MxMIndia

Category: NEWSWATCH

  • Veteran journalist and cricketwatcher Ayaz Memon on the media coverage of the recent India-England series

    Ayaz Memon in Newswatch: A series that wasn’t

    Newswatch is a weekly series where we invite editors and veteran journalists from across the country to comment on media coverage. Last week we had Aroon Tikekar, this time, it’s Ayaz Memon:

    The English media’s coverage of the Indian cricket team’s ill-fated tour this summer went from heady expectation to surprise then astonishment followed by disappointment and finally distraught acceptance.

    By all accounts, this was a terrible tour, arguably the worst-ever in Indian cricket history. This was captured well in the mood and tenor of the media which, like the rest of the cricket world, had been taken by surprise by India’s utterly hopeless performances.

    The 4-0 whitewash in the Tests followed by a 3-0 defeat in the ODIs left the Indian team exposed to barbs and criticisms, not all unjustified. To twist a famous quote, no team had promised so much and delivered so little, which perhaps made the job of the media difficult. After all, how much can analyses vary if the team’s failures follow the same pattern every time, with only one player – the magnificent Rahul Dravid – performing in match after match?

    The build-up to the Test series had been fantastic; the best I’ve seen in three decades. In earlier years the media in England could be neglectful or patronizing, but this time the volume of space and tenor of opinion bespoke India’s status in the sport – both on and off the field.

    As the powerhouse that drives the eyeballs for cricket currently, India has acquired a curiosity, awe, envy, frustration, ire, appreciation, admiration across the globe. But interest in this tour was not only because of the financial clout India commands: this was also a marquee series, remember, because Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s team was number 1 in the ICC Test rankings and only a couple of months prior had also won the 50-over World Cup.

    The charisma of Sachin Tendulkar, poised to get his 100th international century, made the series even more seductive. Tendulkar had scored his first-ever international century in England in 1990 and had since gone on to become not just one of the greatest cricketers of all time, but also the Pied Piper of modern cricket, attracting fans and media everywhere.

    Tendulkar’s teammates were stalwarts like Rahul Dravid, V V S Laxman, Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh, Gautam Gambhir and Dhoni which India an all-star attraction. The fact that the first Test at Lord’s would be the 2000th in the history of the sport and the 100th between India and England added to the significance and the glamour, always good grist to the mill for the media.

    Pre-series write-ups flooded the English newspapers. Broadsheets devoted big space to the greatness and virtuosity of Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman – all on their last tour of England – as well as India’s phenomenal rise in international cricket in every aspect over the past decade.

    England’s victory in the Ashes series a few months earlier had made them strong aspirants to become the number 1 Test team, and this contest promised high drama and spectacular performances galore. But this proved to be unfounded as India crumbled badly because of poor preparation, and even poorer application under pressure.

    By the middle of the tour, it was clear that there was to be no turnaround in India’s performances and the tone of the media had gone from admiration to cynicism. The world champions were looking like they had feet of clay. Tendulkar’s impending 100th century became a matter of ifs, buts and sighs. Barring Dravid’s resilience – and to an extent the hard toil of Praveen Kumar – there was little to extol in the Indian team.

    Several causes and reasons were sought to explain the utterly abject performances of this highly regarded side and inevitably the Indian Premier League, the BCCI’s greed, recalcitrance to accept the DRS etc came under sharper focus than might otherwise have happened.

    One of these debates on TV led to an altercation between former captains Ravi Shastri and Nasser Husain – with the former defending the BCCI and Husain emphatic that he had a right to criticize as a professional mediaperson — that was to resonate even across the seven seas.

    In many ways, that was also the high point of a series that wasn’t in the cricketing sense.

  • Nitin Karani avers that the media needs to go beyond the superficial. There are many interesting queer stories waiting to be told. If mainstream newspapers and channels won't tell these, then the competition will.

    Newswatch: Covering the queer spectrum

    By Nitin Karani

     

    There’s little to be happy about the state of journalism today, but this piece will try to remain upbeat and offer constructive comments on coverage of LGBT (or queer issues). The focus is mainly on the English-language media. First, a pat on the back for doing by and large a good job, especially in the editorials department! A lot of the reportage is either by queer and queer-friendly journalists themselves or driven by them.

