MxMIndia

Category: COLUMNS

  • In Freaking News, Ranjona Banerji reviews the fare on primetime news and the morning papers

    Raking up Ramanujan

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    How intriguing that several weeks after other newspapers have debated the removal of AK Ramanujan’s essay on India’s many Ramayanas from the Delhi University history course, that The Times of India should not only pick up on it but give it front page treatment. Nothing new has happened on the issue this week and the article reads more like an overview rather than a news story. Many years ago when Mumbai was Bombay and TOI had very little competition in the city, the newspaper’s arrogance seemingly declared that something was not news till TOI carried it, sometimes a week after it happened.

     

    However, it is good that the Times has given so much coverage to the subject, which so far has been largely restricted to edit pages. Ramanujan’s essay upset the Hindutva brigade which pressured the university to drop it. The BVP also apparently targeted the prime minister’s daughter Upinder Singh since she was on the committee which picked the essay. Ramanujan’s academic credentials are impeccable and the essay has been there for four years. The politics of the protesters and those who gave in to them seems to have won the day and this is one more death knell for free thought in India. Now how about a TV discussion on this, with all our usual suspects?

     

    **

     

    NDTV’s Politically Incorrect between Mani Shankar Aiyar and Swapan Dasgupta had an interesting discussion on FDI in retail. In keeping with the programme’s format, Aiyar and Dasgupta batted for opposing sides. That is, Aiyar (Congress) was against FDI while Dasgupta (BJP) was for it. In some sense, that matches the positions which one would expect these two parties to take. It also demonstrates how difficult it is to maintain strict ideological positions in today’s politics – 20th century divisions are now passé and we need new definitions perhaps.

     

    **

     

    Meanwhile on Times Now, it is evident that even the great champion of Anna Hazare, Arnab Goswami, is getting a little tired of this anti-corruption movement’s obstinacy. As the discussion on the Lopkal bill went round and round, the viewer knows this much: Although Team Anna’s desire for an anti-corruption bill is commendable, this constant desire to go on hunger strikes when anyone disagrees with them is getting tiresome.

     

    Medha Patkar, an old hand at such movements, was actually quite honest when she admitted that stridency and supposed stubbornness is a well thought out strategy to keep the issue alive.

     

    **

     

    If you can catch the BBC documentary Secret Pakistan, please don’t miss it.

  • In Freaking News, Ranjona Banerji reviews the fare on primetime news and the morning papers

    R.I.P, Dev Saab

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The death of Dev Anand, not unnaturally, took up most of Sunday’s news and a good proportion of Monday’s newspapers. To the more maudlin amongst us, it seems that 2011 has stolen many of our “icons” (The cynical might argue that death is inevitable). But when it comes to Dev Anand, no amount of mourning is enough and no encomium over the top. This is a loss of an amazing spirit and an irrepressible zest for life. In this ego-ridden world, Anand refused to rest on his past laurels and kept looking ahead to his new ventures. He did not seem fazed – or if he was he did not let them daunt him – by his many failures in the last 20 years. He just kept on. The Times of India most appropriately headlined their lead, ‘India’s Youngest Star Dies at 88’.

     

    From being one of the triumvirate who ruled Hindi cinema in the 1950s,60s and even the 70s and beyond, to a whimsical director who refused to be defeated either by age or opinion, Dev Anand carried the flag of both the golden age as well as the future.

     

    The fact is that Anand was criticised through the later part of his life – albeit affectionately – and he took it all in his stride. In death, then, we can only look back on a glorious life.

     

    **

     

    Most called Anand’s death ‘end of an era’, which indeed it does signify. The international media has picked it up as well and not just because Anand died in London. Bollywood and India’s reach is now well known. But Anand also made a name for himself a long time ago with Guide. Renowned novelist Pearl Buck adapted RK Narayan’s novel for the 1956 English version of the movie. The Hindustan Times, harking back to one of Dev Anand’s seminal films, headlined their second lead, ‘Indian cinema loses its ‘Guide’. Though one is not sure whether Anand would have been happy with being called a guide; perhaps he saw himself more as a trailblazer! (It is another matter that the making and final versions of Guide, gave Narayan close to a nervous breakdown!)

     

    **

     

    The newspapers have been full of tributes and over the next weeks we are bound to see more, from those who know him well, those who met him only once, the various people he introduced to cinema and his millions of fans.

