Category: RANJONA BANERJI

By Ranjona Banerji

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

**

 

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

 

**

 

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

By Ranjona Banerji

 

A Headlines Today sting on Asaram and his ashram for sexual offences in 2010 is being replayed by the channel now, after the religious leader has been arrested on charges of molesting a young girl. It is not exactly clear why the sting was not aired after it was made. The channel however has to be congratulated for putting it out in the open now. It also claims that this footage is being used by the police to bolster the case against Asaram.

 

It is interesting though that many of these gurus, religious leaders and cult figures have relied on the media to build them up. Times Now may have had a vociferous campaign against Asaram in this case but “godmen” and assorted “gurus” from Rajneesh to Sri Sri Ravi Shankar to Jaggi Vasudev have received plenty of support from the Times Group. The allegations of murder of schoolchildren against Asaram’s ashram have more or less been forgotten.

 

The most influential of these religious leaders was undoubtedly the late Sathya Sai Baba. In 2000 India Today did a cover story on Sai Baba which included the wide range of charges of sexual misconduct and paedophilia made against him by former disciples. The enormous pressure put on all media organisations not to take the story further was remarkable. Leaders and pillars of society in all disciplines converged on newspaper and magazine offices (TV was less of a factor in those days) to stop anyone else from covering the allegations.

 

It is a testament to our tremendous faith in religious figures as a society that people like this are not treated like cult leaders and dismissed for what they are in many cases: clever manipulators of human weaknesses. Instead, they are feted by the media as much as by anyone else. Every time the Mumbai Marathon comes along, readers may notice how the participation of a particular spiritual speaker who specialises in the Vedas and the Bhagvad Gita is seen on pages of newspapers. The pressure on editors from his well-oiled PR machinery run by his followers to carry this story is incredible.

 

And then there are all the news channels which devote hours of news time to astrologers, gem stone peddlers and various other mystics who can fix all problems. Sybil the Psychic from Network anyone?

 

**

 

In a side note, the Indian media might want to think about the fact that the word Sanskrit “sant” does not translate into “saint” in English. Nor does the word “shaheed” mean the same as “martyr”.

 

**

 

A personal note here: In spite of knowing that the juvenile in the Delhi gangrape case of December 16 2012 could only be tried under juvenile law, I was disturbed by the three-year sentence to the accused, who was supposed to be the most brutal of the lot.

 

It was however clear from discussions after the rape that since the Juvenile Justice Act of 2000 changed the age of a juvenile from 16 to 18 for boys, there was nothing that could be done in this particular case. Even if the law was amended, it would not have retrospective effect. This juvenile accused could not get more than the maximum penalty of three years.

 

I was therefore amazed (why you ask, and with good reason!) to watch the most unseemly hysterics on Times Now on the issue. Some lady from the BJP and a human rights advocate got into a slanging match, Arnab Goswami was taking the moral high ground against human rights activists and the whole atmosphere was bristling with high-pitched manufactured outrage. If Goswami had bothered to pay attention to discussions on his own channel earlier this year, he would have been able to at least steer this particular conversation to a new direction.

 

To reference the film Network again, after 10 minutes of this nonsense I wanted to stick my head out of the window and shout: “I’m as mad as hell and I can’t take this any more”.

 

Yes, I know I have reversed the context in which Howard Beale yelled that out but it’s no less true for all that.

 

By Ranjona Banerji

 

There was a report in the papers last week about how the Government of Maharashtra had paid Jaslok Hospital Rs 1.85 lakh towards the treatment of the young woman who has gang-raped at Shakti Mills compound. I put out a tweet asking why the organisation she worked for did not contribute. Part of my cynicism, I must admit, comes from my observation and knowledge about how callous media organisations often are about the welfare of their staff.

 

I received messages from the organisation asking if they could put their point of view forward. I had a very long chat with a senior person who explained their situation. Upfront, their problem is that they can do very little in the public domain for fear of giving away the victim’s identity or jeopardising the case in any way at all. This is a legitimate and understandable concern. It is of paramount importance that the case against the accused rapists is watertight.

 

The organisation where the photojournalist was interning says that it was prepared to foot the bill for her treatment but once the government stepped in with its offer they decided to back off. However, they say that they have been with the victim and her colleague every step of the way since the office was informed of the incident. And all further help of various sorts that is required will be given to both. This is both heartening and welcome.

