Category: BLOGS

By Ranjona Banerji

A severe storm on Saturday took with it several power lines in Dehradun. The result was a power outage that lasted over 48 hours. The further result was that all regular channels for news and information slowly trickled down to word of mouth, hearsay, rumour and gossip. No electricity leads to phones running out of charge – obviously. What little you have, you save for emergencies.

So how much did we miss the news? Well, we did want to know what has happening to us. But we got no newspapers on Monday, whether because of the power outage or the local vendor’s inefficiency, we have no idea. According to word of mouth news and the electricity department, prominent areas of Dehradun city had no electricity at all for between 24 and 50 hours. Empirical evidence showed trees and electricity poles uprooted all over.

Yet, Tuesday’s newspapers – Tribune, Times of India – which usually have extensive city coverage had nothing at all in them about Dehradun’s plight. There was one story about the damage in Uttarkashi and Tehri regions in Tuesday’s edition of the local TOI as well a box about the possibility of more heavy rain. The Tribune had even less than TOI and concentrated on the heavy rain warning.

I expected nothing from The Hindu, Indian Express and Asian Age because they do not present themselves as local papers although they did cover the rain warning. I have met some of the Times of India reporters and find them to be committed and on-the-ball. So who does the news editor’s job? Any rookie will tell you that local news is paramount and when you are suffering locally, you do not really care about general and political news of “national importance”!

The Hindustan Times which has some excellent reporters and good Dehradun coverage also fell short as far as Dehradun news is concerned. Here again the focus was Uttarkashi.

The Pioneer, again with good reporting staff in Dehradun, is the only newspaper website which mentioned Dehradun’s problems on Monday morning. On Tuesday however, the power outage was not mentioned and instead we were told that Doon residents were happy with the fall in temperature after the rain and that jaundice cases were rising.

It is not surprising that Uttarkashi got prominence, given that there was extensive damage and casualties. Even more important for the rest of India is the fact that the Char Dham Yatra is on and therefore pilgrims from all over India are affected.

But what does it cost any newspaper to have a small 400-word story on how the citizens of parts of Dehradun suffered after the storm? After all, local news pages told us on Tuesday about the following vital news stories: officials in Udham Singh Nagar were unhappy with the transfer of the district magistrate, a fight over the Uttarakhand Rajya Sabha seat, a boy who did well in his board exams, a woman who climbed Mount Everest, writer Bill Aitken’s birthday plans, traffic jams thanks to political rallies, apart from the Uttarkashi damage. You know what? Barring Uttarkashi, I don’t really care.

I know that my gardener got hit on the head by a flying tree and the local grocer had to throw away Rs 15,000 worth of ice-cream. I know that hundreds of trees fell down or were damaged, some on buildings and others on roads and power lines. I know people were who trapped inside their homes for 24 hours because of debris and related damage. This is what I’m interested in. And I suppose I have to go back to my days as a reporter to write my own story!

By Ranjona Banerji

Last night (Thursday) on English television news, between 7.30 and 9 pm, was all fun and games as usual. That is, both Times Now and India Today TV had exclusive sting operations on how MLAs can be bought and sold, with a focus on Karnataka. It’s deeply embarrassing when two news channels have done “exposes” on the same subject and when they are placed next to each other by the cable operator or satellite dish service. O dear.

But perhaps what is more interesting is what was not covered in this time frame by most channels – the allegations of a corrupt land deal against senior BJP leader from Maharashtra, Eknath Khadse and the verdict in the Gulbarg Society case. This was one of the more vicious attacks during the Gujarat riots of 2002, when 69 people were killed by rampaging mobs.

Barring Karan Thapar on India Today, who hosted a sharp and no-holds-barred discussion on Khadse, what did we have?

There was lawyer Indira Jaising and the BJP’s GVL Narasimha Rao – who has evidently been told by someone he should smile more – on Barkha Dutt’s show, discussing how Jaising’s NGO has had its licence cancelled.