     

    **

     

    Based on a conversation on Twitter and my own observation, it appears that reporters have so much to thank social media and micro-blogging for. The tedious task of calling people for reactions to some event has now been replaced by logging on to twitter and taking down comments. So much easier than conventional calls and with no chance of the person being “misquoted”?

     

    (Unless of course you quote Suhel Seth whose twitter account is apparently hacked into at regular intervals!)

  • In Freaking News, Ranjona Banerji finds there's confusion everywhere… in the papers and the news channels

    Mid-Day Delhi & Bengaluru closure a shame

     Ranjona Banerji

     

    The day started with the sad news that Mid-Day was closing down its Delhi and Bangalore editions with immediate effect. Undoubtedly the owners have their reasons but it is still a shame.

     

    Having worked with Mid-Day many years ago and also having been part of a publication which shut down years before that, I can feel the pain. Commiserations to all involved.

     

    **

     

    Part of Tuesday on television and twitter was about Kapil Sibal wanting websites like Google and Facebook to screen “offensive” content on the internet. Outrage broke out on all levels. So far, except for China, no government has had much success with patrolling or reining in the internet, so good luck to Sibal and the government. Initial reactions have been largely over the top with twitterers and TV commentators rushing to protect India’s democracy, Article 19 A and so on. Without irony (actually irony is conspicuous by its absence on Indian television), Times Now rushed to Varun Gandhi to get his opinion on free speech, he of course, is known for an infamous hate speech.

     

    **

     

    Kudos to Mumbai Mirror on its story that “fans” were paid Rs 300 each to cheer for Hollywood star Tom Cruise, who was on a Mission Impossible promo visit to India. Since almost nothing in the media appears to be real, when it comes to entertainment, why not pay for a few people to cheer? The whole celebrity-entertainment culture appears to be a carefully constructed falsehood – and the media is an integral part of this.

     

    Sadly for the PR genius who came up with this scheme, the death of cinema stalwart Dev Anand pushed Cruise off the main Indian news pages and segments. Also, isn’t Rs 300 a bit cheap for a star as big as Tom Cruise?

     

    **

     

    Congratulations to film star Aamir Khan and his director wife Kiran Rao on their new baby. Good for them that they told the world it was through an In Vitro Fertilisation-surrogate process, thus giving untold free publicity to the expensive IVF process and its doctors. But is this headline in Hindustan Times’ HT Café appropriate: “Baby Boy! Produced by Aamir Khan, Directed by Kiran Rao’?

     

    Cleverness gone too far, I think.

  • In Freaking News, Ranjona Banerji reviews the fare on primetime news and the morning papers

    Social media hits back at Sibal

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

     The might of social media came straight down on Union minister Kapil Sibal on Tuesday after he tried to control, contain and coerce the internet into submission. Not only did the websites he spoke to refuse to screen content before it goes online, internet users also spewed venom at him. Those who tried to defend the minister’s position also felt the wrath of the people – former minister Shashi Tharoor and cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle for instance.

     

    Sibal said that after “offensive” comments and pictures on the net were brought to his notice, he got in touch with some websites and asked them to screen such content before it goes online. He pointed out that the cultural sensitivities of India had to be protected.

     

    Does the minister have a point? The problem for him though is that the internet is notoriously (and gloriously) indifferent to regulation. Its users guard their freedom very effectively and the effort to control them would be time-consuming, expensive and largely futile.

     

    TV on Tuesday night was bristling with rage – though I should clarify that. Times Now and CNNIBN bristled, NDTV was bothered about surrogacy (more publicity for Aamir Khan) and after that, showed We The People Again.

     

    For the first time since I have seen Suhel Seth on television (I confess here that he and I went to the same school for some years in Calcutta, at the same time), he did a commendable job yesterday. As Chandan Mitra was extolling the virtues of a tolerant India and the importance of freedom of speech, at the same time likening the Congress Party to the devil, Seth reminded Mitra that December 6 was the anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, which does not say much for Indian tolerance. He also asked Mitra to reveal what he felt about freedom of speech and expression in the context of MF Husain and the controversy over the late artist’s depiction of Hindu deities. Mitra promptly changed his tune and was not quite so much in favour of freedom of expression. This is fact brought him closer to the song which Sibal is singing? Goswami, to his credit, pointed out to Mitra that he had changed his position. Anyway, Seth and Mitra got into spat and that ended what anyone else had to say.

