MxMIndia

Category: RANJONA BANERJI

Ranjona Banerji’s hard-and-soft look at nightly news and the fare in the morningers

  • If 26/11 was the making of Times Now, it was also a battleground for newspapers, writes Ranjona Banerji. For journalists, it was the story of the decade playing out in front of one's eyes

    Ranjona Banerji: 26/11 – battleground news channels and newspapers

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Like many others in Mumbai, I also got a phone call from friends asking me to switch on the TV on the night of November 26, 2008. And then all night, I watched the surreal events being played out in front of millions. The first suspicions were of a drug gang shootout in Colaba – an area known for the unsavoury characters that emerge once the sun sets. But as the focus shifted from Colaba to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (also known as VT) and then to Mumbai’s most iconic hotels, the Taj and the Trident (still called the Oberoi) it was clear that something far more sinister was going on.

     

    Images of the young and gleeful Ajmal Kasab began to flash on TV screens, evil intent apparent in his glittering eyes – or so it seemed to us. There was news of the best and the brightest of Mumbai’s police force being killed in the attacks. There was fear for friends who were out in the area – and never have mobile phones been more useful. There was immense sorrow as news of those missing began to emerge. In my case, it was an old school friend who I had known since we were both five.

     

    But in all this, you had also to look at the events as a journalist. You were not just a voyeur. You were a trained professional with what is in media terms the story of the decade playing out in front of your eyes. The first drum beat roll therefore has to go to television. Many brave young reporters stood out there for three days telling the world what was happening inside the hotels and Nariman House which were under siege for three days after the first attacks on Cafe Leopold and CST on the night of November 26 ended. By Thursday morning Kasab – the only surviving terrorist of the 10 – had been captured.

     

    Much as this was a seminal moment for television, it was a particular turning point for Times Now. It emerged as the best channel covering the events and Arnab Goswami – for a long time playing catch up with TV stars and his former colleagues Barkha Dutt and Rajdeep Sardesai – emerged as a national figure. Dutt and Sardesai made two rookie mistakes – they jumped into the fray and tried to get in front of the cameras instead of being the conductor in the studio. This meant that they could only give viewers impressions. All the ground information still had to come from reporters.

     

    Goswami by contrast stayed in the studio, letting his reporters do their jobs. Editors of newspapers very rarely jump into ground coverage. Not just because they are lazy fat cats but because they know that they have beat reporters trained to do their jobs and it is hard to beat them for information. An editor can go out there to see what’s happening. He or she can provide colour copy. But editors are far more valuable in the newsroom orchestrating coverage. Times Now’s other advantage is that it is Mumbai-based unlike other TV channels which are situated in Delhi.

     

    There have been complaints against Goswami and Dutt that they gave away vital information about the locations of guests to the terrorists. In the case of Goswami, he acknowledged the error and then stopped that line of questioning. The same cannot be said for Dutt.

     

    There were also complaints that the media concentrated on the five star hotels because it is anti-poor. This argument is ludicrous. The attacks moved to the five star hotels and stayed there as commandos fought a deadly battle with the terrorists. There were no terrorists at CST from Thursday onwards. Also, as events unfolded as fast as they did, it is unfair to expect the media to have a foolproof coverage plan. For a long time, no one had a clue what was going on, least of all the authorities.

     

    If 26/11 was the making of Times Now, it was also a battleground for newspapers. The Times of India was at the spot and that gave it a massive advantage. But even though I was working there at the time, I have to give a big shout-out to DNA. I had watched in horror as DNA was paralysed during the July 2006 serial bomb blasts in the train service. I could not believe that I had just joined a newspaper which fell to pieces during a crisis like this – when it should in fact have claimed it as its own, as a new entrant to the Mumbai market.

     

    DNA redeemed itself during the November 2008 terror attacks. In one of those remarkable miracles – which I had seen once before in The Times of India’s Ahmedabad edition during the Gujarat 2002 riots – the newsroom rose as one. Internal conflicts and politics were put aside and everyone assumed responsibility. It was a stupendous effort and it showed in print. The other newspapers could not match us – for that time at least.

     

    The tragedy at the personal level remained however. Old friend and fellow journalist Sabina Sehgal did indeed die in the attacks on the Taj. And in another note, none of the promises made to Mumbai at that time have materialised.

     

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

     

  • There has been much discussion about whether the media has been conducting a witch hunt against Tarun Tejpal and Shoma Chaudhury. Ranjona Banerji addresses the issue

    Ranjona Banerji: Is there a trial by media on Tehelka?

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Is there a trial by media in the Tehelka case? Has the media conducted a witch hunt against Tarun Tejpal and Shoma Chaudhury after allegations of sexual assault bordering on rape were made public? As many in the media know and have pointed out, there are innumerable instances of sexual harassment within the media and in most cases justice has not been done to the victim. The Vishakha guidelines which everyone now quotes so freely are followed in only a few media offices.

     

    Looking back, coverage of this case hinged on a few key points. The first was the verbose bombast of Tejpal’s various letters of apology. The second was the release of the victim’s email which detailed the very serious charges against Tejpal. The third was Chaudhury’s aggressive posturing in front of reporters, especially her comment, “Are you the aggrieved party”.

     

    The gauntlet had now been thrown down to the rest of the media. And yes, as has been said before, the media is the aggrieved party. Everyone is the aggrieved party. For a journalist to ask this of another, shows how easily we forget our professional compulsions when matters become personal.