Times Now was very angry about corruption in politics over its exclusive but shared with India Today expose on the MLA market. Ads scrolling at the bottom of the screen promised us that Arnab Goswami was going to be even angrier. Rajdeep Sardesai appeared on screen with sombre gravitas – unlike Times Now’s shrill invective – to discuss political corruption and greedy MLAs.

CNN-News18 was on another tangent with people complaining about how they haven’t got their flats on time. A most welcome show of helpfulness perhaps better suited to the daytime. NewsX had star anchor Rahul Shivshankar screaming at some panellist to take a stand – it looked so absurd that I did not bother to wait to find what he was supposed to take a stand on. Probably never to appear on NewsX again.

CNN-News18 did however take on Khadse and Gulbarg in its 9 pm show.

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As usual though, some TV journalists were obsessed with allegations about Khadse’s purported calls to gangster Dawood Ibrahim rather than the political outfall of his land deals – which are likely to be extremely significant for Maharashtra.

It is intriguing though that while corruption consumes our self-righteous TV colleagues they stop suddenly when it comes to going further. They have some pet subjects. Like MLAs and horse-trading. But accusations of financial irregularities by Maharashtra minister Pankaja Munde are easily forgotten. It was The Indian Express and my former colleague Sandeep Asher who investigated Khadse’s land deal, so once again, hard work requires more than waving a few papers in viewers’ faces and showing us grainy videos with garbled voices.

I am not drawing the obvious inference of fear of government anger but…

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Meanwhile I’m starting to feel really sorry for government spokespersons. How long can they keep saying what amounts to: “I know nothing but I am sure the government/party will do something”. Also interesting is the trend of having a “BJP supporter/Modi fan” as part of a television panel. (Do they do this with other parties?) Either these supporters know more than the government spokesperson also on the panel or they are there as ballast to prove that no one knows anything.

By Ranjona Banerji

Of all the news stories that have grabbed our attention in the last few days – the inexplicable cult at Mathura being top of the list – one has stood out as an example of media overreach, to me at least.

At first glance, you might consider the TV interviews with students from Bihar who “topped” their Class XII a great scoop of a story. By demonstrating on camera how little these students know about the subjects they studied – prodigal science for political science which is about cooking, not knowing the connection between H2O and water – this report proved that exam results are likely fudged, that undeserving students become “toppers”, that the Bihar education system is in the doldrums. The photograph of parents, friends and relatives scaling up the walls of a building in which exams are being held to help students cheat comes to mind.

But you probe a little deeper and what has this “expose” achieved but to publicly humiliate young people who are themselves the victims of a system. There may have been many ways to do the same story without making nationwide laughing stocks out of these students. Their public takedown is going to live on the internet forever. It could be argued that the students were intimidated by TV cameras, that their minds went blank at the excitement of being interviewed for their “achievements”, it could be that they were genuinely ignorant. To me at least the journalists posing the questions sounded very intimidating and judgmental. A set-up most likely.

And since when is either ignorance or stupidity such a big crime? The bigger criminal to me seems to be the education system that they went through. Why not put the teachers and examiners through the same TV interview test as these students.

There was also an underlying tone to the first story and several subsequent ones that the education system in Bihar was particularly to blame. But come on. Almost every state and central education system is faulty, destroyed by political will and administrative apathy. First tackle why such a small percentage of every budget is spent on education and then have some national chest-beating on the stupidity of students.

But as every journalist with half a conscience knows, no one is really interested in such stories. And in a typical inversion of logic, we spend much time and effort on higher education, asking for more and more. But without sound primary and secondary education, what else will you get but duffers? Again, we in the media will focus on scores and toppers and when we go beyond that, we make students the target of our scorn.

A short visit to village schools in India will demonstrate that often it is a miracle that anyone gets educated at all. One teacher for all classes who usually hasn’t been paid for months, if the students are lucky two teachers, teachers who have to make the mid-day meal so cannot teach, toilet blocks which are blocked and locked, no equipment, buildings which most likely have no chairs, tables, windows and doors.