    These journalists are also the most innovative in their approach to queer issues and in touch with the pulse of queer communities despite not being on an ‘official queer beat’— another sign to management why they need diversity and inclusion in their organisation. Having people in your media house from different communities helps you understand them, reach out to the communities and broaden and strengthen your coverage. One editor deserves a special mention here. Aditya Sinha, currently with DNA, launched a weekly ‘Sexualities’ page (it was mainly about queer issues) back in April 2008 when he was with The New Indian Express. The practice continues at DNA, which has a monthly page. Quality may be ultimately important but for marginalised identities this is great exposure in the short run.

    This is not to say that there is no homophobia in the media. Of course there is sensational and sleazy reporting (TV9’s “sting” op in Hyderabad; “Central Park a Gay Paradise”: Mid-Day); insensitive, even biased writing (“A baby for gay, deaf, mute couple? It’s cruel”: Deccan Chronicle) and totally muddled, pseudo-scientific horrors as well (“Lesbian? Not quite, say psychiatrists” and “Trapped In Bad-Girl Taboo”: The Times of India). Then, there is the let’s-not-talk-about-it attitude, which is probably true of quite a few publications, but probably nowhere as ingrained as at the Reader’s Digest. However, change is inevitable and so is a debate on queer issues.

    What the media needs to do most is to go beyond the superficial, else both reader and writer will be bored! And which reader would like to start their day with a humdrum piece on a Pride parade when there are so many other colourful diversions? There are many interesting queer stories waiting to be told yet. If mainstream newspapers and channels won’t tell these, then the competition will (for instance online news magazines such as FirstPost.com). The White House has a new LGBT liaison but how many people know he is of Indian origin: Gautam Raghavan. Usually, the press goes gaga over desi achievers, even those who want to deny their Indian origins. So isn’t the Gautam Raghavan story worth an interview or at least some column inches? Let’s start with the basic issue though.

    The terminology: Admitted it can get confusing, especially with the never-ending acronyms (LGBTQI… – even The International Lesbian and Gay Association named its 2002 Mumbai regional conference ‘A-Z: The Other Asia’). However, journalists are supposed to know. Or find out! The latest NGO abbreviation is “MTH”, or men-who-have-sex-with-men, transgender and hijra. Label with care! Most people use ‘TG’ and ‘hijra’ interchangeably with eunuch. But hey, it’s all about letting people be themselves and choosing their own labels instead of imposing. Also, note that not only is the word ‘eunuch’ outmoded, but also a lot of queer people object to it as a derogatory term. Dictionaries can’t seem to keep up with these changes, so cultivate your go-to experts for advice on such matters. Ultimately, of course, people are more complex than labels.

    Pride marches: It’s been more than a decade since this annual event became a regular feature on the queer calendar in Kolkata, and every year new Indian cities are added to the list. However, in terms of visuals at least, our photographer colleagues give it the same hackneyed treatment – the usual close-ups of a hijra/transgender or of two transgenders kissing each other. The focus is always on the most garish. If they would only look more closely, and not get blinded by all the colour and pageantry, they will perhaps capture new stories of the gay couple with kid in tow, the gay bankers network, the lesbian elders who have been together longer than you have been a journalist and so on, instead of dismissing the rest of the crowd as ‘boring, normal-looking’ LGBs (lesbians, gays and bisexuals).

    TV debates/‘balance’: Twenty years of sat TV and all we have to show for it is a handful of coming-out stories and the same old discussion on every Oprah copycat show. These shows do face limitations because not many people are willing to out themselves on TV yet (even when given the honourable way out by hosts such as Simi Garewal). It’s a challenge that needs to be taken up, though, and tackled with ingenuity. Only ‘reality’ TV is pushing the boundary here, not the news channels. Although the distinction seems to be blurring!