     

    There is another less savoury aspect to the reaction of the media. For all the sterling work that Tehelka did, many journalists were uncomfortable with sting operation journalism as well as with Tehelka’s very self-righteous approach. If there is anyone who knows that being self-righteous in the media is a sham, it is a journalist. We have to live on cynical pragmatism while following an idealistic principle. Being judge and jury is not our calling. Being the mirror is. To be sure, it’s a tightrope walk. So it is possible that many of us found Tehelka’s sanctimonious front a bid galling and that made this case a bit more intriguing.

     

    However, at the bottom of it all, lies some unacceptable behaviour and that has nothing to do with the feelings of the viewer. The change of stance by Tejpal, the stonewalling by Shoma Chaudhury, the tenacity of the victim who did not let go and did not capitulate all increased the interest in the event.

     

    And then came Tejpal’s bail application. Even if it was drafted by his lawyers, it contained every bit of misogynistic patriarchy that Tehelka itself has been fighting against. It blamed the victim, it questioned her behaviour after the alleged assault and it claimed that Tejpal was forced to write letters of apology by Chaudhury.

     

    Given all this, it is hardly surprising that the media has been following this case so closely. Add to that the political sideshow with Tejpal somehow blaming the BJP for his predicament and you have a story that no media outlet would miss.

     

    One could also argue that the level of media interest in gender stories has also increased since the December 2012 gangrape in Delhi. Also, while many are questioning why senior journalists are going after Tejpal and not protecting their own it is worth remembering that the victim is also one of our own.

     

    **

     

    The Tehelka case forced me to watch prime time news TV slugfests after almost six months. Most channels and anchors managed a few stimulating discussions on the subject mainly because they avoided inviting politicians: Karan Thapar (CNN-IBN), Nidhi Razdan (NDTV), Sagorika Ghose (CNN-IBN), Arnab Goswami (Times Now), Rajdeep Sardesai (CNN-IBN), various anchors on Headlines Today and NewsX.

     

    Once the politicians entered the scene, it all went downhill of course. And once politicians start behaving badly, all the other guests apparently believe that open season for lack of etiquette has begun. Interrupting, shouting over each other, refusing to answer the question asked – all the fine elements of a “debate” on English news channels in India. And Arnab Goswami I see has only grown in stature and now his whole show is unashamedly about his own opinions. My advice: dump the guests and have a nightly chat with the nation about what needs to be done.

     

    **

     

    Wags on social media have been pointing out that Tarun Tejpal has achieved what the might of the Congress party could not: knocked Narendra Modi off national television. Having said that, Tehelka will peter out sooner rather than later and the Gujarat surveillance case will be back.

     

    **

     

    And Cobrapost and Gulail have now informed the rest of us how politicians – and anyone else – use trickery and cheating to manipulate the social media. Expect some more on that.

     

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

     

  • Caravan magazine's long and detailed story into the running of Network18 talks of how founder Raghav Bahl has tilted to the political right, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: When journalists turn media barons

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Caravan magazine’s long and detailed story into the running of Network18 had remarkable similarities with the various stories doing the rounds of Tehelka. Raghav Bahl of Network18 and Tarun Tejpal of Tehelka have been portrayed as very ambitious journalists with grand ideas, some enormous success but both seem to carry the taint of questionable financial sources and dodgy financial practices when it came to their empires.

     

    There are differences too. Tehelka is much smaller than Network18 for one. And, as has been suggested by Caravan and in these columns earlier, Bahl has tilted to the political right while Tehelka and Tejpal are often accused by the BJP’s sympathisers as being Congress stooges.

     

    But this is not about politics. It is about what happens when journalists become media barons. Network18 has been in the news for cutting down on its staff with over 300 people losing their jobs. Media gossip says that these terminations were not done in a humane way – much of it was last-minute and many were not given enough of a safety net in terms of severance pay. An employee with another TV channel, which also cut back on staff but not to this extent, told me that his company made sure that people got at least a year’s pay in severance money, not just one month’s notice.

     

    Only a year before these terminations, Network18 was on a hiring spree and employees were told that the company was doing well. This turned out to be false and the company had to sell stake to Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries to survive. After the terminations, senior management went off to Macau for meeting with each other or whatever they call that corporate rubbish which sounds like a junket. A bit reminiscent of the behaviour of US bankers after they caused the global financial crash of 2008 or is that an unfair comparison?

     

    Tehelka’s finances were also a mess. Allegations have surfaced that while the Tejpal family were enjoying a holiday in London which included a fund-raising art auction, salary cheques bounced back in India. Also, the share ownership pattern of Tehelka appears to have been a merry tangle. Yet those who know Tejpal also say that he was exceedingly generous to his staff and his friends, often from his own pocket. Long before this scandal broke, a close associate had told me that Tejpal lived big when he had money, sharing it with friends and staff.

     

    Many journalists tired of the corporate or “malik” (owner) strangleholds on their profession dream of starting something by themselves so that they can pursue the stories they want and uphold the ideals that brought them here. Is there a morality tale in these two examples? From personal experience, I can safely say that most journalists I know are absolutely useless with money. Present company not excepted.