     

    As a result, like all TV debates, there was more bombast that substance. It took today’s newspapers to tell us that the government is considering fines for offensive material and is formulating a code of conduct.

     

    Twitter and Facebook however continued their anger into Wednesday. India was likened to China (which is infamously terrified of freedom), the Emergency was harked back to, Sibal was compared to a Taliban cleric and the defining word – used in defiance of course – for Sibal was “idiot”.

     

    Not a nice day in the office for the minister!

     

    **

     

    The amount of publicity given to Aamir Khan’s baby via IVF and surrogacy has raised this cynic’s suspicions. Is there some sort of a publicity campaign going on for IVF clinics? Having done a number of stories on the procedure in my youth, I am surprised to see that the downside of IVF – high cost and low success rate to name two – is hardly being discussed.

     

    Surrogacy however has had some discussion on it.

     

    **

     

    V Gangadhar’s satirical piece on the edit page of The Hindustan Times is worth a read for a chuckle. He’s had a little gentle fun with the tributes to the late actor Dev Anand, which have been written by the unlikeliest of people.

     

  • In Freaking News, Ranjona Banerji reviews the fare on primetime news and the morning papers

    Much admiration for glam add-ons

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Just to entertain myself, I decide to read the glamour supplements of The Times of India and Hindustan Times. Though now I am not sure whether entertainment or aggravation is what I was looking for. Since the arrival of Medianet and its variations in other newspapers, I usually ignore Bombay Times, HT Cafe and the entertainment/celebrity sections of all newspapers. Disclosure: I used to write a restaurant review for DNA After.Hrs but I haven’t seen that either for over a year and many years ago, I edited the Ahmedabad Times and Baroda Times. This takes nothing away from my life as I have minimal interest in Bollywood and tinpot celebs.

     

    So what have I learnt today? That a supermodel I had never heard of (though they told us her name) has agreed to launch a perfume (which was not named). This unnamed perfume will cost a million dollars and proceeds from sales will go to charity (named). So what do I make of this? That the supermodel paid Bombay Times, while the perfume and charity did not? Or that the editors just take the line of least resistance and do not name whoever had paying potential?

     

    This then turned into a fun game. Ekta Kapoor made an appearance (some new movie or something) on the front pages of both Bombay Times and HT Cafe. Money paid or not? Time Out has its food awards this week. HT Cafe covered it, Bombay Times did not. Because Bombay Times has its own awards or… By the way, these are the people whose pictures appeared in HT Cafe as guests or presenters at the Time Out awards: Abhay Deol, Malaika Arora Khan, Neha Dhupia, Shahana Goswami, Mahie Gill, Kalki Koechlin and Shruti Shah. Barring Deol and Dhupia (though it could be her large dress), none of the others looked like they’d eaten a meal in two weeks. Two winning chefs got a mention in the accompanying paragraph and no restaurants were mentioned (paid or not…?).

     

    A story on French producer (called veteran, which means just about anything) Marc Zermati is headlined ‘I’m not interested in Bollywood bulls**t’ is next to the Time Out story which perhaps shows someone in HT Cafe has a great sense of irony or none at all.

     

    Both Bombay Times and HT Cafe have the same people in the lead: Priyanka Chopra and Hrithik Roshan. Bombay Times says they both get ‘wet and naughty’. (Actually the headline says ‘Hrithik and PC get wet and naughty’ so for a moment I thought it had something to do with Hrithik and computer porn. The pic showed them really close, so give me a break). HT Cafe has Priyanka Chopra saying there is no “lip-lock” in this movie. So don’t get disappointed when you watch it, presumably.

     

    I was pleased to see that I no longer needed a magnifying glass to read my fortune in Bombay Times but was disappointed to see that it did not say reading “advertorial entertainment promotional features is bad for mental health”.

     

    Anyway, by this time I was so bored that I had to stop.

     

    Question for those who make them and those who read them: how do you guys do it? Full admiration!

  • In Freaking News, Ranjona Banerji reviews the fare on prime time news and the morning papers

    Channels need to develop editing skills

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The fire at the AMRI hospital in Kolkata was one of those tragedies which challenge our skills as journalists. And how did we come out of it? Perhaps some of the visuals on television of mourning relatives were too much to handle as was the fear of having to look at victims of the fire but on the whole, not a bad job.