 

As I told the person I spoke to, if even half of what they were telling me they plan to do is true, it is more than most media organisations are bothered with. Staff safety, security and support are not codified and can be ad hoc at best, depending on individual bosses. As media organisations have become more corporatised, personal relations have gone for a toss. HR departments may have more people and more jargon but they are often without both sense and heart. At least in the earlier days when you had some clerk-run personnel department, proximity to the owner was not remote. But it was largely hit and miss. For instance, it took years for many newspapers and magazines to even provide home drops after night shifts.
There is plenty of scope for discussions on checks and balances for safety on the job, taking concerns of journalists and organisations into consideration. All too often any practical solutions get lost in moral grandstanding on one side and obdurate management theories on the other. Perhaps there is a slim chance we can overcome this.

 

**

 

The Times of India has done an expose on the amount of fuel spent by government cars – by both ministers and bureaucrats – and came to the shocking figure of a Rs 3000 crore bill in Delhi alone. In Thursday’s paper, the Rs 3000 figure was on the front page and mentioned in the intro to the report.

 

In Friday’s paper, a small correction tucked away at the bottom of page 15 tells readers that the paper got its arithmetic wrong and the figure is actually Rs 30 crore. The mistake was spotted by a “colleague”. However it was evidently too late to inform the edit page by then which is why the second edit on Friday’s edit page refers to the Rs 3,000 crore expenditure.
I don’t know about you but I am sorely disappointed in this drop…

 

By Ranjona Banerji

 

How are corporates supposed to use social media? Some of us have found that if you send a complaint to a company’s Twitter handle, you get a quicker response than fruitless and frustrating hours spent trying to get through to a call centre. That is, the call centre calls you. I have thus successfully negotiated a couple of problems with Vodafone through Twitter. However, I really don’t know why Vodafone has a Twitter handle. Or more particularly, whether the Vodafone Twitter account exists to supplement or augment its existing customer care systems. I suspect not.

 

Anyway, I now follow Vodafone India on Twitter. I observed that many of their tweets would follow this pattern: “Dear Sir, thank you for your feedback. An executive will be in touch with you shortly”. A while later it would be (usually to the same person): “Our executive tried to get in touch with you but your number was unavailable.

 

For no reason except silliness, I sent a tweet to Vodafone saying that it does not look good when a phone company declares publicly that its own numbers are “unavailable” to it. Well, I paid the price for laughing at them. I promptly got a tweet in reply saying “Thank you for your feedback. An executive will be in touch with you shortly.” And shortly, (all right, bang in the middle of a Sunday afternoon snooze) there was an executive calling to say, ‘Madam, you made a complaint?”
Rather than explain, I just said very sorry, no complaint and disconnected. The idea of explaining my joke to customer care and the irony of a phone company not being able to get through to its own subscribers was too frightening to attempt. I admit it. My courage failed. But the question remains. Does @VodafoneIN exist to answer customer complaints or is it supposed to have a wider purpose like publicising its offline and online events, promoting its products and services and drawing attention to its mainstream commercials? At the moment, it seems burdened with angry customers which might mean someone else is not doing their job?
It is worth noting that some companies and their Twitter handles never respond. I have never got anything out of complaining to @StarSportsIndia (and its earlier avatar before the split with ESPN) over its bizarre programming re: tennis. But I have very often got responses from @ten_sports. So is that arrogance on the part of Star Sports or just an inability to answer questions that are outside its brief? The most entertaining to engage with was the Twitter handle for BBC Entertainment for as long as the channel broadcast was in India.

 

**

 

[youtube width=”400″ height=”220″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE[/youtube]That Old Spice India failed in its conversion of its very successful commercials with Isaiah Mustafa, a former American footballer and now TV star is apparent. For some reason, they dubbed Mustafa’s voice which is a vital ingredient to the success of the “Look at your man, now back at me” line.

 

This partial adaptation to Indian “needs” is as foolish as the subtitlers and bleepers for American TV programmes shown in India where the character says “bastard” and the subtitle reads “turd”. I don’t know about you, but for my money, “turd” is worse. Bastard after all just means that someone’s mummy and daddy didn’t tie the knot; better than being called a lump of faeces.

 

The Park Avenue take off on Old Spice with the beer shampoo for “Man Hair” commercial is funny and effective and I would much rather a man with bouncy and shiny “man hair” with shampoo bubbles coming out of his mouth than a man concerned with the effect of the sun on his complexion. To use a phrase from Twitterland: #JustSaying.