     

    **

     

    Tarun Tejpal and Tehelka have received any amount of flak from fellow journalists and other commentators. Veteran journalist BG Verghese has written this finely nuanced piece in The Indian Express on where the media went too far and how introspection is needed: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/a-gotcha-trial-by-media/1202488/

     

    **

     

    Calls to control the media or for the media to control itself continue unabated, especially the Talwar murder case. Somewhere hidden in Tuesday’s newspapers is the story of the Supreme Court issuing a notice to all states about media restraint and how an investigating officer should brief the media.

     

    Sometimes popular opinion also echoes this point of view. However while there is no doubt that sometimes the media can go too far or some within the media go too far, government intervention is not and cannot ever be the answer. Self-regulation for the media is the only way forward in a democracy.

     

    As for the Talwar case, I am intrigued by articles in the media saying that the media skewed public opinion against the Talwars, now held guilty by a special CBI court in the murders of their daughter Aarushi and domestic help, Hemraj. I can myself only remember scores of articles and columns insisting that the Talwars are innocent. Thus, perhaps it all evens out in the end.

     

    The media, in case it needs reminding, is not one cohesive body. It is a disparate collection of competing journals, channels and now websites.

     

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

     

  • It is almost impossible for anyone on Arnab Goswami's guest list to have an opinion that is not the same as his. This is a crime almost punishable in the court of popular opinion if not under the Indian Penal Code, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: How disagreement with Arnab is a crime

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The death of Nelson Mandela, the most recognised icon of freedom and equality in the second half of the 20th century, not unnaturally consumed news television on Friday morning. The anti-apartheid fighter-politician, who led South Africa to freedom from racist rule, was perhaps the most famous follower of Mahatma Gandhi in today’s world.

     

    Al Jazeera ran a very moving short film on Mandela’s life, CNN played US president Barack Obama’s reaction. The BBC showed live scenes in South Africa, where people celebrated “Madiba’s” life. Indeed most news channels concentrated on Mandela on Friday morning, with the best Mandela coverage from Headlines Today. The other Indian news channels (English) interspersed stories about Mandela’s death with other news of the day.

     

    **

     

    Every journalist and every newsroom yearns for a juicy story, something that you can really get your teeth into. But Indian news television often behaves like a pack of wild hunting dogs (or hyenas?) sensing their prey is getting away and going into frenzied attack mode. Watching the exit poll results being played out on TV seemed like that anyway. Not that the guests behaved any differently. There were charges and counter charges made at full volume – and not even from the much-blamed uncontrollable spokespersons for political parties. These were journalists, commentators, academics slugging it out.

     

    Times Now led the pack and as is now well-known amongst TV news watchers, no one can beat Arnab Goswami in full flow. He has effectively defeated all his rivals and is India’s prime anchor by a long shot. On Tuesday, he scampered and thundered all over his studio as the exit poll results were discussed, diagnosed and dissected down to the nth degree but of course as shallowly as possible, keeping the limits of TV in mind.

     

    Arnab-watching is now a separate spectator sport. Having returned to this arena after a six month hiatus (barring a few relapses here and there), it is evident that Goswami has only grown. Now, it is almost impossible for anyone on his guest list to have an opinion that is not the same as his. This is a crime almost punishable in the court of popular opinion if not under the Indian Penal Code.

     

    If this was the level of high-pitched excitement on the day of the exit polls, one can only imagine what is going to happen on Sunday, December 8 when the actual results are revealed. I think that it is time that jugglers, clowns and fireworks are made part of TV news discussions because they will add wonderfully to the carnival atmosphere. Indian news television has scaled new heights which even the most prescient and incisive 1975 film Network could not have foreseen.

     

    I cannot forecast whether the exit polls are right or wrong or somewhere in the middle or who’s winning and who’s losing but I can tell you that we’re in for a real tamasha treat on Sunday. Cancel those plans to hit the malls guys!

     

    For those who want some clarity into the exit polls before all is revealed on Sundays, these two opinion pieces may be of some help. Dileep Padgaonkar points to the “winds of change” blowing through the nation on The Times of India’e edit page http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/talking- terms/entry/congress_battered_bjp_upbeat_but_regional_ parties_will_be_game_changers_in_the_general_elections.

     

    And Seema Chishti provides an analytical breakdown of the significance of these elections in The Indian Express: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/signs-and-wonders/1203806/.

     

    **

     

    Clarification: Since there has been a tiny bit of confusion here, I would like to make it clear that this is an opinion piece and has been an opinion piece since I started writing it for mxmindia.com more than two years ago. Just thought I’d put that down in case anyone doesn’t get it.

     

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

     

  • Ranjona Banerji's found Rajya Sabha TV the best for election results given its latest figures and the studio being filled with journalists and analysts, not politicians and the discussions were robust but polite and interesting.

    Ranjona Banerji: Tweedledum, Tweedledee, Twitterdom

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Sunday was a busy day for the media and my heart goes out to all newspaper and web columnists whose profound writings are scheduled for that day. For just about anyone who was interested in the news was of course watching TV and tracking the results of four crucial Assembly elections.

     

    Also, some may have been there for the entertainment. Because news channels can sometimes top their counterparts in the general entertainment category when it comes to drama, melodrama, tension, denouements, overacting, hamming, emotion and any other over-the-top human reaction you can think of. Humour, outrage, sneering and jeering are to be found on social media, however.