     

    TV channels went from covering the news to opinions but perhaps reporters still have to learn that editorialising should be left to those in the studio. Many commended Monideepa Banerjee of NDTV for her clear, concise reporting – experience probably helps (all right, it definitely does).

     

    Also, TV channels might do well to develop some editing skills. A clearly awe-struck reporter on Times Now was full of admiration for west Bengal chief minister’s efforts to help the situation from the ground when common sense would have told him that she would only have been hindering efforts. It took Saturday’s newspapers to point that out.

     

    The stories of how the fire spread and the deaths of helpless patients are horrifying in themselves. TV was quick to pick up on culpability and newspapers have gone further by looking at the lacunae in fire safety protocols across the country. (Needless to say they are more honoured in the breach.)

     

    The Kolkata (or in the case of The Telegraph, Calcutta) newspapers obviously have more details about the incident and were somewhat more scathing. It would be interesting to know just why the patients were locked in by the guards. Also, how much further we will follow this story – how soon, for instance, will all the board members currently arrested be out on bail and get away scot-free?

     

    **

     

    The Lokpal draft was released by the Parliamentary committee on Friday but the Kolkata fire seemed to have topped all other news stories – perhaps appropriately. Team Anna as usual started spitting fire and venom and Prashant Bhushan, called for some kind of a revolution against our democratic system – or so it seemed to me.

     

    No one else appears to have picked it up.

     

    Personally, I would be interested to know if the India Against Corruption movement also targets non-government corruption. The AMRI fire was evidently a case of private sector fraud. Any takers?

     

    **

     

    The Calcutta Club debate aired on Times Now was interesting – the subject was whether the means justify the ends, with reference to the Jan Lokpal movement and Team Anna. Of the six speakers – Salman Kurshid, Sitaram Yechury, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Sudhir K Singh, Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi – only Kejriwal and Bedi had severe problems understanding the protocol of a formal debate. They seemed to believe this was a normal TV haranguing match. Moderator Arnab Goswami had to work hard to ensure discipline and was tougher than he is on his TV extravaganzas. The politicians were civilised and Sudhir K Singh made the most sense.

  • In Freaking News, Ranjona Banerji reviews the fare on prime time news and the morning papers

    Hazare rules. Absolutely!

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Such tremendous excitement there was in TV land on Sunday morning. Anna Hazare and his band of merry anti-corruptionists were going to have a public debate on the Lokpal Bill, the perfidy of the Congress and the lies of the government and Hazare was going on a token hunger strike as well.

     

    From 8.30 am, all other news in India and the world came to a standstill. Not even the tragedy in Kolkata could compete with this momentous event. First, we all went with Hazare to Rajghat, so he could meditate. In the irony-free world that is TV news, it occurred to no one that calling Hazare a ‘Gandhian” is a bit of a misfit. Gandhi, for all that he approved of abstention from alcohol, had never recommended public flogging for drinkers. That is just one example of course.

     

    As Hazare sat at Rajghat, crowds gathered at various venues in India, to show their solidarity with this anti-corruption movement. Breathless reporters could not contain their exuberance at being part of such a movement. “If my cameraperson can pan the crowd, at least 200 people have shown up”, said the reporter. Elsewhere it was as many as 1200 people (compared to 200 that’s a lot!).

     

    It took Monday morning’s papers to tell us that the biggest crowd was in Delhi (18,000) and Mumbai managed 4000.One newspaper even had the temerity to report on critics of India Against Corruption, something which TV finds very difficult to do.

     

    Meanwhile, the rest of the world kept turning but you never would have known it.

     

    **

    The Times of India in Mumbai has decided to make an impact on Mumbai readers by taking up various issues with a massive first page edit marking its commitment to the city. Hindustan Times meanwhile continues with its own special reports focusing on various aspects of city life. This means that other city newspapers will have to step up their games.

     

    The AMRI hospital fire may have vanished from TV on Sunday but the newspapers carried on with the stories and examined the shortcomings in hospitals across the country. Hardly surprisingly, the situation is almost universally dismal.

     

    **

     

    It was interesting to read about Delhi’s 100th birthday as the capital of India. (Although technically I think that’s 100 years as the capital as decided by the British. Delhi has had capital status in earlier times as well, if my memory serves me right.) Anyway, there has been some interesting writing about the old city, the new growths and migrations, the history, the quirks and the people. Delhi often gets short shrift compared to other Indian cities so this was a welcome change.