 

**

 

There were no newspapers in Mumbai, today, September 10, 2013. Hence…

 

By Ranjona Banerji

 

As a newspaper reader, I would like an apology from all anyone at all who has written on the economy in the past three months. Because they have confused the hell out of me, pardon my French. Till a month ago, as far as I could tell, India was teetering on the edge of disaster. The rupee-dollar ratio was the worst ever, industrial output was down, money was fleeing the country, the Sensex and other indices were tanking – one more thing going wrong and we might as well run like lemmings to the nearest cliff.

 

“Expert” after “expert” in newspapers and on websites told us how India can never recover, that it was foolish to blame world events and the US Federal Bank’s moves and that Sonia Gandhi and the Food Security Bill were to blame. The only person I could make sense of was Paul Krugman in the New York Times who asked what all the fuss was about. Television largely – and quite wisely — side-stepped the economy since hysterical jingoistic debates are not really possible when words like Capital Account Expenditure and Repo Rate are flung about. Then, Raghuram Rajan became governor of the Reserve Bank of India. And magically – there can be no other word – the situation turned around. The same experts now told us that everything was looking up, the CAD was not acting that caddish, the rupee was correcting itself versus the dollar, the Sensex was rising and we need not head to the cliff after all.

 

Well, I don’t believe it. Both things cannot be true. Either the first predictions were hogwash or the second indications are rubbish. Or, and I think this is most likely, these experts have abandoned any semblance of interpretation for needless predictions. They never knew as we all remember that the western world’s financial system would crash in 2008. They keep celebrating random CEOs till they are sacked for mismanagement or insider trading. They follow stock exchanges as if those are the main gauge of life. So what do they know now?

 

This morning’s papers tell us that industrial output is now up in India. Are we supposed to laugh or cry? I must however give a shout out to The Economic Times which steered clear of all this doomsday nonsense.

 

**

 

I am not sure what to make of the new look of the Hindustan Times. The headline fonts look a little too condensed to me and the pages look crowded. Also the little front page jacket flap which is supposed to be torn out and kept with the reader through the day – what’s that about? In this digital day and age who is going to keep a crumpled up page of newspaper with them all day?

 

But it is good to see other writers on the Hindustan Times edit page and perhaps soon they will do without our television worthies and their anodyne banalities.

 

**

 

Are TV and print being ironic when they keep calling the BJP’s declaration of Narendra Modi as their putative prime minister an “anointment” or a “crowning”? It is hard to tell because in these times, irony seems to be in short supply in the Indian media. It is quite likely that headline writers and sub-editors really believe that “anointment” is another word for “appointment” and “crowning” is another word for “announcement”. On the other hand, there is a distinct undercurrent of satire when Rahul Gandhi is called a “crown prince”.

 

It is another matter that there is no need for anyone to announce a prime ministerial candidate since the Constitution has some other ideas on how this “crowning” is to be done. Sigh.

 

By Ranjona Banerji

 

The media, it seems, needs a few lessons in school civics. For instance, India is a not a presidential form of democracy, we are a Parliamentary democracy. We do not have a face-off between opposing presidential candidates but between opposing political parties. Nor are we a two-party democracy but instead a multi-million party democracy. By getting all these facts mixed up, we only end up confusing the reader and the viewer who are now waiting for Barack Obama and Mick Romney to start fighting each other in town halls with a TV anchor as a referee. TV may love to do this, but it has not happened yet. Until it does, time to go back to the textbooks. Might be worthwhile to also look up Constitutional amendments to see what is required to change the Indian system to suit all of TV news and one political party.

 

It might also be necessary for the Indian media to try and understand that a party choosing a person as a prime leader into the next elections is not quite the same as being destined for sainthood or divinity. Nor is it (or should be) some excuse for monarchy. Therefore Narendra Modi was neither anointed nor “coronated” — which is also bad English, since the more acceptable word would be “crowned” – as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate. I have said this before in these columns but it is worth repeating since this nonsensical twisting of language is only going to continue.

 

**

 

Is the Indian media going to go the way of media elsewhere in the world and be divided into right and left wing? So far, we have been a sort of fuzzy centrist collective, with a few extreme right or left wing elements. The last time a divide showed up was during LK Advani’s rath yatra and the build up to the demolition of the Babri Masjid. There are clear indications of this happening again. This division is not necessarily a bad thing since it would give readers and viewers a clear indication of what each media house stood for.

