet for a while. But on Tuesday, he has asked the National Broadcasting Standards Association to look into the Aaj Tak and Headlines Today’s investigation into the Dr Zakir Hussain Memorial Trust, saying that TV journalists did not always do “proper investigation” for their stories.

     

    In The Times of India, Katju’s edit page article takes on divisive politicians like Raj Thackeray.

     

  • The news channels were full of discussions on the new policy measures announced by the government, observes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Reforms rant rules nightly news

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    If industry is happy, Mamata Banerjee is furious. That’s the story of India today. But the story of watching TV news as the government announces more economic reforms adds a great dollop of fun to the proceedings. The winner without a shadow of a doubt is Meghnad Desai. On Times Now, the economist-academic-author pretended to genuflect to a relentlessly aggressive Vandana Shiva as he turned the environmental activist’s name into a Hindu chant. He was so charmingly persistent with this that Shiva had to stop her rant against reforms to smile as the other panellists and host Arnab Goswami started laughing.

     

    **

     

    Karan Thapar tried to discuss the latest set of reforms in insurance and pension schemes with editor Vinod Mehta, Planning Commission member Arun Maira, FICCI secretary-general Rajiv Kumar and writer-corporate maven Gurcharan Das. I say tried because between political expediency, the need for reforms and the state of the nation, the pros and cons of the reforms got a little lost. That reforms are necessary and subsidies are a burden on the exchequer are not news: We need a discussion which takes us further than that and looks at the pros and cons of more foreign direct investment in insurance and pension.

     

    **

     

    As the BJP takes on the Congress and the UPA over corruption and Narendra Modi continues with his sly digs at Sonia Gandhi, BJP spokespersons are finding it difficult to deal with increasing evidence of party president Nitin Gadkari’s connections to both the coal allocation and Maharashtra’s irrigation scam. Almost all newspapers have carried stories about Gadkari’s connections, the latest being a letter he had written to Union water resources minister Pawan Bansal asking for some money to be released to contractors.

     

    Further, the party cannot make up its mind whether it is pro or anti reforms so its endless stream of TV talkers has to say yes, but and we did and then they did but we did but why haven’t they done this in a rather unconvincing manner.

     

    **

     

    The attack on former lieutenant general KS Brar by suspected Khalistani militants needs to bring back the terror threat from Khalistan to our national discourse. Since the Akali Dal has come to power in Punjab, they have been openly pushing the cause of jailed militants and making martyrs’ memorials inside the Golden Temple. The anti-Sikh riots that took place in Delhi after Indira Gandhi’s assassination were horrendous and it is appalling that no adequate justice has been done to victims. But that doesn’t change the fact that a prime minister was murdered by those who had sworn to protect her and nor that those Sikhs who wanted to secede from the Indian Union had waged a terror war against India.

     

    Because the 1980s were so long ago and because India is so young now, neither the general public nor the media have too much recollection of those days. But evidently, the danger still lurks. And then, as now, many of these Khalistani groups function out of the UK and Canada.

     

    **

     

    In The Times of India today, Sidharth Bhatia takes us charmingly back to the 1960s and the arrival of the Beatles on the pop scene – today being the 50th anniversary of the release of their first single, ‘Love me do’.

     

    http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/The-long-and-winding-road-The-Beatles-released-their-first-single-exactly-half-a-century-ago–and-changed-the-world/articleshow/16672899.cms

     

    **

     

    Sachin Tendulkar being interviewed by Goswami is all over the Times of India and Times Now but apparently the actual telecast will be tonight at 10 pm. After we’ve seen it and read it.

     

  • Our news television often wastes too much time allowing politicians to fight with each other on panels, rues Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Can we have more analyses as they did post-Romney-Obama debate

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    There are few things as fascinating as watching the American media covering a US presidential election. On Thursday morning India time, president Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney had their first debate in the battle to the next presidency.

     

    CNN carried detailed and precise coverage and analysis after the debates were over. Surveys were conducted on particular groups – registered voters, undecided voters, general viewers – and very particular questions were asked from each. The speeches by both candidates were picked apart point and point; each issue looked at from the time spent to the claims made and figures were examined for accuracy.

     

    The panellists were a collection of journalists, analysts and former political campaigners. This meant that there was plenty of analysis and very little acrimony. The viewer got a clear understanding of what had happened and how these experts thought events would pan out.