    Meanwhile, newsroom discussions have the mandatory religious figure (to the point that it has become predictable which talking head will be on air and what they will say) even when the discussion on decriminalisation of homosexuality has nothing to do with any religion, especially Christianity. Politicians and ministers, who fight shy of the issue in public regardless of which side of the debate they are on, are never pinned down, unless they are also small-time politicians with a religious minority connection. Besides Tamil Nadu parties, which have shown some initiative on TG issues, no political organisation has been made to speak up on queer issues, although politicians are difficult to shut up on any other subject. When some of them do open their mouths to speak utter rubbish, like Ghulam Nabi Azad and Farooq Abdullah did, the media allows them to get away with it.

    On the other hand, sometimes journalists defend insensitive writing on specious grounds. In the name of religious celebration, it is common for people to dance on the streets of Mumbai to Sheela, Munni and Shakira numbers, and no one blinks an eye. What then would you say to a journalist specifically seeking out people who could have moral issues with Mumbai Pride week celebrations in suburban Bandra – just so that there is “balanced coverage” of the celebrations! That too in the midst of the Pride week, when some off-balance zealot might get provoked by irrational fears of children “getting into wrong things” expressed in the piece.

    The business of gay icons: Most stories about showbiz are created by PR people and so a new ‘gay icon’ emerges every few weeks. Often the actors too are fooled into believing their ‘iconic’ status by their producers. The rare actor does try to live up to the status with a sensible head on his shoulders and some genuine concern for gay equality. Seriously though, gay men have very diverse tastes, and rarely is an actor put on a pedestal by them. So most of the talk about someone being a gay icon, and asking every other actor what they think about being called one is, well, a con. Sure, let’s ask what actors think about playing gay on screen (though most will give you hypocritical answers as directors such as Onir will testify because they fight shy of doing such roles). But let’s also ask them the tougher questions, such as why they play the stereotypes and caricatures when they apparently root for gay equality.

    Staying with icons, how come we don’t read about lesbian icons in showbiz? Is it because it’s a male-dominated industry in a patriarchal society that still represses women’s sexuality? So the straight men will continue to enjoy the thought of girl-on-girl action but are unlikely to toast an actress as a lesbian icon anytime soon. The serious journalist would find enough genuine queer icons if they only looked.

    Reactive, not proactive: Most of what we read on the subject tends to be event-driven—a film festival, the launch of a business catering to the queer community, and so on—rather than being driven by the journalist’s imagination. With so much happening anyway (and so many press releases being dumped into the mailbox, not to mention the noise on social media), it may seem reasonable to forget about queer issues. However, bear in mind that the queer community works with limited resources (even if a certain set seems to party hard), can rarely afford to employ PR professionals and most community organisations are dealing with one crisis after another (such as suicides, threats from families, HIV-positive people falling seriously ill suddenly, hate crimes, ministers shooting their mouths off, big question marks over police permissions for public events and funders not releasing money on time). In such a scenario, the journalist needs to chase the well-networked individuals from the queer community for stories too.

    Outing, crime: Gossip is cheap but sometimes true. When it comes to a person being allegedly queer, the juice is passed around but rarely gets into print. Affairs of Bollywood stars and celebrities get written about endlessly, and not just in filmy magazines. Now even sports stars and politicians are making headlines for amorous achievements off the field. Only as long as it’s all heterosexual. Contrast this with the very polite treatment of gay rumours. Once in a while, a Shah Rukh or a Karan Johar will be asked about the enduring goss (okay, Karan, it wasn’t polite that one time). A Milind Soman will even admit that the silliest rumour he has ever heard about himself is that he had an affair with a man no less than Ratan Tata. However, even a quotable quote will remain buried, never receiving the same threadbare treatment of a hetero affair. Like Milind Soman telling Stardust years ago that had he not been in love with Madhu Sapre, he would have been in love with a man. No controversy there apparently, but great controversy about the Tuff in the buff ad!