 

Right now, The Times of India has confused me the most, since it is impossible to understand what it is up to. Is it left or right or both or all or opportunistically backing the new horse on the block? Could anyone make sense of the second edit in Tuesday’s paper on Narendra Modi, iron and irony? http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/NaMos-latest-speech-shows-terrific-irony-in-more-senses-than-one/articleshow/22634970.cms

 

CNNIBN appears to have made a shift from centre to right. This has even percolated down to its very good satirical show, The Week That Wasn’t which makes both intelligent and slapstick fun out of all political parties but somehow fights shy of attacking the BJP. I’m going to try and start a social media conversation with them on this, so may have more to report later.

 

Headlines Today, which I always pegged as being right, seems to be shifting centre-wards. At any rate, its “So Sorry” cartoon segment takes wonderful pot shots at everyone.

 

**

 

I have to end with The Times of India once more. Today’s front page in Mumbai led with racist slurs on social media about a girl of Indian origin winning the Miss America beauty pageant. Just below that was an article about 12 people being shot dead in an attack on a naval building in Washington DC – both USA stories, but apparently anything at all affecting non resident Indians is more important than death or a possible terrorist attack.

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Client.asp?Daily=TOIM&showST=true&login=default&pub=TOI&Enter=true&Skin=TOINEW&AW=1379395340545

By Ranjona Banerji

 

Times Now and CNN-IBN together with Hindustan Times did surveys on the upcoming assembly elections. The Times of India carried the Times Now survey results on Friday in Mumbai (since Thursday was a no newspaper day). But for some reason, the survey which Hindustan Times did and which CNN-IBN showed and discussed on Wednesday night did not show up in Friday’s paper in Mumbai.

 

This perhaps reflects a double fold problem. The first is, how local should a newspaper be? If some theorists are to be believed, then newspaper readers are most interested in what happens in their neighbourhood and least interested in world events. This means that a pimple on your neighbour’s nose is far more important to you than the prospect of a world war if the US attacks Syria for its use of chemical weapons. How far this underestimates the reader – even the legendary a-political Mumbai resident – is not always taken into consideration. But it is true that it works more than it fails.

 

The other problem is deciding how far TV and now the internet influence the reader. If CNN-IBN had already shown the Hindustan Times survey and the results would be on the internet including the newspaper’s own website, then why should the Mumbai edition bother to carry it again?

 

There are a couple of questions to be raised here: is the Hindustan Times ignoring the significance of its own survey by not carrying it in Mumbai and the reach and influence of its own newspaper by assuming that the internet and TV are a sufficient news source for its readers?

 

It is another matter that the two surveys had somewhat different results for the same elections in the same states. These elections surveys have been dismally and dramatically wrong all too often in India but we still love them. If I worked in a newspaper I would have probably commissioned a few too…

 

**

 

Watching the election surveys unfold on Times Now and CNN-IBN was another matter. Having sworn off primetime news TV, I have been blissfully stress-free for the past few months with my doctor very happy with my blood pressure readings. But dinner guests with no concern for my health forced me to watch. I have to admit that watching Arnab Goswami was a joy after ages. He pranced around the studio in a state of great excitement, kneeling down to examine the results more closely, jumping up to question guests, whizzing off to look at some figures. He outdid CNN’s Wolf Blitzer you might say, when that channel does some gimmicky high-tech stuff.

 

The guests however were as incomprehensible and as badly behaved as always, whether on CNN-IBN or Times Now. It is a mystery whether these people get along with the more mundane parts of their lives with any degree of civility if you have to judge them by the way they behave on TV. New surveys tell us that anger is the abiding emotion on Twitter. But if you ask me, illogical rage and high-pitched rantings are what distinguish TV debates in India.

 

**

 

The Indian Express continues with its most interesting revelations about former army chief of staff VK Singh. Friday’s newspaper has a shocker of a story about how Singh set up a special unit which tried to destabilise the Jammu and Kashmir government and block Bikram Singh’s career graph, among other things. The Indian Express got some flak for its earlier story about a possible coup attempt by Singh. This story is bound to set another cat among the pigeons, for want of a better cliche: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/unit-set-up-by-v-k-singh-used-secret -funds-to-try-and-topple-j-k-govt-block-bikram-singh-army-inquiry/1171601/

By Ranjona Banerji

 

10 Horrifying Facts about Flying You’ll be Better Off Not Knowing” says the yahoo.co.in site which insists on opening with my Tata Docomo dongle. Why tell me is then, is what I want to ask and then remember it’s just as well that I saw the headline a day after I’ve flown from Mumbai to Dehra Dun.