     

    One understands that there is a general perception that India thrives on melodrama and that the entertainment industry must try to fulfil that need. However, there are some issues which are serious enough to be taken seriously, especially by news television.

     

    There is no doubt that elections are covered seriously by Indian news channels. But we often waste too much time allowing politicians to fight with each other on panels, drowning not just each other out but everyone else as well. The current format could be jigged to interviews with politicians each spelling out their viewpoints but the panels could be restricted to experts who are usually less likely to let emotion win over logic. When I say “experts” I do not mean those random Delhi party guests which so many channels manage to thrust into homes night after night.

     

    **

     

    The “fight” between Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Narendra Modi remained hot on television and on social media on Wednesday – especially after Gandhi’s first election rally at Rajkot – but many of Thursday morning’s newspapers had moved on. For The Times of India and the Indian Express, the proposed reforms in insurance and pension were headline news. But Hindustan Times did lead with Gandhi’s rally. The announcing of election dates for Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh was also big ticket on TV and the entire announcement by the Election Commission was televised.

     

    **

     

    Indian cricket captain MS Dhoni can give thanks that politics now consumes us so thoroughly. Otherwise, India’s exit from the T20 World Cup would have called for public executions by now. Headlines Today even on Thursday morning was concerned about Dhoni’s “magic fading” but for the other English channels, the crisis in Kingfisher Airlines and even the US presidential debate got more attention.

     

    **

     

    All through yesterday afternoon, TV channels got very excited about three British women being arrested by the Sri Lankan police from West Indian cricketer Chris Gayle’s hotel room. But why they were arrested and what seriousness of the event – of any – was lost in the breathless excitement. On Thursday morning we learn it was much ado about nothing. Ah well.

     

  • Ranjona Banerji tracks the world of news on television, the newspapers, the internet and the social media

    Ranjona Banerji: Conjecture and conjuring on cricket

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    After what seems like ages, cricket is back on the top of the news. India’s defeat of Pakistan in the T20 World Cup has shifted the usual suspects – shifty politicians, corruption – to secondary spots. The national obsession has been severely neglected these past few months, except for a few scandals here and there.

     

    Cricket’s move away from the sports pages will however depend on India’s fortunes in Sri Lanka. As one of journalism’s favourite clichés goes, brickbats or bouquets will follow.

     

    It must be said though that now we are an enhanced looking-for-trouble mode, there was also some excitement over the selection of national selectors, the removal of Jimmy Amarnath and now the attempt to manipulate the selection of a particular selector by some prominent players from a particular part of India.

     

    It’s all conjecture and conjuring but that’s what makes it exciting.

     

    **

     

    Well, cricket may have won over corruption but that does not mean that it has gone anywhere. The battle between RTI activist Anjali Damania and BJP president Nitin Gadkari has led to a larger searchlight being trained on BJP MP Ajay Sancheti and all his companies in connection with Maharashtra’s maha irrigation scam.
    The sulking of Ajit Pawar gets pushed further down as a result. The BJP national convention itself created more excitement on twitter than anywhere else.

     

    **

     

    A holiday for Mumbai/Maharashtra newspapers on Anant Chaturdashi is only a few years old but it seems to be a mistake. The holiday is because vendors won’t deliver the day after the immersions of the idols of Ganapati not because print journalists want a day off. But as far as news is concerned, this is a loss. The day after Ganapati is when people get to see not just pictures of the idols being immersed but also the idols themselves. Further, people get to know how the immersions progressed and the good and bad stories around that.

     

    There was a time when Mumbai’s newspapers got hardly any holidays at all and no one suffered for it. Some clever negotiation with distributors and vendors is necessary.

     

    **

     

    Rajdeep Sardesai of CNN-IBN’s interview with West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee was a bore. Rather than grill the permanently-in-protest leader on her decisions like opposing every economic reform and her party’s decision to pull out of the UPA, Sardesai seemed almost obsequious and conciliatory. Once more we saw Banerjee’s recalcitrance and irrationality, but we’ve had a lot of that recently anyway.

     

    Cyrus Broacha on The Week That Wasn’t seemed to agree with this and did his own little spoof on it as well. Kudos to CNN-IBN for taking digs at itself.