     

    I started Sunday morning with NDTV, Prannoy Roy and Dorab Sopariwalla for old times’ sake and it was a soothing, enlightening, gentle humour-filled experience. This was marred somewhat by the presence of Meenakshi Lekhi of the BJP who may be many things but she is not a soothing experience. I switched between all the channels and watched the big guns at work. The most electrifying was of course Times Now which like is all the other channels combined plus a huge dose of amphetamines or maybe whatever Lance Armstrong was so fond of. Terrifying to watch actually.

     

    My vote then goes to Rajya Sabha TV. It has the latest figures. The studio was filled with journalists and analysts, not politicians and the discussions were robust but polite and interesting. I really admire Indian news addicts who crave the tamasha that is news television. I find it jarring and at the end of the day, extremely hollow. Several people I spoke to said they were happier tracking the elections results on Twitter, which is usually the first with information anyway. I myself was on Twitter while watching TV for most of Sunday.

     

    **

     

    By Sunday evening, discussions were about the demise of the Congress and the phenomenal success of the Aam Aadmi Party. The “Modi wave” was also discussed and on Sunday and Monday morning many commentators felt that the Gujarat chief minister and the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi had made a difference to the BJP’s four victories. By Monday evening and Tuesday morning, the “wave” had become a “ripple” as vote share and constituency wise figures trickled in.

     

    The lobster quadrille being danced out between the BJP and AAP in Delhi – where no one has a majority – dominated the news however. The whiting, the snail and the porpoise were not sure where to tread. There was and still is a sort of Carrollian air to these elections. Cheshire cats everywhere, Tweedledum and Tweedledee in usual combat and with the calls for leaders like Indira Gandhi, some Red Queens shouting “Off with their heads” will soon pop up.

     

    Tuesday’s newspapers are full of advice for both the Congress and Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party. The BJP won four states and will form a government in three but it is a bit eclipsed by the Congress’s remarkable losses and the AAP’s spectacular showing. Such is India that the results of the Mizoram assembly elections got a little lost.

     

    Anyway, the show, ladies and gentlemen, has just begun. Get a drink, settle down and enjoy the ride.

     

    **

     

    MS Dhoni has to thank Arvind Kejriwal because no one has noticed India’s dismal performance in South Africa except for diehard cricket fans. Columns however are undoubtedly being written to blame Sachin Tendulkar. Oh, wait, of course…

     

    **

     

    Tarun Tejpal too has been knocked off the headlines. Intriguing however is this massive defence of Shoma Chaudhury in The New York Times by well-known columnist Roger Cohen. Far be it from anyone to tell a columnist what to write about but a few more facts may have helped him to understand why Chaudhury faced as much flak as she did: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/10/opinion/the-beast-in-indias-midst.html?_r=0

     

    **

    And finally, this is a personal crusade and a little out of my territory. Sunsilk Shampoo has an ad on the front page of The Times of India’s Mumbai edition headlined: “Love your Straight Baal?” The copy goes on to read, “Every girl knows that there is one magic moment just after a shower when your hair is wet, aligned and perfectly straight.”

     

    This ad is a direct attack on people who do not have straight hair and especially people with curly hair. On behalf of all curly-haired people, I object. Nor do I know anything about this stupid supposedly “magic moment”. So there!

     

  • Television, which makes epics out of gossip, just about blanked the story out. There are allegations that some newspapers have taken critical stories off their websites, notes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Cagey media and the curious case of the Aston Martin accident

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The curious case of the Aston Martin accident in Mumbai continues to interest social media even as newspapers and news channels are tiptoeing around it. The reason for this discretion in an otherwise hysterical media is simple: the car belongs to Reliance. Even more, er, terrifying, is the fact that there are allegations that it was being driven by Mukesh Ambani’s son.

     

    Here’s the story so far, according to the cagey media – barring very brave all out coverage by Mumbai Mirror: At 1.30 am on Sunday morning, December 8, a speeding Aston Martin hit two cars on Peddar Road. Both cars suffered damage, the first moving across the divider to hit a bus on the other side. What is curious is that the Aston Martin was apparently followed by two other cars which bundled the driver out and away. There were, according to newspaper reports, no casualties: minor injuries all around. The car, said the police, was registered to Reliance Ports and Infrastructure.

     

    On December 9, a driver presented himself to the police and claimed responsibility. The problem started when the witnesses and victims claimed that the driver they saw was a young man not a portly middle-aged man with a moustache. The company claimed that the car had not been used so was being taken on a customary spin. The “rescue” of the driver by two cars following the Aston Martin was downplayed.

     

    Soon after this, mention of Reliance vanished from the papers and the story vanished too. Television, which makes epics out of gossip, just about blanked the story out. But social media has another more sinister version: various blogs and Twitter accounts claim that two people were killed that night and the deaths are being covered up because the man driving the car was Mukesh Ambani’s son.

     

    There you have it: a classic cover-up, “mistaken” identity or just an ordinary hit and run?

     

    There is no proof so far that anyone was killed. But there is ample proof that the media has not played up the story and there is ample suspicion that the facts don’t match the stories. This is from a Mumbai Mirror story of December 10: “One of the most vital questions that the police are seeking an answer to is that why were two Honda CRVs, with a large security detail, tailing a car driven by a chauffeur and not carrying any Ambani family member. They also want to know why the security personnel whisked the chauffeur away in one of their cars and did not report the matter to cops immediately.