I don’t want to sound like a hypocrite about this. There is nothing wrong with journalists putting people on the block. But there is a difference between being tough with the head of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena Raj Thackeray, which as we saw with Times Now does not really happen, and taking on some poor kids.

Here’s a welcome follow-up story from The Indian Express, which underlines the cruelty of this “expose”:

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/a-child-who-faces-camera-for-the-first-time-can-get-nervous-bihar-topper-ruby-rais-grandfather-2836594/

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As a last comment, as a person who conducted entry level tests and interviews for journalists in more than one newspaper, do I have some stories to tell about the stupidity of journalists! O boy!

By Ranjona Banerji

The death of boxing legend Mohammad Ali on June 3 was one of those rare occasions when most of the world mourned. Ali was 74 and had been suffering from Parkinson’s for years. His larger-than-life persona, his boxing prowess, his fight against racism, his conversion to Islam, his refusal to fight in the Vietnam War at great personal cost, his kindness to strangers, his philanthropy and the ups and downs of his personal life all made him much more than a beloved and talented sportsperson. He was a symbol of so many things that it is hardly surprising that so many agreed that Ali was correct when he called himself “The Greatest”!

Front pages of most newspapers all over the world and top of the news for most news channels were therefore to be expected and were definitely well-deserved. Here in India, many wrote charming pieces about their encounters with Ali, when he visited India for instance, and elsewhere and others wrote angry pieces about how our sportspersons did not and do not have Ali’s courage of conviction.

As is the norm, international writers did not whitewash Ali’s mistakes and contradictions and the seamier parts of his life and personality. This is important because often in India, we expect all people we ourselves have placed on a pedestal to be perfect. And once we do that, reality disappears. The Indian media is especially guilty of this and most particularly with film and sports personalities.

It was interestingly, our resident BJP fans on Twitter who were the most critical of Ali. It was interesting because Ali’s links to India were minimal but mainly because of this desperate need of the rightwing on Twitter to jump onto any bandwagon to get noticed. Ali’s chief crime for them appeared to be that Cassius Clay converted to Islam, which given the Hindu majoritarian ideology of the BJP is hardly surprising. What this has to do with Ali on the day he died is another story.

But for the most part it was appreciation of a great person and an outpouring of sadness at a loss. One of the better days for a media watcher.

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“Trending” on Facebook this week, have been some interesting stories. Like Virat Kohli hugged Anoushka Sharma. And how Shilpa Shetty’s husband surprised her on her 41st birthday. For all of you who fulminate on how trivial newspapers and news television has become, remember, “trending” on Facebook meant that Facebook users liked these news items. Cricket and Bollywood and Bollywood and Cricket.

This is what people read no matter how much they pretend that they are desperately concerned about the education system in Bihar. OMG, did Virat really drop Anoushka to the airport? And did he kiss her? And whatever Raj Kundra got for Shilpa Shetty which to be honest I did not bother to read. My interest in glamour trivia is often at abysmally low levels.

It was even more interesting therefore to see the anger and frustration with the Film certification board’s tendency to act as a censor board almost 30 years after the Emergency ended. Everyone has spoken out about the rash of cuts suggested in the film Udta Punjab by certification board chief, especially on Twitter and later on television. Of course, people have been ranting about Nihalani for ages and it has made no difference which might point to the limits of media protests or the intractability of the government.

Director Anurag Kashyap also producer of the film Udta Punjab appeared on Twitter and television to tell us that he felt he was living in North Korea and that the experience was Kafkaesque. Most journalists took him at face value because the space for Kafka in an atmosphere dominated by a possible kiss from Virat Kohli is very limited.

At any rate, the media has kept us fully informed on the fight over a film on the drug problems in Punjab, with analysts tackling issues of politics, freedom of speech and expression and the travails of film-making. In all this I did not notice anything from the Chief Upholder of the Government in The Film Industry, Anupam Kher. Did you?

By Ranjona Banerji

The shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida which has left 49 people dead and 53 injured – at last count – quite rightly dominated news cycles in India and abroad. Although in India it did compete with the fight over censorship, freedom of expression and the film Udta Punjab.