     

  • Have Indian film critics become so inured to plagiarism in the industry that it no longer registers on their radar, asks Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Did critics ignore Barfi’s ‘borrowings’?

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The film Barfi has been sent as the Indian entry to the Oscars in the foreign language films category. All the reviews which appeared in the traditional media called it charming, refreshing and although a tad predictable, heart-warming nonetheless. I have not seen the film, I confess outright.

     

    Not one of the reviews that I read however mentioned anything about plagiarism. It took a bunch of bloggers to painstakingly point out how the film had copied scenes from Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton films, Singin’ in the Rain, the Mr Bean series as well as from much more recent films like The Notebook. Some of the music for Barfi has also been lifted from the French film Amelie, which has won an Oscar in the same category. For those who feel that Amelie might be an obscure film, I must point out that it is shown on television every other day. There are other sources for the film’s charming, refreshing feel which can be found on this link: http://www.bollywoodlife.com/news-gossip/video-the-sources-from-where-barfi-was-copied-exposed/

     

    This is renowned film critic (and also an old friend) Deepa Gahlot “reviewing the reviews” on this website: http://www.mxmindia.com/2012/09/reviewing-the-reviews-barfi/

     

    It is embarrassing enough that we send a film to an international film competition which has borrowed liberally from international films. Here is director Anurag Basu’s defence, using the usual Hindi film industry excuse in these circumstances, “homage”: http://ibnlive.in.com/news/barfi-director-anurag-basu-responds-to-plagiarism-charges/295385-8-66.html

     

    But the question being asked here is something else: have Indian film critics become so inured to plagiarism in the industry that it no longer registers on their radar? Meenakshi Shedde and Rajeev Masand, both friends whom I respect, shrugged off the plagiarism charges to Sagorika Ghose on CNN-IBN. The chairman of the selection committee, Assamese filmmaker Manju Bora, disseminated – only one film can be chosen, we have not seen every film ever made – and tried to concentrate on regional films getting short shrift.

     

    Yet dedicated bloggers managed to find the similarities between Barfi and a host of other films and managed to track down their references as well. Certainly no one can be expected to have watched every film ever made but some like Chaplin are classics and others like the Mr Bean scenes were popular hits and I would at least expect a critic to be familiar with those.

     

    I sympathise that the job of a film reviewers entails watching hours of the rubbish churned out by the Hindi film industry. It is not a job I would personally do even if you had an AK 47 pointed at me. But having chosen to do this job, some more rigour would be appreciated. I reject the argument that Hindi cinema is so terrible on the whole that it can get away with theft just to create something a little higher than the norm. Make singing and dancing fantasy films all you want: but if you steal, it needs to be pointed out.

     

    When Fareed Zakaria lifted a few lines of fact without crediting another article, he was suspended from his job and there was a huge hue and cry. Yet we send a film to the Oscars that has happily “borrowed” from other films and have no problems with it.

     

    Plagiarism is plagiarism. And perhaps our film reviewers might now apply a higher standard to the films they watch.

     

  • Ranjona Banerji scans nightly news and the morning papers plus assorted spots on cyberspace to bring us this review

    Ranjona Banerji: Economy on the front seat

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    After months of political turmoil taking centre stage, the economy is back to dominating headlines. Ever since government went ahead with raising diesel prices and allowing foreign investment in multi-brand retail, we’re back to reading about various economic proposals, which are either going to change our lives or at any rate postpone complete devastation.

     

    This means that the usual political high rollers will have to be off the headlines for a bit unless they can stage some new theatrics. Mamata Banerjee may be the first to feel the pinch. In a story which talked about Banerjee wanting to make sure she is not consigned to oblivion, the Times of India chose not to use the TMC’s beloved leader’s photograph and went instead with US ambassador to India, Nancy Powell. Irony? Self-fulfilling prophecy? One can predict though that Banerjee is likely to see more of that happening.

     

    **

     

    The Economic Times, in somewhat unfortunate phrasing, headlines the next possible tranche of economic reforms, “PMO’s bucket list”. We understand that the prime minister is going to turn 80 this week but to link reforms to his dying wishes seems as yet a bit premature. Or does the newspaper refer to the prime minister’s office alone, an entity much hated by the residents of twitter?