     

    Foram Ruparel, 25, who was driving the Audi that was first hit by the Aston Martin, said she had a good view of the man driving that car. “I could see in the rear-view mirror the car was moving at a high speed, weaving left and right. And then, in a flash, it hit my car. I had a decent look at driver’s face. He was a young man,” she said.

     

    Foram said the driver of the Aston Martin tried to flee, but the car stalled a little distance ahead. “In seconds, there was a swarm of security men around the car and they bundled the driver into one of the SUVs and sped off,” she said.”

     

    There are also allegations that some newspapers have taken critical stories off their websites. There are some who claim that the same Aston Martin Rapide, which apparently costs Rs 4 crore, was seen at the party held by the Ambanis for Sachin Tendulkar. The fact is, Reliance has not denied owning the car. The questions being raised have to do with the driver.

     

    So far, this much is certain: the deaths have not been corroborated even by the witnesses who have been quite belligerent. And the media has definitely not been as diligent as it needs to have been. Has pressure been put on the media here to downplay the story? The evidence points that way… The enormous influence of the Ambanis and Reliance notwithstanding, some independent thought and action here would be most welcome. And all kudos to Mumbai Mirror for sticking to its guns.

     

  • We have this bizarre tendency to accrue to ourselves credit for any action or achievement of a person of Indian origin, even if those achievements have nothing to do with India, rues Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Ground keeps shifting on Devyani Khobragade case

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The affair Khobragade is getting stranger and stranger. The media seems to be divided between patriots and human rights activists. But this is still a case where the ground keeps shifting beneath your feet, so yesterday’s position can become today’s embarrassment.

     

    The first reaction upon hearing that Devyani Khobragade, part of the Indian consulate in the US, was arrested for not paying her maid fair wages according to US law was to bemoan this practice of ill-treating domestics which is rampant in India. Then the news said that Khobragade had been arrested and handcuffed in front of her children and strip searched and “cavity searched”. The pendulum promptly sprung to outrage against the US. Add to that dark conspiracy mutterings about how the maid in question, Sangita Richards and her family had been spirited away to the US to “save” them from harassment by India, how Richards’s in-laws worked as US embassy staff and you have a story fit for Lawrence Durrell’s Esprit d’Corps.

     

    There was much cheer that the Indian government – usually depicted as wimpish on news channels especially since we do not declare war on Pakistan and China every third day or on the whims of the anchor – had actually taken a tough stand. In between Arvind Kejriwal and Anna Hazare and the Lokpal Bill and Justice AK Ganguly, TV news carried footage of the barricades in front of the US embassy in New Delhi being demolished. Certainly a seminal freedom fighter movement for Indians born post-Independence.

     

    This was also a great time for foreign affairs experts to lend their weight and experience to the matter. The general consensus was that the US was high-handed, good that India stood tough and that domestics are routinely ill-treated in foreign lands. The Times of India in an edit said that had India been economically stronger, the US would never have done this to us. The Hindustan Times on Thursday had an excellent foreign affairs page which covered all aspects of the case. The Indian Express told us how the Khobragades, daughter Devyani and father Uttam, Maharashtra bureaucrat owned several properties, including in the controversial Adarsh building in Mumbai.

     

    I have one more take on this. The man responsible for taking all this strict action against Khobragade is a public prosecutor in New York called Preet Bharara. Bharara is of Indian origin. When he became prosecutor, the Indian media fell all over him as if he had singlehandedly found a cure for HIV/AIDS. We have this bizarre tendency to accrue to ourselves credit for any action or achievement of a person of Indian origin, even if those achievements have nothing to do with India. It is as if we are so insecure in ourselves that we need anything at all to give us solace or succour or just make us feel good about being Indian.

     

    But Bharara does not want to be Indian. He is an American. In fact, he seems to have insistently and steadfastly pursued erring South Asians, perhaps for reasons of his own. There was no need for the Indian media to fete him in the hysterical manner in which they did. This worship of NRIs and their doings has to stop. In 2009, when Venkataraman Ramakrishnan won a Nobel for Chemistry he made it very clear that he did not owe the Nobel to India, much to the embarrassment of a salivating media.

     

    One understands that there is a need to address the large Indian “diaspora” as they are called these days, regardless of the implications of the term, if only because many greedy Indians and governments want their foreign exchange. But there is a need to be circumspect and sensible, as the adulation of Bharara shows. And if we the media are really so concerned about addressing NRIs, why not investigate those who suffer the horrors of human trafficking and slave-like conditions when working abroad? Not all NRIs are aunties in polyester saris 40 years out of date carrying free diapers for poor relatives or aunties dressed in some abomination of a TV soap outfit who come to India only to shop for more ugly shiny clothes or even a New York prosecutor who wants to be more loyal than the king.

     

  • One can't really expect cynicism against their own government from the American media which made “embedded journalism” into an accepted form of the profession, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Patriotism rules in US media in Khobragade case

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The Devyani Khobragade and Sangeeta Richard case continue to dominate headlines mainly because it still remains so confusing. Every time you feel that the diplomat (or consular officer if you prefer) was the victim, some new bit of information surfaces that makes it clear that the domestic “assistant” was the one being mistreated. And so on. I watched Barkha Dutt’s ‘We the People’ on this subject and it answered none of the questions.