     

    **

     

    Absolutely: an adverb which means totally, completely, without exception, from absolute which means free from restriction, unadulterated, complete, outright. In which case, what does one make of the following conversation:

     

    Anchor to reporter: “Give us a sense of what is going on at the assembly/fire/stadium.”

     

    Reporter: ‘Well, MLAs have thrown chairs/ many people are dead/ India has won the series.”

     

    Anchor: Absolutely.

     

    I have nothing further to say on the matter. Absolutely nothing. Absolutely.

  • In Freaking News, Ranjona Banerji reviews the fare on prime time news and the morning papers

    It’s the economy, stupid

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Perhaps appropriately, the problems of the Indian economy have taken centre-stage. Some newspapers are concentrating on the falling rupee while others are concerned about the falling industrial growth rate. Both seem to be legitimate headlines. The general consensus seems to be lack of governance and the general drift of UPA II. Says The Times of India in its editorial on Wednesday, “If the political class needs a crisis to see that policy gridlock is strangling our economy, then that crisis is upon us… But the onus is also on the opposition to forego bloody-minded politics which makes the government’s job harder.”

     

    The Indian Express in its editorial concentrates on decline on the Index of Industrial Production and comments, “Unfortunately the slowdown has hit us at a time when real interest rates are negative.” However it cautions the Reserve Bank to wait and watch before “taking action”. It also brings up the valid point of many students coming out of management institutes being unable to find jobs if industrial and services growth on a downward spiral.

     

    The Deccan Chronicle in its editorial looks at how Indian companies are now looking abroad to invest their money, given the situation in India. “What India and the economy urgently needs to grow at this point is low inflation, low interest rates, immediate implementation of the new manufacturing and procurement policy, and a business-friendly transparent environment to unleash India’s unmatched entrepreneurial strengths.”

     

    The Economic Times carries a feature on the rupee crisis headlined “India Inc sends an SoS to RBI’. A Subba Rao of the GMR group is quoted as saying, “It’s like a natural calamity, like a tsunami… with the rupee falling so fast and so sharply, there is only so much you can do.”

     

    A discussion on Times Now on Tuesday had FICCI chairman Rajiv Kumar practically begging politicians to sort our their problems and prevent a further downslide in the economy. His predictions were dire unlike Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s somewhat sanguine assurances that things were not so bad.

     

    **

     

    Given our current obsession with corruption, two stories in Wednesday’s newspapers deserve attention. The Telegraph, Calcutta, has a story on how the Jyoti Basu government handed the AMRI hospital land in the Dhakuria area of Kolkata between 1994 and 1998 at rates that will remain frozen till at least 2024. Unlike other such deals, there are apparently no provisions for revision of the rental rates. The state government has, according to the report, acquired the land in 1991 to provide affordable healthcare.

     

    The Indian Express’s flyer story looks at the various irregularities in the Noida farmhouse allotments, from which a key member of the Anna Hazare-Jan Lokpal movement also benefited – Shanti Bhushan and his son Jayant. The Express report provides details of various transgressions and concessions, many of which appear to be inexplicable.

     

    **

     

    Even as TV continues to be the chief champion of Anna Hazare and his campaign for his Jan Lokpal Bill, the print media conversely continues to question. The Economic Times in its second editorial on Wednesday says, ‘Anna Hazare has displaced the my-way-or-highway sort of undemocratic attitude reminiscent of authoritarianism and a vigilante-style notion of justice and that is part of the problem.” It cautions against actions which will lead to anarchy.

     

    eom

  • In Freaking News, Ranjona Banerji reviews the fare on prime time news and the morning papers

    TV news = Bigg Boss?

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    As has happened with newspapers, there are small signs that television will also walk along the same line – the journalistic desire to question the intransigence of Anna Hazare and his insistence on his version of the Lokpal Bill. The political classes appear to be certain that they want more time and will not be harried into passing a bill which may be inadequate. The enormous scope given to members of Anna Hazare’s movement has been considerably reduced on television as other news enters the cycle.

     

    On Wednesday, for instance, the black money debate in the Lok Sabha got much play on television and led, as usual, to plenty of screaming and shouting on panel discussions later. The tendency of these leaders of society to yell and brawl on TV shows remains appalling and a tremendous indictment of Indian manners. However, it is also fair to say that most people do not behave like this in real life, thankfully and perhaps neither do these habitual TV guests when the cameras are turned off.