Reports started with the death of a singer at the nightclub Pulse, but it soon became clear that the attack was more horrific than that. Once the identity of the shooter became clear – Omar Mateen, an American born US citizen of Afghan origin – the focus shifted to Islamic terrorism, especially since Mateen had pledged allegiance to IS.

However, there was a seemingly conscious attempt by American investigators and government spokespersons not too walk too far down that road without evidence. This attitude was reflected in the media as well. Barring Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump – who has a good future as an Indian politician – most were not willing to stick their necks out so far.

But even then the media and social media reflected the various aspects of this crime. For one, it was the largest mass shooting in a country which has more mass shootings than most others. For another, it was a vicious attack on the gay community and on people having fun. For a third, there definitely appeared to be some religious angle. For another, was the focus on the perpetrator taking away the pain of the victims’ and their families?

This is how a story unfolds and that is why initial caution is more advisable than jumping into the deep end at first instance. Western TV news has shown some signs of initial caution in such instances – especially since Anders Brevik’s mass shooting in Norway but Indian news television perhaps still has some lessons to learn.

Current news stories suggest that Mateen was himself gay and a regular at Pulse and his ex-wife says he was violent and bi-polar. CNN meanwhile has decided to focus on the victims and not the shooter.

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The Bombay High Court may have ended the whole fight over the film Udta Punjab, but it provided much grist to news television’s mill. We had “debates” on the matter for almost a week. Like most TV debates, they reached no conclusion, they had various party spokespersons shouting at each other, they confused political one-upmanship with the problems of drug-dealing and addiction with the concept of freedom of expression with the need for a certification board to behave like a censor board.

More and more I admire people who can watch these TV debates night after night. They deserve the highest civilian awards for bravery.

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A diary item in Coomi Kapoor’s Sunday column in The Indian Express tells us that the Prime Minister, his Cabinet and his party were very upset that the media did not focus enough on an award that he received on his recent trip to Afghanistan. Instead, the headlined story was the follow-up of a hit and run accident involving a teenager at the wheel of a Mercedes and the death of pedestrian. Apparently, several tweets were sent from ministers questioning the news priorities of the media.

Two points to note here. The first is would such a miss of the PM’s foreign travels and honours been possible two years ago?

And the second is India has one of the highest mortality rates when it comes to road accidents. According to government figures, some 400 people die every day on Indian roads.

By Ranjona Banerji

The general perception of the media in India, especially the English media, is that it is a monolithic structure paid for by the Vatican, the Saudis and remnants of the USSR (never China, mind you) with the sole purpose of denigrating and destroying India’s great culture and past. All journalists are part of this conspiracy which has its origins in the Congress Party, Jawaharlal Nehru’s family and the university named after him and thus deserve to be called “presstitutes”, “newstraders” and so on.

Luckily for the media’s diversity – if not for its sanity – once Narendra Modi’s run to the prime ministership began, many journalists in the English media saw him as the messiah. Because public memory is so short – and journalists sometimes top this list – this is not the first and only time that the media has shown itself in different colours (shhh, don’t tell the conspiracy theorists!).

During the Emergency, many journalists objected to restrictions on Constitutional rights. Journalists also supported VP Singh in his rebellion against Rajiv Gandhi – many of them starry-eyed women as some cynics today like to point out! I still remember the excitement at the Bombay Union of Journalists’ office when he came to address us. In the Bofors exposures, it was the media that ran fastest and longest with the story of bribes paid to Rajiv Gandhi and his friends, long after politicians of all hues preferred to forget about it.

Badly paid as journalists were, it was somewhat inevitable that many were concerned with the problems of the less fortunate. Glamour journalism as we know it today did not exist. Even when it came to film stars, magazines like Stardust were far more cynical and critical and sometimes wickedly funny than today’s rah-rah form of journalism. And when you looked around you in India, what did you see but the miseries of your fellow Indians. How could you in any good conscience decide that they deserved no help?