     

    Uttam Khobragade, Devyani’s father, was in a rage. The former Indian diplomats on the show dismissed the US’s actions and brought up their double standards. The diplomats said that the US had no jurisdiction on anything that happens in a contract between two Indians on what can be considered Indian “territory”. The academics and activists brought up the issue of the ill-treatment of domestics in India and by Indians. The sole American, a journalist with the New York Times, tried to defend his country’s actions in arresting Khobragade and brought up the issue of domestics.

     

    The audience, except for one person who said the US had to follow its own laws, was furious, although a few did accept that domestics were not treated well. Meanwhile, allegations have surfaced that Richard may be a CIA agent! On the face of it, this sounds a little far-fetched although it will give conspiracy theorists much to fulminate about.

     

    The US media however has sided firmly with their government and severely scolded India for forgetting the “other victim” – as in the domestic assistant. Edits and opeds in The New York Times, the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and for all I know the Poughkeepsie Bugle have all rapped us on the knuckles. Some of these have been written by well-known American columnists like Roger Cohen. Others have been written by the vast army of non-resident Indians who are all experts on India, having lived here until they were six and returned at 26. Good to know that the patriotic journalist is alive and well. I however would have expected more cynicism against their government from American journalists but perhaps not from a media which made “embedded journalism” into an accepted form of the profession?

     

    In India, however confusion or freedom of speech reigns and different columnists and editorial writers have taken different stands on the issue.

     

    **

     

    How do you spell “aam aadmi” as in the common man as in the name of India’s newest and most definitive political party? The general consensus would be “aam aadmi” but The Times of India has bucked the trend and gone with “aam admi”. Sounds and looks odd.

     

    **

     

    Is it because of sustained social media pressure that mainstream newspapers have started covering the Aston Martin accident on Pedder Road again? After silence for a few days, the name “Reliance” has surfaced again in newspaper reports. However, these are just tiny little single columns…

     

    **

     

    I was part of a panel discussion at the St Pauls Institute of Communication Education in Mumbai’s Bandra area on Saturday, December 21, where the subject was, “The Media vs Tarun Tejpal: Activism or Selective Conscience. My fellow panellists were Bharat Kumar Raut, a senior journalist and currently a Rajya Sabha MP, Dilip D’Souza, author and columnist and Swati Deshpande, legal editor of The Times of India. The discussion was moderated by Shashi Baliga, a senior journalist, columnist and executive director of Literature Live.

     

    It was a lively chat where each of us had our unique perspective but the general consensus was that the media was right in the way it covered the Tejpal case, even if there was some overstepping of boundaries. Heartening was the fact that the media knows that it has been lax about dealing with internal cases of sexual harassment.

     

  • The internet has busted everyone and there is no protection for journalists any more, as public pressure makes cover-ups difficult, writes Ranjona Banerji.

    The Year in News Media

     

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    It’s Tarun Tejpal, right? I cannot think of a bigger media story of 2013. The outrages before that had been layoffs, ill-treatment by employers, closing down of publications. Network 18 and Outlook group were most talked about on those issues.

     

    We even had a few high-profile sackings. The Hindu suddenly decided that it no longer wanted the services of editor-in-chief Siddharth Vardarajan. This was a bit of a surprise since Vardarajan had been appointed the year before with much drama: highlighting the immense family feud which is the Hindu board, where N Ram had overridden everyone else. Ram had then claimed that the newspaper had to employ professional journalists for the top posts and not keep it all in the family. However, along the way he changed his mind, and some of the siblings joined forces, ousted Vardarajan and took control of the paper again. It should be noted that some family members disagreed with this decision and against Ram’s claiming two votes for himself.

     

    Hartosh Singh Bal, political editor of Open magazine, was also “let go”, he said because the owner (Sanjiv Goenka) didn’t like his political leanings. Goenka said he didn’t and never had liked Bal. Manu Joseph said he had protected Bal as long as he could but could not do so any more. Bal said he was going to sue Open because for too long had owners taken journalists for a ride.

     

    Forbes magazine saw the exit of its top editorial staff as well as its CEO, seen by many as part of Network 18’s downsizing drive. The senior staff also said they would take legal action against the group.

     

    Television saw many sackings but few of them were high profile. Hundreds of nameless and faceless video journalists and support staff were not interviewed by top television anchors and who knows if they have exercised the option of a judicial solution.

     

    The stomach-wrenching gangrape of a young photojournalist out on assignment in Mumbai brought the issue of women’s safety in public places back to the front pages. The young woman was accompanied by a male colleague, it was still daylight and although they were in a deserted mill, it was situated in a crowded part of the city. The nation mourned at one more heinous assault and marvelled at the courage of one more woman.

     

    And then there was Tehelka. The story about editor-in-chief and founder Tarun Tejpal and his “alleged” assault on a young reporter who worked for him broke suddenly and each passing day provided new shocking material. The assaults happened in Goa, during the ‘Thinkfest’ which is some sort of a Tehelka subsidiary. The reporter complained to Tehelka managing editor Shoma Chaudhury that Tejpal had assaulted her 10 days before and then within days, the Tehelka story was over, nothing was secret or hidden and Tejpal was in judicial custody.