 

As much as everyone goes on about small town India and how important it now is and the rest of that malarkey, the morning papers in only arrive in our part of this capital of Uttarakhand around 11 am. The newspaper is a late bearer of bad news and sometimes not even well constructed. I read an article about senior living centres which mentioned an upscale facility in Doon not far from our house here. However the local edition of The Times of India did not bother to print the story which I had read in Mumbai. The Hindustan Times comes when it or the newspaperman feels like it. The Asian Age is even more temperamental. Only The Hindu and the local Garhwal Post never miss the bus.

 

The reason for this long diatribe is simple: Where print fails, television and more significantly, the internet step in. I cannot be at the Social Media Week in Mumbai, co-hosted by MxMIndia.com, but there is no doubt that the social media has affected journalism, as friends and former colleagues Sidharth Bhatia, Sachin Kalbag and CP Surendran will be discussing today. In fact twitter has relieved several journalists of the task of calling people and asking for their opinions. It is much easier to just log into twitter and find out. In Mid-Day years ago, getting five people for the “Voices” column was a pain for some. How happy they would have been in today’s world!

 

But more seriously, there is a visible tendency amongst journalists to take social media as a barometer for what is happening in the world. And without dismissing the significance of social media, there is an inherent laziness in this form of thinking. Yes, social media is a powerful tool for sharing information and opinions and spreading news around the world in seconds. With no newspapers and without having switched on the television, I have learnt from people’s tweets and RTs in the past 10 minutes that the siege as Westgate Mall in Nairobi is still on, that the Supreme Court has made the Aadhar Card voluntary and that Ram Jethmalani has two wives and many girlfriends according to Subramaniam Swamy. Well, actually I already knew the last one because it’s old news and I’m old. What is intriguing is why Swamy needs to be spreading gossip but then he is what he is.

 

However, more things happen on the ground than on social media and there are more feelings and opinions and ideas out there as well. It may be clichéd but India is a large and complicated country and if you are going to report or pontificate about it, you have to get out there to get a sense of what’s going on. Cost-cutting and glorified sub-editors becoming editors sometimes lead to ridiculous situations where reporters are castigated for stepping out of the office. But telephone or internet newsgathering is just bad journalism. Currently, at best, social media is a barometer for what’s happening on social media. For the rest, the world still exists.

 

By Ranjona Banerji

 

There were two very illuminating and fascinating discussions on BBC World Service and CNN this week. The first was BBC’s Hard Talk where Stephen Sackur interviewed the musician Roger Waters, founder member of the iconic rock band Pink Floyd. Waters is an intriguing figure not just because of the manner in which he left the band and then fought with the other band members to stop them from using the name but also for his song writing which challenged political positions, especially fascist ideas, but also for his spectacular stage shows. A concert in Mumbai a few years ago had fans from geriatrics with walking sticks to young engineering students all showing up.

 

Waters today is older and wiser and in a rare occurrence one sensed that the normally tough Sackur, a relentless questioner, was a bit overcome by fandom. Now 70, Waters discussed his father who was a conscientious objector at the start of the Second World War who then became a soldier, the influence of Syd Barrett the band Pink Floyd, the problems within the band after Barrett’s departure and allegations of anti-Semetism made against him. He refused to discuss his differences with guitarist David Gilmour who was not part of the original line-up and who headed the band after Waters left it. This was much to the disappointment of Sackur and of millions of Waters’ fans.

 

He even stumped Sackur a bit when he said he was surprised that Sackur should ask such an unintelligent question (pertaining to the possibility of the band reuniting). Waters referred to his parting of ways with Pink Floyd as “the schism” and also admitted that he was wrong to have fought a legal battle over the use of the name.

 

To watch the interview was not just enjoyable from the perspective of a rock fan but also to track the trajectory of a rock star and to understand the motivations of musicians. A good interview is one which draws out a person and allows the viewer glimpses into intriguing minds – without of course abandoning the constraints of civil behaviour. This interview won on all counts. A must for Waters fans, if it can be found on youtube.