It was LK Advani’s Ram Janmabhoomi movement which saw a big religious schism appear in journalism in India. For the first time, many realised that so many of their colleagues were in fact distinctly pro-Hindutva and anti-minority. Everyone knew, for instance, that Girilal Jain, the iconic ivory tower editor of The Times of India was vaguely sort of, maybe, you know pro-Hindutva. But those were different times, with less scrutiny and frankly, less media.

Economic liberalisation in 1991 and the advent of television changed the country’s ethos and the country’s media. We were told that Hindus, long forgotten and ignored by our evil secular socialist Constitution, were now coming into their own. I even contributed to a story for India Today magazine on the “saffron-clad yuppie”, a new and intriguing phenomenon for us.

But ideological schism or no schism, most journalists are just journalists. Things get back to status quo sooner or later when stories have to be done and somehow, a balance is found. When I was deputy resident editor of the Times of India in Gujarat in the 2000s, the various branches of the same newspaper reacted differently to the riots, with Mumbai being the least interested in what has happening – until some of us protested that a story that the world was interested in was being ignored. In India Today, the local bureau chief swung for the rioters while the group’s new channels told the story like it was. But the group itself at the time was seen as pro-RSS.

My main point is that nothing of what we are seeing now is new. Much closer to our time, we have seen that the same news channels that lionised Arvind Kejriwal during the India Against Corruption movement are now the most critical of him as chief minister of Delhi.

And as far as India’s messiah Narendra Modi is concerned, for the first time since 2014, I have begun to notice a change in the tide in previously pro-Modi journalists and media houses. The sticking point is one that has been a problem for all governments: rising prices. The cost of dal did not cut it but tomatoes at between Rs 80 to Rs 100 a kg and the obfuscation of government spokespersons, have many more questioning where that “achche din” promise has gone.

And thus the cookie crumbleth.

By Ranjona Banerji

No newspapers arrived yesterday and only Yoga Day on the news this morning. And then people wonder why you have to go to the internet to find out what’s happening in the world. “Trending on Facebook” is my current favourite source of news. Right now, as I write this, these are the top three news items of paramount interest to a Facebook algorithm near me.

1 Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: Poster Released for Upcoming Harry Potter Spinoff Film.

2 Ishant Sharma and Pratima Singh: Cricketer and Baseball Player Engaged, Photos Show.

3 Finding Dory: ‘Finding Nemo” Sequel Breaks Box Office Record with $135.2 Million Opening Weekend

And once more this proves to me that people are really not interested in serious matters and that Facebook really believes in “upper/lower” although we were taught that upper/lower is not an easy reading format.

And also I am seriously surprised that Game of Thrones has not found a mention. Although that may well only prove that the Facebook algorithm follows the wrong people. There is hardly an issue of Time magazine that goes by, for instance, without a #GoT reference. (If you gotta say it, you gotta hashtag it.)

The other day, when the newspapers had arrived, I read about an interaction between the Hindu’s Readers’ Editor and the Hindu’s readers. As usual, the questions from the readers were the same: why is all news negative news and why is your newspaper mean to the people I like?

Much as readers are pained when they feel that they only get bad news from the media of their choice, “good news” is a frothy myth of nothingness. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. No one would read any newspaper which only said, “Six people went for a nature walk today in my neighbourhood and were very happy when they noticed two butterflies” on a day when there has been a terrorist attack in their city.

However, judging from Facebook, absolutely anodyne information about entertainment and famous people, is top of the pops for your average person. Think of that every time someone you know blames “the media” for concentrating on the frivolous and for publishing sections like Bombay Times and so on.

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As for “the media” being prejudiced about people you like, this is one of the sweetest and most plaintive little whines you can hear. About 90 per cent of the time it comes from some pro-rightwing person who surprisingly reads the edit pages. I say surprisingly not because pro-rightwing people do not normally read edit pages but because newspapers managements routinely tell editors that no one reads edit pages.