     

    The lessons for the media seem pretty clear. For one, there is no protection for journalists any more, especially from fellow journalists. Public pressure if nothing else will make cover-ups difficult, if the supposed transgression causes enough outrage. For another, the internet has busted everyone and it is in control in its own crazy haphazard way.  The way information spreads (or even misinformation for that matter) and the way the sender can be anonymous, you cannot be surprised that the word given to it is “viral”.

     

    So Tarun Tejpal and Shoma Chaudhury became “victims” of this new world where little can remain secret. And set a message to the media that while it must highlight everyone else’s misdemeanours, it cannot ignore its own. How effectively we take that into the future remains to be seen… my bets are on more mistakes before better sense hits people on the head.

     

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

     

  • The problem is the positioning of the Headlines Today sting as a failure of a nine-day-old government and the insinuation that the new party has already fallen apart on its promises, notes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Knives out for AAP & Kejriwal as media tries to be judge, jury & executioner

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    When the India Against Corruption movement started two years ago, I like so many else, watched its genesis with amazement on TV. I got so amazed in fact at the crowds that I dragged a friend of mine, who is interested in political affairs, to Mumbai’s Azad Maidan to see these massive crowds of people coming out in solidarity against corruption.

     

    Alas, like corruption is endemic in the Indian system so is exaggeration in the media. There were barely 500 people at Azad Maidan. Luckily for disappointed journalists, the Press Club is pretty close to Azad Maidan and we could drown our murdered amazement and toast our inherent cynicism with plenty of gin, vodka and as other friends joined us, rum.

     

    Reporters I spoke to who had spent more time at the rally said crowds rose to about 1000. At the basis of a journalist’s mindset is cynicism or for those of a kinder mien, scepticism. And the reason for this long-winded personal recounting is that I could no longer look at the India Against Corruption movement with anything but a questioning air after that day in Azad Maidan.

     

    If I had believed TV news, I would have thought this really was comparable to the Independence Movement, to Jayaprakash Narain’s revolt against Indira Gandhi and so on. And when the last India Against Corruption meeting in Mumbai’s MMRDA grounds in Bandra fizzled out one December, it seemed to be in the fitness of things.

     

    However, even cynics like me must acknowledge that Arvind Kejriwal and the Aam Aadmi Party have pulled off a coup in the Delhi Assembly elections. They have shaken the political establishment and sent strategists running for cover. But the media reaction is most curious of all. The media built both IAC and AAP, and in the run up to the election gave more coverage to the candidate for Delhi chief minister than even to the BJP’s prime ministerial hopeful.

     

    But as soon as the government was formed, the knives were out. The same TV channels which had lauded Kejriwal and the AAP as the greatest political invention since democracy was established by the ancient Greeks now decided to expose their somewhat extravagant promises. Let’s take Headlines Today’s latest sting operation on corruption in various government departments in Delhi. By itself the Headlines Today sting was a brave and necessary act of journalism, even for someone who is ambivalent on sting operations which create news rather than report on them.

     

    The problem is the positioning of the sting as a failure of a nine-day-old government and the insinuation that the new party has already fallen apart on its promises. Maybe the government will fail and maybe it won’t. But this judge, jury and executioner attitude of the media does not do it credit. Moreover, it sounds both childish and churlish.

     

    By all means do a sting operation but present it as just that – the continuing shameless manipulation of the system by petty government officers and bureaucrats. Sentencing can wait. It ruins a perfectly good expose of government corruption if nothing else.

     

    The rest of TV seems unable to get out of a Congress-versus-Bharatiya Janata Party mindset. Everything that happens is seen through that prism and it is definitely tedious and boring now. The same faces saying the same things everyday and the same accusations being exchanged. There has to be something more to a journalists’ life than this.

     

    Meanwhile Lok Sabha TV had an excellent and informative discussion on the recent elections in Bangladesh and the skewed attitudes of western powers when it comes to South Asia. You know Bangladesh? That country next door?

     

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

     

  • Watching Arnab Goswami and Rahul Kanwal makes Ranjona Banerji feel for the star anchors. What they really want is a platform where they can share their opinions with the world, she writes. Instead, they’re stuck in a format where they have to ask other people for their opinions

    Ranjona Banerji: Debauchery UnLtd on News TV

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    There are few things in the media as amusing as the manufactured outrage of TV anchors as they work themselves into a state over some burning issue of the day. In this case, the case was that of freezing but the anger was far from cold. Imagine this list of horrors: people freezing in riot-relief camps in Muzaffarnagar, UP. Children dying from the cold. And UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and his father Mulayam Singh Yadav got Bollywood stars to dance at a function at their village, Saifai. And 17 UP legislators including several ministers skipped off on a “study tour” of Egypt, Venice and the UK amongst other destinations in spite of strict proscriptions from news channels.

     

    The sheer disobedience of these politicians is not to be countenanced. It was not for nothing that Arnab Goswami informed a Samajwadi politician from Mumbai in stentorian tones: “It is time you politicians learnt to listen.” The “to me” was implied and not missed by anyone.

     

    Arnab Goswami, I have to say, was at his best. His lip curling, his constant use of the word “debauchery” to describe Bollywood dances, the utter contempt in his voice as he spat out the phrase, “nagin dance” to describe the “snake dances” so popular in Indian cinema: these were all gems that had the making of a classic News Hour debate. In fact, debauchery was the word du jour as it was repeated across channels to explain what was happening in Saifai, with images of Madhuri Dixit and random starlets (at least I think they were starlets) wiggling their hips and bosoms across our TV screens.