 

**

 

The second watchable TV experience was a discussion on CNN’s 360 with Anderson Cooper on the retrial ordered into the case of Marissa Alexander who was granted a retrial after she was convicted for 20 years for firing a gun in the air during a domestic dispute.

 

Lawyers, journalists and legal experts discussed the case. Even for those who had no knowledge of this case it was a fascinating conversation as the law, its provisions and its misuse were all talked about. The people involved in the conversation appeared to be knowledgeable even when they were opinionated. It goes without saying that no one yelled, threw accusations or started in-fighting on subjects outside the main topic.

 

**

 

As for Indian news television, it seems once more to be headed towards a war with Pakistan. I have been proud to be a journalist for almost 30 years. But I shudder at the thought that we the media are now in the business of open war-mongering.

 

By Ranjona Banerji

 

What a drama over being called a “dehati aurat” or a village woman. Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi made a speech in Delhi where he claimed that according to media reports, Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif called Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh a “dehati aurat”. Modi was furious at this insult (this is a media column, so we shall ignore the insults that the BJP and Modi have chucked at the prime minister) and ready to go to war with Pakistan over this comment.

 

Then the “media” involved, as in Barkha Dutt of NDTV and Hamid Mir of Pakistan’s GEO TV jumped into the story. Dutt said that she had been part of that interview with Sharif and he did not call Singh a village woman or any such thing. To murmurings that Sharif told a parable which mentioned village women or things were said off the record which mentioned village women, Dutt was unequivocal – Singh was not insulted.

 

The role of Hamid Mir was not so clear. First reactions from him seemed to indicate that there was something in what Modi had said or indeed that Mir was the source. After that, Mir appeared to confirm what Dutt was saying.
The end result was just a lot of hot air. But let us assume that Sharif did say what he was accused of saying, for the sake of argument. Modi will play it up in a speech because that is his wont. What is less acceptable is the media reaction. Just because random politicians ratchet up the atmosphere with a bit of sabre-rattling does not mean the sheep who seem to run TV studios have to run behind him. A herd mentality does not have to be a media speciality.

 

It might have made better sense to first investigate the source of Modi’s accusations, if indeed better sense is an expectation one can seriously have from television.

 

The media also need not become over-excited to become part of either the political process or a war-mongering effort. Some political parties may want to use them and others will appear to ignore them. The effectiveness of the media is best served by staying aloof and sceptical of everyone. The Dutt-Vir Sanghvi-Niira Radia conversations only remind us of the dangers of thinking that as journalists we are duty bound to start assisting political parties or formations. If you want to do that, quit your job and join a party.
Moreover, young reporters and anchors seem to let their patriotism sway them in the direction of war-mongers without taking a look at the bigger picture. I am not sure how cynicism can be inculcated in a person but when I was starting out it was hammered into us by our seniors. Or it could be that when journalism was a low-paying vocation, only cynics, nutcases and those so inclined ventured towards it. Now that it has become a “career” with prospects, the vocational or passion aspect has dimmed. I have no proof of this, only empirical evidence but still.

 

**

 

As for the village woman remark itself and the reaction to it, the media might have stopped a moment to consider the innate sexism which takes the phrase to be an insult. The fact that being a village woman or more properly an unsophisticated female is a legitimate insult is something which the media needs to reflect on. These sexist postures run deep in Indian society and the media at least needs to jump on them and expose them for what they are.

 

By Ranjona Banerji

 

Brian Lara came to Dehradun on Thursday to be part of a charity cricket match organised by the Indian Medical Association to raise money for the Kedarnath hospital. A school boy I met after the match told me that Lara left the venue early after the media “irritated” him. The media apparently did not let autograph hunters and the several schoolchildren present interact with Lara and tried to hog his attention the whole time.

 

I have no way of independently verifying this story but it sounds plausible. It also reflects how our fraternity behaves and in some cases, has to behave. The arrival of an international cricket celebrity in a city like Dehradun is a big moment for the local media as much as for everyone else. It is hardly surprising that the media would try and get every last drop they could out of Lara. And the justification is not tough either: any media has the potential to reach many more than the people gathered at an event. So a media invasion is for the greater good.