However, thanks to the internet where opinion – whether from impassioned and well-intentioned bloggers or seasoned commentators – matters, people feel strongly about how people think. I doubt that newspaper managements – often sadly never the brightest crayons in the pack – will realise this, but viewpoints continue to rule social media. As for the sad readers who feel their favourite opinions are being given short shrift, the only consolation for them is that one day the wheel will turn their way.

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A tweet from Rahul Kanwal of India Today TV sometime last week was amusing and intriguing. Kanwal accused Times Now of stealing a story 24 hours later with the “same guests, same story” about an ACB report. Since I rarely watch either news channel, except Karan Thapar on India Today TV, can anyone please clue me in?

By Ranjona Banerji

I was going to start this with a rant against the BBC World Service and with other foreign news channels which broadcast to India. All of Thursday, as the world wanted to know about Britain’s vote on staying or leaving European Union, international news channels were quite on their own usual pet news subjects. This appears to be part of a misconception on the part of editors or managers that the countries which these channels broadcast to are not interested in what is happening in the countries they originate from.

That is why, I imagine, the extraordinary Democratic Party “sit in” over control was not seen as top news by CNN International yesterday. And the German channel DW was more concerned with some football league as news of a gun attack in Germany was breaking across other news channels.

The BBC World Service is perhaps the best at this misconception. From an ex-colonial point of view (mine), it almost appears like “white-splaining” – that is, I the BBC, know better than you (the brownie) want to know about. That is why, I assume, anything to do with British royalty gets maximum and endless play on the BBC World Service. The BBC weather service is best at this – people dying all over India from drought and lack of rainfall and the meteorologists ruing areas where there are chances of rain while glorying in all that killer sunshine. I am also happy to discover that Astana has the maximum number of BBC World Service weather forecast viewers.

But while from Thursday to Friday morning India time, CNN International was ahead of the BBC on the “Brexit” vote, luckily by 9 am India time, the BBC woke up to the Brexit results and provided blanket coverage, presumably from the BBC newsroom itself and not the World Service.

And when they get it right, they do it quite well: Sober discussions with people being allowed to have their say without hysterical interruptions – not to mention a choice of intelligent and articulate guests. Even better, politicians with opposing viewpoints sat next to each other without screaming their heads off, without bringing everything down to an uncivilised cacophonic civilisational crisis.

A quick look at international news channels at 10.30 am on Friday saw every channel (CNN, BBC, DW, RT, TV5Monde Asie, France 24, ChannelNewsAsia, Al-Jazeera and Australia Plus focusing on the UK referendum.

All Indian news channels were on the top news except for the delightful News 9, which had local Karnataka News. Surprisingly, even business channels which normally operate in a separate galaxy from all other news channels had the UK referendum as top news. Yes, I know I know, markets have a role to play here.

One can only hope that the results themselves – UK to leave the European Union – will be debated through the day. It is highly likely that we will go back to Syria and Astana.

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The film star Salman Khan is known for his popular movies and loyal fans but also for his controversial behaviour and for several court cases against him for manslaughter and killing endangered animals. His latest comment that a tough shooting schedule which left him feeling like a “raped woman” has created enormous outrage on social media and in the mainstream media.

What has saved Khan every time is his clout within the industry and in larger circles of influence, not least in the media. Thus, no sooner did his unsalutary remark become public than his apologists within the media swung into action. That his remark was unsalutary is undoubtedly my opinion and we can debate that. But questions need to be asked about those in the glamour media who cannot distinguish between journalism and fandom.

By Ranjona Banerji

Let us not be ungracious. Congratulations must be given to Times Now and to its editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami for getting an interview with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This is no small achievement. Modi’s interaction with the press, since becoming Prime Minister, has been very scant and mainly limited to selfie-taking sessions. Goswami has also managed to pip other channels – for instance, Aaj-Tak – to the post here.

But did the nation get to know what it wanted to know? That is, would Goswami be as he is on his show – fire and brimstone and with an underlying tone of the panellists or interviewee “being thrown to the dogs” Ramsay Bolton style with Modi? Or was he the sweet, simpering, frankly terrified (like a Bolton victim?) who interviewed Raj Thackeray? Or was he like the schoolyard bully who tore into a lost and hapless Rahul Gandhi?