     

    **

     

    The Times of India’s Mumbai edition has for a while now taken on Maharashtra’s deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar of the NCP, for his role in the irrigation scam that has been uncovered in the state. Pawar (nephew) when he was irrigation minister had apparently involved himself in practically every single deal and where subsequently, costs escalated. Another NCP minister Sunil Tatkare is already under the scanner for his tenure as irrigation minister.

     

    **

     

    The Indian Express has once more outlined for us the frivolous reasons used by police investigators to detain people under tough laws like the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. These include children’s magazines and books of poetry – especially if they are written in Urdu. The Maharashtra police have the dubious distinction of considering ownership of Joseph Stalin’s biography a dangerous crime. This is in a country where Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf never gets off best-seller lists.

     

    Perhaps we need a more sustained campaign for better education of the police as well as greater use of forensic science in investigations.

     

    **

     

    On television, Rajdeep Sardesai on CNNIBN discussed with Arun Shourie why the diesel price hike was necessary and why FDI in multi-brand retail was not the end of the world. Karan Thapar on the Last Word also on CNNIBN discussed freedom of speech in the context of the contentious film on Islam and the needlessly violent protests against it. Arnab Goswami on Times Now took on the killings of sarpanches in Jammu and Kashmir, presumably by miltants. Goswami is very fond of the idea of Kashmir and works very hard to solve its problems – more than any other journalist in the country. One suspects however his rather black and white approach may not help in what is a very complicated situation.

     

    **

     

    If you want to look for TV news viewing from the main news channels that is minus the hysteria of prime time, the afternoons often pay dividends. Shiv Aroor of Headlines Today and Bhupendra Chaubey of CNNIBN both conduct well-behaved discussions – as was evident on the day Mamata Banerjee pulled the plug on her national role in Indian politics.

     

    **

     

    I apologise for the delay in posting this link from pointer.org. It discusses why “patchwriting” which is what both Fareed Zakaria and Samar Harlarnkar can be accused of, id as dishonest as plagiarism. Adds more depth to the argument but not more malice. http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/everyday-ethics/188789/patchwriting-is-more-common-than-plagiarism-just-as-dishonest/

     

  • It needed parties from West Bengal to get Prime Minister Manmohan Singh charged – earlier when the Left walked out over the India-US nuclear deal and now the TMC over FDI in retail and diesel prices, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Yes, we have a Prime Minister!

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    India was shocked to learn last week that it had a prime minister. This news had been quite successfully hidden from the public for a few years. And that was not all – the prime minister not only existed, he could also speak and do things. No one has expected this incredible turn of events. Many young people who live in cyberspace had heard of the prime minister only through the fake or parody twitter handles like Yum Yum Singh. Others, slightly older, realised that India had a PM when American magazines like Time and American newspapers like Washington Post criticised him.

     

    In fact many people in Delhi believe that those two calamitous articles actually reminded Manmohan Singh that he was prime minister of India. Plus, the fact that Mamata Banerjee and the Trinamool Congress were finally gone. Stung by the media and emboldened by the loss of Mamata, Manmohan Singh strode on to national television and explained why his government had done what it did.

     

    Money he told us sternly does not grow on trees, proving that when it comes to clichés, speechwriters always try and look for the most tired ones. However, the rest of the speech explained quite clearly why the government did what it did as far as FDI in multi-brand retail and the hike in diesel prices are concerned. Since Singh made the speech in both Hindi and English, we were assured that he knew at least two languages fluently.

     

    The UPA has made a serious mistake by hiding Singh and by trying to match the BJP’s Ravi Shankar Prasad and Meenakshi Lekhi with Renuka Choudhury and Digvijaya Singh. Instead of competing with the BJP in TV studios, all they had to do was trot out the prime minister every six months on Doordarshan. Since Parliament exists only for political parties to yell and “rush to the well of the house”, how are we to know that the government exists?

     

    Singh’s speech meanwhile actually floored people. He pointed out that the crisis was bad, that FDI in multi-brand retail wasn’t the end of the world, the government did need to subsidise cheap diesel for rich people with SUVs (heh heh) and he reminded everyone that he had pulled India out of a financial crisis last time.