 

However logical this argument is, there are some inherent flaws. Any person – celebrity or otherwise – has the right to interact with people around him or her who are there to for that purpose. Aside from that, media interference can impede the actual event for which the celebrity has been included. Most experienced event organisers therefore set aside an area for the media to interact with celebrities without destroying the event.

 

But some discipline is required for the media to acknowledge that it is not the be all and end all of an event and to shave off some arrogance by allowing an event to continue smoothly. The Indian media is especially at fault here – and although this can be construed as pointing fingers, photographers and TV people can be especially disruptive. Everyone appreciates they have a job to do but it cannot be at the expense of everyone else’s convenience.

 

I understand that it is a thin line. That a media presence is much sought after and that it plays a very important and distinct role. I myself can remember being angry when the media is not respected or not given enough access at an event. But conversely, I also remember the anger when some sections of the media misbehave publicly if only because it impedes others from doing their jobs.

 

This article by Rohan Venkataramakrishnan which appeared in the Daily Mail spells out the rather unpleasant side of how Indian journalists can operate: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2433772/How-Delhi-gang-rape-revealed-ugly-truth-Indias-journalists.html

 

My experience at Wimbledon showed how the media can be treated with respect for its own professionalism as well as for the space for tennis stars and their millions of fans. Apart from press conferences, there were opportunities for one-on-one interviews, for mingling in the players’ restaurant and watching matches easily, all regulated by a hard-working press centre. It can be done so that everyone is reasonably satisfied.

 

There is one other problem. There is actually no such thing as “the media”, except when it comes to issues like constitutional rights. We are a random group of individuals who are competing with each other for access. It’s hard for the outside world to understand. And sometimes I wonder if we do ourselves, when you consider the high sense of entitlement some of us demonstrate.

 

By Ranjona Banerji

 

At the outset, I take no credit for what I’m about to relate. The way events unfolded may be entirely coincidental but they are curious. A few weeks ago I tweeted that CNN-IBN’s normally excellent satirical news programme, The Week That Wasn’t now appeared to have become overtly right wing. Someone retweeted this to Kunal Vijaykar, surely one of the funniest men on Indian television and an exceptional mimic. Vijaykar replied asking what I meant and I explained that all political parties were made fun of but the BJP. There was no further communication after this exchange.

 

However, the next episode of The Week That Wasn’t had a little fun at Narendra Modi’s expense. The opportunity was immense – that incredible Happy Birthday to Narendraji song sung by Mallika Sherawat (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i-OyKTTdG8). It was Sherawat though who bore the brunt of the jokes made on the show, not Modi barring a few elliptical remarks. And according to some observers, a line about Modi’s birthday cake coming from Best Bakery (which I saw) was removed in the reruns. Interestingly, I saw the line about Best Bakery doing the rounds on Twitter the day of Modi’s birthday, which was a Tuesday (September 17). The Week That Wasn’t is aired on the weekend so…

 

The week after that, the show struggled again to try and find something funny to say about the BJP and settled on LK Advani for some feeble attacks. The impression was this has to be done so let’s get on with it. This week too was weak and meagre at best. However the jokes about Rahul Gandhi, Mayawati, Mulayam, Manmohan Singh and sundry other people remain better than the rest. From the past, Vijaykar’s take on former president Pratibha Patil is perhaps his best, followed by his Mayawati. The last BJP person who was targeted as far as I can remember was Nitin Gadkari and he was easy pickings.

 

Sadly, the skit on Laloo Prasad Yadav this week, after he went to jail, was not up to standard in spite of all the excellent matter available for satire. I sense tiredness in the show’s funny bone. Perhaps it needs a rejig. Perhaps its writers need a holiday. Perhaps they need a better understanding of politics.

 

This is not to suggest that the show has to be fair and attack all political parties equally. It is well within its rights to be biased and support whoever it wants. In which case, it should inform us all of its intentions rather than pretend that it treats everyone equally. It does appear though that the TV18 group, after all the churning that has happened staff-wise, has become right wing. It was always evident in firstpost.com and now is visible often on TV. I’m not even alluding here to media gossip which is rife but just going by what you see on TV and read.

 

It is odd though that the India Today group which is often accused of being right wing and pro-BJP and RSS can come up with that excellent So Sorry series which pokes brilliant fun at everyone while The Week That Wasn’t no longer can. The So Sorry cartoon on Rahul Gandhi and the “nonsense” ordinance and Narendra Modi dreaming of become PM are two of my favourites.