     

    **

     

    The terrible news of the deaths of more than 100 people in West Bengal from drinking contaminated illegal alcohol dominated Thursday’s TV bulletins, which includes the international channels as well. TV of course is concentrating on the human story so we will get the bigger picture from the newspapers. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, already getting flak from a once-enamoured media, now has to do damage control on a number of fronts and this is bound to be further debated.

     

    **

     

    James Murdoch, son of media tycoon Rupert, has now admitted that he knew about the phone-hacking practices used by journalists in his newspapers. Earlier this year, James had told a British parliamentary committee investigating phone-hacking that he knew nothing about it. More media scrutiny will – and must – ensue.

     

    **

     

    The Indian Olympic Association has decided not to boycott the Olympic Games, as demanded by the sports ministers, some activists and a few sportspersons, in spite of Dow Chemicals’ involvement in the Games. More debate is expected and more TV-inspired pyrotechnics.
    TV news in India is like the Bigg Boss for those with intellectual pretensions.

     

    eom

  • In Freaking News, Ranjona Banerji reviews the fare on prime time news and the morning papers

    Turning 50 and other problems!

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    I was quite happy to discover that this is my 50th update for Freaking News and am unhappy to find that I was so wrong yesterday. By the evening, it seemed that TV had decided that the shenanigans of Team Anna required as much exposure as possible and that being sensible was just a whole lot of horse feathers, while being unreasonable was so much more fun. So there were members of the core committee of the anti-corruption movement doing their normal threatening and grandstanding all over TV and this morning had an unpleasant photograph of Anna Hazare and Kiran Bedi ominously wagging their fingers at us. Bedi on Times Now was as annoying as she can be, insisting that the Cabinet and Parliament must go no further than the Jan Lokpal Bill.

     

    But it was later that matters got really appalling on Times Now as Mumbai-based film-maker and activist Ashok Pandit (I did not recognise him because his grey hair has turned black) accused another guest of being a terrorist because she looks like one (a Muslim, she was, of course – Hamida Naeem, a lecturer at Kashmir University). What was even worse was that although Arnab Goswami said “no personal remarks”, he did not stop Pandit and neither did the other guests, Madhu Kishwar and retired general, Shankar Prasad. The issue was the death of a young shopkeeper in Kashmir who was beaten to death because he refused to shut shop. The people who killed him are called “stone-pelters”, a special breed of humans who exist only on TV land. TV wanted to know why the Armed Forces were blamed for all kinds of things but “stone-pelters” are not condemned with the same outrage by hardline separatist groups in Kashmir. The many specious conclusions in this argument need another whole article to deal with them.

     

    So I was wrong again because I really believed that the deaths of 145 people from drinking adulterated illegal alcohol in West Bengal needed more prominence.

     

    **

     

    The end of the American occupation of Iraq got plenty of play on international channels but only minimal on Indian TV, not unnaturally. The newspapers as usual filled in the gaps.

     

    **

     

    The Hindu has an interesting editorial on how the BJP loved Union home minister P Chidambaram when he was tough on Naxals and Maoists but are currently gunning for him because he targeting Hindutva-inspired terror groups. Who knows, this may well be true.

     

    **

     

    After the Parliamentary debate on black money, newspapers could have given us more figures on the parallel economy in India, its size and reach. The problem is not just about money stashed abroad: it is as much about the money within India which never enters the system and so bypasses not just tax but also quality control and standards laws.

     

    **

     

    Incidentally, just for the information of our ultra-jingoistic TV-wallahs, the battle against the Armed Forces Special Protection Act is not limited to Kashmir – the act is also why Irom Sharmila has been on a hunger strike for over 10 years in Manipur. Do we as journalists have the mandate to take sides without adequate information?

  • Ranjona Banerji presents her take on nightly news and the fare in the morning papers

    When Indian TV woke up late

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    What is news? What has happened or what you think your viewers/readers want to know about. All the news that’s fit to print is the motto of The New York Tines but does that make any sense to our TV channels? As news broke of the death of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il – first on Al Jazeera on Monday morning. As BBC and CNN interrupted their regular bulletins, Al Jazeera had already put together a package. In India however news was divided between Anna Hazare’s latest plans, the whereabouts of Pakistani something-or-the-other Veena Malik and something about Rahul Dravid which I did not waste time on. It took at least half an hour for Indian TV to wake up to “breaking news”.