     

    It is true that the extravaganza at Saifai was inappropriate and deeply lacking in compassion in light of what was happening in Muzaffarnagar. But everything that happened in Muzaffarnagar was an abomination from the riots to the post-riot reactions. The song and dance at Saifai was just one more example of this.

     

    It was intriguing though that there was no Bollywood rep on the Times Hour debate to explain just why stars like Salman Khan and Madhuri Dixit had agreed to dance for Mulayam and son. And I have to say I have seen senior TV anchors (and this includes Goswami) just snivelling and grovelling in front of Bollywood’s most vacuous and vapid “stars”. If they were so angry with Bollywood for going to Saifai, there’s no point shouting at politicians. Get the whole of civil society involved in the discussion and ask Bollywood point blank why it is so brainless and lacking in compassion. Or even common sense. Don’t just expound on the issue. And try and remember a bit of this outrage the next time you make some movie star your guest editor for the day just in time for the release of his or her new movie.

     

    Watching News Hour and some of Rahul Kanwal’s Centre Stage on Headlines Today, you have to feel for these star TV anchors. What they really want is a platform where they can share their opinions with the world. Instead, they’re stuck in a format where they have to ask other people for their opinions. I would advise Indian television news once again to watch the film Network and craft programmes based on Howard Beale’s long rants (so brilliantly played by Peter Finch). That way, these TV stars will not have to be forced to listen to other people’s opinions when all they want to do is editorialise. I must say us print-wallahs have it much easier because we have platforms available where we can share our opinions.

     

    Of the shows in this format, Karan Thapar’s Last Word on CNN-IBN and Nidhi Razdan’s Left Right and Centre remain the least hysterical. The others? Well, they’re all mad as hell and don’t want to take it any more. So let them tell us freely and openly, no?

     

  • The BBC World Service weather reports on India needs to get real, notes Ranjona Banerji. And the English news channels must think of a world other than Arvind Kejriwal and AAP.

    Ranjona Banerji: No ‘fine and dry’ puhleez, dear BBC!

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    I have spent the last three weeks reading back issues of Time magazine. And I am amazed that their rewriting style (from what I recall, you are not really allowed to have a writing style at Time) has not changed at all. The same inverted sentences. The same twist at the end. The same short phrases to try and be current, even though some go back at least 25 years. This is testament to Time’s covenant with its principles – stick to what you started with even if your readership is shrinking and everyone around you has changed. A tip of the hat to this nostalgia-inducing standard practice: I practically went back to my childhood which was… well, it was a long time ago. You don’t want to know!

     

    **

     

    I have to confess that I have not read too many newspapers (this is a gross exaggeration: I have read precisely two) in the past 10 days. I have kept up with the news through social media and through some television. And by watching English news channels, you may forget that India is such a massive country.

     

    Instead: there is Arvind Kejriwal, chief minister of Delhi. Now New Delhi may be India’s national capital and it may have a state government but it cannot compare to any other state government. The chief minister of Delhi is responsible for about a quarter of the things – I am being generous here – that other chief ministers contend with. Yet, we have national news channels behaving like local cable news channels. What Kejriwal had for breakfast, what he wears to bed, the progress of his cold, how Delhi government officials may well be crooked, how to get a water connection in Delhi and on and on and on. We get it. Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party achieved something miraculous in the Delhi assembly elections. Now move on. Other things are happening in the rest of India.

     

    The rest of TV news however is as blinkered. We are stuck in an endless spiral of Congress versus BJP fistfights. One party says blue so the other says yellow and it never ends. News channels set themselves up as pasties here as shrewd politicians play them for fools so easily. We understand that newsgathering is expensive and laborious. We know that TV has to look for instant gratification. We are aware that fighting for attention is a mug’s game. But still, it would be interesting once in a while to watch television and just get a picture of what’s happening in the world instead of a tailored picture of what might possibly create the most sensation.

     

    **

     

    This is a request to the BBC World Service’s weather department. We understand that the English are obsessed with the rain and crave the sun. But the whole world is not England. India for instance gets most of its rain from the monsoon. It rains sporadically in a few parts of India outside the monsoon – and most of this rainfall follows a very specific meteorological pattern. We in India are taught this as school children. For instance, if it rains in Mumbai consistently after the monsoon is over then it is a possible indication that the world’s climate is undergoing some immediate catastrophic crisis. Similarly, some parts of South India get the retreating monsoon. The North will be affected by westerly disturbances and it will snow in the Himalayas in winter.

     

    So we need some pertinent weather forecasts from the BBC World Service. Like when people are dying of the cold in North India, we don’t need to be told that the weather is “fine and dry”. We need to be told about falling temperatures. We know that it is not likely to rain in Madhya Pradesh in December. So “fine and dry” are tautological. Conversely, when there is a heat wave in summer and people are dying, “fine and dry” sounds like a slap in face. Summer is when we crave for rain, really, we pray for the monsoon. We sing those Bollywood songs your pop culture experts are so fond of.

     

    Also, when you run weather forecasts for the British in Britain on the BBC, you can advise them where to holiday. But for the World Service, it might be nice to concentrate on us. And tell us the weather of the world as well – there could have been more on the polar vortex, on the heat wave in Australia, on flooding in Europe. Please don’t take this badly. It’s just we’re so tired of “fine and dry”.

     

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