     

    Arun Shourie of the BJP told reporters in Bhopal, as reported in Monday’s Indian Express: “Increasing diesel prices was the need of the hour… Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has for the first time shown his strength.” BC Khanduri, also of the BJP and the former chief minister of Uttarakhand said (also in the Indian Express) that the PM’s resignation is “no solution”. He blamed coalition politics for being a hurdle on the path to reform.

     

    In UPA 1, the prime minister showed us his strength over the Indo-US nuclear deal, especially when the Left walked out. This time, he flexed his muscles after Mamata Banerjee walked out. This means that a party with Bengal connections is necessary to make a government initially and then it is vital for the said party to depart for the government to actually start working. Go figure.

     

  • With no morningers in Mumbai, Ranjona Banerji finds herself wondering about the various ad in the papers yesterday and some on telly!

    Ranjona Banerji: #Justsaying on no paper day!

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    There are no newspapers in Mumbai today (Ganapati festival holiday for vendors), so everything seems wrong. Some of us need that daily cocktail of murder and municipality to get the morning going. TV doesn’t help.

     

    This leads to a grumbly mood. Which leads you to ask questions. Like in the Nokia ad where Shah Rukh Khan is driving around with a girl, who’s the girl? He plays himself and cannot ask the general public for suggestions about where to eat for fear he might be mobbed. So he uses an app on his phone. But when he reaches the restaurant, someone shouts “Shah Rukh Khan” anyway and he just looks sheepish. So what have we learnt to make us want to buy this Nokia phone? I don’t know. And more importantly, who’s the girl? If he’s himself then she should be someone famous too. As they say in twitter land (a country in which I live a few hours a day): #Justsaying.

     

    There’s another ad where man and a woman are driving around in some Maruti car. She points to where she wants to go. He asks where’s your ring. She says at the jeweller. He says let’s get it. The ad ends. Huh? #Justsaying.

     

    Anushka Sharma is back with her superior internet connection and her long-suffering boyfriend. Something about a bill being Rs 1499 instead of Rs 1500. Didn’t get it. When I was 6 years old and Bata tried it this pricing scheme with its shoes, me and my friends knew it was a hoax. And there was a lot more you could buy with Re one in the late 1960s. #Justsaying.

     

    Rajesh Builders, which I had I confess never heard of, has renamed itself Rajesh Lifespaces. It had jacket ads in almost every Mumbai newspaper on Tuesday to announce this. The change “conclusively shows our commitment to be ever relevant to our time, our industry and most of all, our customers.”

     

    I don’t know about the time and the industry but to customers, only one thing is “ever relevant”: lower real estate prices. #Justsaying.

     

    (You can tell how desperate I am for reading matter if I’ve taken to the ads in yesterday’s newspapers.)

     

    But there’s another real estate ad which is even more intriguing but I just can’t remember the name of the builder. This one says that you should move somewhere (like their property) where your children can learn about the “birds and the bees from the birds and the bees”. That is, your children have to run around the property watching insects and birds to find out about sex. I don’t know about the rest of you but I see disaster ahead in such an exercise. #Justsaying.

     

  • Who would have guessed that there is life after death, asks Ranjona Banerji as she writes on 'noosemaker' of last week: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh

    Ranjona Banerji: When the PM sprang back to life

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    And suddenly, Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh sprang back to life, with no warning. He had more or less been accepted as defunct and obsolete, a non-working part of the government. The last time he spoke he said he preferred silence, whatever that means.

     

    Here we were, one Parliament session wasted and the Opposition licking its chops. The coal allocation scam was getting dirtier and murkier and allegations flying fast and free. And then, the government announces, in quick succession, a rise in diesel prices and a cap on subsidised LPG cylinders for home use, 51 per cent FDI in multi-retail and 49 per cent FDI in civil aviation. This was an attack that came out of nowhere.

     

    The media and the Opposition were taken aback. Who would have guessed that there is life after death? Now what was someone to do? The media found itself in a piquant position. The journalists who understand the economy are small in number anyway and almost none of those work in TV. The so-called business channels are cruelly stock market channels (although the stock market was happy with these decisions so they were happy). Then there was the prospect of letting go of the deliciousness of “Coalgate” and jumping into the economy.