     

    “Dumbing down” as a concept is most insulting to those it is aimed at – readers and viewers of the news. It implies that they are too stupid to understand events and can only digest a tasty amalgam of entertainment news and whatever can be dramatised and sensationalised. Yet, one would assume that a change of diet with truly “breaking news” should occasionally be alternated with pap, so that the system does not become incapable of dealing with change.

     

    **

     

    Meanwhile, Anna Hazare and his antics continue to keep the media busy. As he hops all over the country, the camera follow. We understand that the biggest showdown of all is about to take place in Mumbai on December 27 when more people than were at Ramlila Maidan will apparate themselves in solidarity. Sorry to use Harry Potter jargon, but it sounds a bit like that to me.

     

    My maths teachers convinced me long ago that I had little understanding of this magical subject and it has largely remained a mystery to me. But even I can extrapolate that 100,000 people is a mere drop in the ocean when compared to India’s population of 1.2 billion. However, TV and newspapers continue to assure us that Anna Hazare represents all the people of India and when we express doubt, they bring on Kiran Bedi who can shout it at us till we retire hurt.

     

    **

     

    Time Magazine’s award of the ‘Person of the Year’ to ‘The Protestor’ was a masterful stroke. Indeed it has been, from Tunisia, Egypt, Yeman, Libya and Syria right up to the Occupy Wall Street movement. In a sense, India Against Corruption activists also fall into this category, but CNN-IBN, showing a slight shortfall of imagination, gave their award to Anna Hazare. Is this stating the obvious or acknowledging the Indian propensity to create icons and god-like figures out of thin air? Or even worse, an example of TV’s need to legitimise its own news choices?

     

    **

     

    In happier news, Sunday supplements were full of ways to celebrate the party season, what to eat, what to buy and what to gift. Gingerbread houses and other such delights took the mind away from the hurly-burly right to where it matters – the stomach. Or was it the wallet?

  • Ranjona Banerji reviews the fare on primetime news and in the papers the morning after

    Dharker & Aiyar face the heat for speaking their mind

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    One of the differences between the spoken and written word in journalism has been highlighted in the discussions about Anna Hazare and the Lokpal Bill. Senior journalist Anil Dharker called Hazare a man of “limited intellectual abilities” on Times Now on Monday night. The panel around him exploded with outrage, with anchor Arnab Goswami reacting with his best display of inner sadness, magnanimously offering Dharker a chance to “retract” his statement. Dharker refused. Goswami made it clear that Times Now did not endorse Dharker’s views and was not in favour of personal remarks.

     

    Oddly, Goswami was not so upset when Ashok Pandit told Hamida Naeem that she “looked like a terrorist”. Clearly, being a terrorist is less offensive than being stupid.
    Now Mani Shankar Aiyar is in the dock on social media sites for saying on CNN-IBN, “We made a huge mistake in converting this Team Anna into a Frankenstein’s monster. Now they have had their say, we have thought about it… It is my job as a Parliamentarian to legislate. I had plenty of time to legislate and I hope that we get through this Lokpal Bill and can tell Team Anna to go back to flogging drunkards in Ralegaon Siddhi.”

     

    Had Dharker and Aiyar written the same words in articles or columns, the anger would have been slight. There is something about hearing such sentiments which seems to arouse us, while we can read much worse with perfect equanimity. Perhaps that is why all our panel discussions on Indian television disintegrate so fast into vulgar slanging matches.

     

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    I was at a panel discussion on paid news organised by Moneylife Foundation on Tuesday, together with journalists Smruti Koppikar and Dyanada Deshpande, with Geeta Seshu. It is sad to see the amount of despair and cynicism, but it is also clear that something has to be done. Better watchdogs, more resistance to management pressure, more public disclosures were some of the suggestions made. Ideas are welcome on what can and needs to be done.

     

    For those who have missed it, try and watch Umesh Aggarwal’s documentary Brokering News. Also, go to the Press Council website and read the report on paid news - attempts were made to suppress it by owners of media houses and the report is up with a disclaimer!

     

    Perhaps Press Council chairman Markandey Katju, in between his deliberations on who should get the next Bharat Ratna, should take on owners and managements?