The answer should of course be obvious – he was gentle and considerate. He asked some pertinent and even tough questions but did press further when he did not get an answer. He allowed Modi to provide his bland answers and present himself as a reluctant politician who is only interested in the “development” of the country. The Prime Minister is a consummate public performer and given that Goswami was largely docile, he was never going to be a threat. People may remember that this was how Goswami interviewed Modi before he became PM, though arguably he was a little sweeter this time.

The media should note that it is to blame for making “heroes” out of the publicity seekers in Modi’s own party and parivar, according to the Prime Minister. One assumes that it would suit the BJP tremendously if we ignored all the communal hate-mongering that routinely emerges from BJP elected officials and members of Parliament.

As an aside, this is also Modi’s response to current problem within the BJP over Subramanian Swamy’s attacks on Arun Jaitley. Modi has honed in solely on Swamy’s need for “publicity” which is what drives him to attack people within his own party publicly. It does not take even half a degree in “entire” political science to know that Swamy’s game is a bit more devious than only looking for “publicity”. But if Goswami accepted that argument from the PM, reluctantly or otherwise, then it is an interesting way to see yourself as a journalist. Or look at it this way: Union finance minister Arun Jaitley has cut short his trip from China to deal with Swamy’s assaults on him and his team. Does that sound like Swamy is merely a misguided publicity-seeker?

But disingenuous answers to tepid questions apart what is the takeaway from this interview for the media? Undoubtedly that Goswami has proved that he is India’s top anchor and everyone else can weep! He got the elusive Prime Minister of India to agree to an interview. The fact that the interview is headline news for practically every newspaper in India tells you how important Goswami’s achievement is. He has also proved that fire and brimstone has to be used not indiscriminately but selectively. If Ramsay Bolton had figured that out, he might not have become dinner for hungry doggies!

I however will continue to watch Wimbledon, which started on Monday on Star Sports, rather than Times Now. And if you’re really interested, also the season six finale of Game of Thrones which airs tonight in India.

By Ranjona Banerji

So “The Interview” has not been as well-received by other news organisations as Times Now might have imagined (hoped?) it would. Before we get into the “jealousy” factor, which I gather has been raised by Times Now, its own sibling newspaper The Times of India was mildly critical of the Prime Minister’s contention that the media should not make “heroes” out of people within his party who make objectionable comments. As TOI pointed out, it is the media’s job to bring such comments to public notice. And it is the party’s job to correct those who step out of line.

Unless of course, the party imagine the line is elsewhere…

Most editorials pointed out that the “Interview” in fact achieved nothing and that the questions on Subramanian Swamy and the comments by other BJP leaders were not tackled strongly enough. You could add to that the NSG fiasco, the way the drought was dealt with, rising prices, the false election promises, rise in communal attacks, the condition of farmers, relations with Pakistan, terrorist attacks…

A little more homework and a little less self-preening may have led to a better job When you read the transcript of the interview between Arnab Goswami editor-in-chief of Times Now and Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, the flaws are even more apparent. The theatrics and optics – to use today’s jargon – are missing. And what you are left with is reality, stripped of all its makeup. The questions were either anodyne or leading or contained the answer within them. There was also all that mandatory sucking up (O, you have a lovely sense of humour) which unfortunately (for the interviewer) looks so obvious without tone and sound.

“The interview” now looks like a press release from the government-run Press Information Bureau. It may well have been a speech by a Prime Minister who is very good at giving speeches. This was an interview as a public relations exercise. Many PR companies today will in fact provide you with such an interview with a film star or a sports star if you want. You attend a press conference, pick up your goodies and the Q&A and get back to office, story in hand.

When the Prime Minister says that it is a matter of concern that there is a lack of humour in public life, the interviewer needs to take it further. A “matter of concern” in what manner, one may ask, when it is people who are opposed to the BJP who pay the price for their humour. Instead, the PM made himself into the victim, where even he is afraid of using his remarkable sense of humour. Perhaps that would have been a good time to talk about rising intolerance in the country.