     

    The diesel price hike and LPG were great though. Immediate manufactured outrage over the plight of the common man (also known as Mamata Banerjee) and the middle class person makes for great TV. This works as long as some economist is not invited by mistake who then goes on about fiscal deficit and GDP and other big words which no one on TV can understand.

     

    The newspapers however were all thrilled. They immediately saw more money and in some cases, more ads. If FDI can revive the economy then maybe it can help the media industry too. Journalists in TV are probably more pure or perhaps more innocent.

     

    The Opposition was not so much confused as in a quandary. The BJP when it was in power had to deal with this whole oil company deficit thing. It had also mooted FDI in retail. But now it was in the Opposition. So it had to oppose. It also felt all the “Coalgate” advantage was about to slip away.

     

    The other parties also felt they had to have their say. Bandhs, strikes and whatnots are on the cards for Indians. The media does not like bandhs and strikes and don’t be mean and say because it means more work. The media is disapproving of such laziness in general when the future of the nation is at stake.

     

    Whether the economy has woken up or not or whether Manmohan Singh has proved that rumours of his ‘demise’ were exaggerated, foreign direct investment has sent us on another merry-go-round of excitement and confusion.

     

    Some people of course are just thinking about all the things they can buy!

     

  • Journalists have to be more careful about the sources they use and quote and the manner in which they credit them, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: So is Samar Halarnkar unfairly accused of plagiarism?

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    And once more, the gloomy spectre of plagiarism raises its head. We’ve hardly had time to catch our breath after the Fareed Zakaria and Simon Denyer incidents. This time, Samar Halarnkar, former Hindustan Times’s national editor and currently editor-at-large and columnist with the same newspaper, has been accused by blogger Akhilesh Mishra of lifting large portions of a column which was published in April 2012 from an article by Frances Moore Lappe for Yes Magazine in February 2009.
    (http://amishra77.com/2012/09/09/samar-halarnkar-and-the-art-of-article-writing/)

     

    Lappe is an expert on hunger and poverty and wrote about a successful experiment in Brazil. Halarnkar also wrote about the Brazil experiment in the context of what India could learn from it.

     

    In his defence, presented to media site Newslaundry, Halarnkar has said that he did refer to Lappe’s book in his column and used a number of sources for his facts and information. (http://www.newslaundry.com/2012/09/all-facts-no-conjecture/)

     

    However, the matter is not as simple as all that. It is possible that the blogger was out to get Halarnkarr and went through a lot of trouble to present both articles in detail (if only some journalists would work that hard!). The internet is full of resentment and spite, after all. And the blogger appears to be right wing while Harlankar is of the other persuasion. If there’s anyone who doesn’t know, there’s a war going on out there on the Internet between right wing and left of centre Indians and the battleground is full of bitterness and abuse. Halarnkar has mentioned this in his response to newslaundry.com. But whatever the blogger’s intentions, there are undoubtedly several similarities between Halarnkar’s and Lappe’s articles.

     

    Not all can be explained by a reference to a book when the overlap is with a column. It seems, on the face of it, that Halarnkar would have helped himself and his reputation by crediting Lappe more specifically.

     

    However, there is also nothing to suggest either that Halarnkar’s intent was to steal from Lappe. He has mentioned her book, which at least shows that he is aware of her efforts and says he admires her. He may not have been aware that some of the references he used had in fact originated from Lappe.

     

    And once again, we have a dilemma. A writer may research a number of sources and publications. Is it possible in a tight word limit to credit them all? Suppose you just pick up facts but draw your own conclusions? The fact that India became independent on August 15, 1947 can after all be picked up from a book but it is still a fact that is not bound by intellectual property.

     

     

    If Zakaria and Denyer can be accused of laziness, then Halarnkar’s mistake – and I think it is clear that he has made one – is in not making a better disclosure of his sources and in not giving a more complete credit to his primary source.

     

    Incidentally, after the blogger made his case, the accusation against Harlankar was picked up and played up by the website Niti Central. Which two days after had to issue this little regret note about a tiny bit of “lift and use” by one of its own staffers: http://www.niticentral.com/2012/09/regrettable-error.html

     

    At the end, it seems that journalists have to be more careful about the sources they use and quote and the manner in which they credit them. A small gesture might go a long way in saving a reputation built over years or even set a foundation for a less troublesome career in the future.

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She is also Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. Her Twitter handle: @Ranjona