The answers about Raghuram Rajan and Subramanian Swamy’s attack on him were marginally higher than bland, about as gentle as the questions. Incidentally, soon after the interview was aired, Subramanian Swamy was back on Twitter attacking Arnab Goswami and calling all journalists “presstitutes”, which is the BJP’s favourite term. So much for being chided publicly on air.

Some commentators have postulated that Goswami was angling for the job of government spokesperson and they may well be right!

I can only add to that the idea that Seth Rogen would not be able to make a film out of this “Interview”.

By Ranjona Banerji

A friend in Bangladesh got understandably upset when, after the horrific terrorist attack in Dhaka on Friday, international news channels BBC World, CNN International and Al-Jazeera concentrated only on Italian and Japanese victims, as if no Bangladeshis had died in the attack.

This unsalutary practice is a form of what? – racism? tribalism? nationalism? nativism? – and is seen across all media organisations no matter how enlightened or how many times the word “behove” is used in edits. As a former edit writer myself, I posit that this tendency does not “behove” journalism. The Friday of the attacks, Indian news television for instance concentrated on the one Indian woman killed by the terrorists as if the others did not matter, as if 20 people had not been butchered.

For some years, the media has been told by those within it to “think global and act local”. However that is, as is evident, harder to practise than to preach. In an emergency, journalists tend to think of those closest to themselves or look for connections which they think will interest their readers.

Therefore, in the Indian subcontinent, the Dhaka attacks got front-page attention but the attacks in Baghdad where at least 90 were killed was on the world pages. We are perhaps inured to violence in Iraq since the beginning of this century. One more attack and you turn the page and check to see what happened at Wimbledon. That is our reality.

The excuse for international news channels however is harder to find. Both BBC World and CNN International supposedly cater to a larger audience than their home nations. And Al-Jazeera has positioned itself as local to the Gulf but in some sense larger in its understanding of our part of the world than its immediate competition. The logic therefore fails. Are the deaths of Italians and Japanese more important than those of Bangladeshis? How many Bangladeshis are equal to one white European? Does that sound needlessly harsh? Remember, this is not the first time this has happened. Whether by class or race, people are divided all the time.

As to my friend in Bangladesh, I can only apologise for this insensitive behaviour of fellow journalists.

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Twitter’s role as a platform for abuse requires some thought from its administrators. Bollywood singer Abhijeet Bhattacharya is known for his foul language and somewhat questionable views. He crassly tweeted about how people who slept on pavements deserved to die like dogs, in a bid to support Bollywood star Salman Khan, for instance. He has also taken strong positions about Pakistani singers performed in India. And sent some very disgusting tweets to a woman who accused him of sexual assault.

His latest is an attack on journalist Swati Chaturvedi. Bhattacharya tweeted that the man who killed a woman at a Chennai station last week was a Muslim and that this was part of some “love jihad” plot. Chaturvedi responded by saying that the man arrested for the murder was a Hindu called Ram Kumar, accused Bhattacharya of “fomenting communal tension”. She also called him a mediocre singer.

Bhattacharya’s response was as usual filled with filthy language and sexual innuendo. Chaturvedi however is not easily cowed down and has reported his tweet to both the Mumbai police and to Twitter.

Not all journalists – especially women journalists who bear the brunt of such attacks – are as brave so more power to her.

The world of Twitter remains extremely misogynistic – many followers of Bhattacharya, most of whom proudly announce that they are “Hindu”, started a campaign to attack Chaturvedi even further, to either display their fragile masculinity or their even more fragile idea of spirituality.

This same glee at attacking women journalists was evident when the hashtag “Arnab Slaps Sagorika” – over some conversation between the two about Goswami’s interview with Narendra Modi – started trending, presumably to prove how manly TV anchor Arnab Goswami and his fans are when it comes to journalist Sagorika Ghose.

Is that one point for mankind’s glorious future, would you say?