    That is not to say that every silly rumour should be chased and every quote blown up into a headline. However, why the unequal treatment? The privacy argument should apply equally to queer and hetero individuals. Frankly, the privacy argument is bogus and just a convenient excuse to cover up. No one’s interested (okay, some may be) in who does what with whom in bed. How is privacy invaded though by just saying that you are gay, bisexual, transgender, asexual, intersexual, or whatever? In fact, unwillingness to answer that question, especially when you don’t tire speaking about every other mundane aspect of your life, can only mean one thing. If a person claims to be an environmentalist or feminist but runs a polluting industry or is a doormat wife of a bigamist, wouldn’t you point out the double standards at least? So if a closeted gay politician does anything to harm the queer community or a filmmaker produces a film with gay stereotypes or caricatures, shouldn’t such people be outed? Those are the questions that stare journalists in the face today.

    Once, in my journalism class, there was a group discussion where we students were given a hypothetical scenario. A cinema known for its gay porn gets burnt down and several male patrons lose their lives as a result. Among them are well-known, closed members of society. The newspapers have a choice to report the names of the dead, or hide them to spare the families of the dead person the stigma. Predictably, quite a few of my classmates recommended the newspapers should not publish the names. Many queer people would also agree, on the ground of ‘privacy’. However, not publishing the names, especially when that is the publication’s usual practice in case of such accidents, suggests and reinforces the sentiment that being gay is shameful. The dead person is not around to be affected by the ‘outing’, and we don’t even know what their choice would have been had they been alive: whether to come out, or not.

    As a matter of routine these days the police just hands out the names of queer murder victims whenever they think there is a ‘gay angle’ – sometimes one even wonders if they aren’t being overzealous about discovering a  sexual slant. The names get published, which is not problematic per se. What should bother us is whether any journalist even pauses for a minute and questions the police’s version of events in their minds.

    Dead people may be unaffected by the outing but it could be hell for closeted gay men abused, called names and forced to give out their names and contact details to the police simply for being at a party. If this isn’t torturous enough, they are put on display before an unquestioning, servile, insensitive media which has been ‘tipped off’ so that the pictures can be beamed to the world and played in an endless loop.

    How come no one argues for privacy when the cops ‘bust’ a private gay party? Who takes responsibility if one of the guys kills himself or gets beaten black and blue by his family? Even as the US President tells Manmohan Singh and the rest of the UN to protect their queer citizens, the Mumbai police won’t even let gay people party.

     

    Nitin Karani edits equity research for a living when he is not trawling the web for media reports on queer issues. He also blogs infrequently at queerindia.blogspot.com, and writes for Bombay Dost magazine.

  • Veteran journalist Aroon Tikekar kicks off a new weekly column by Editors tracking news across the country…

    A pinch of cynicism, please!

    Instead of raising awkward questions, theIndian media went along — and encouraged — with the wave of emotionalism which took over some of the country during Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption campaign… introducing a new weekly column by Editors tracking news across the country

    By Aroon Tikekar

    It is distressing to see the Indian media print as well as electronic- going berserk at the slightest provocation. Has the constant fear for survival affected the healthy vision of the Indian media? Why have the tried and trusted tenets of the profession been disregarded, intentionally or otherwise? These are some of the questions that demand a discussion.

    First and foremost, do the new brand of journalists sincerely believe that a demonstrative approach to solving social problems can and does help? Coming out on the streets shouting slogans can highlight political issues. Pressure put on the powers that be may help hasten a political process. But mere highlighting of social issues does not ensure their solution, as essentially it requires a change in social mind. Obviously journalists are not so nave as to believe that the Anna Team is not going to wipe out corruption from the Indian scene at one go. Then why did they not educate their readers or viewers to doubt the efficacy of any such attempt? Without a pinch of salt called cynicism, media ceases to be the Fourth Estate in a democracy.

    Indian media should raise awkward questions on the right occasions. Joining the bandwagon would have been considered in the past as bad journalism and an affront to the calling. The editors do have a right which is ex-officio to criticize the high and the successful. Reporting on the news and analyzing it for the benefit of readers or viewers as the case may be, is one thing and creating news by emphasizing unimportant aspect and commenting on it is another.

    Today’s Indian media, while fighting a battle of survival, is creating news unworthy of reporting and repeating it ad nauseum, much to the chagrin of readers or viewers. Supererogation of emotion has become willingly or unwillingly the hallmark of our electronic channels, but why should the print media too compete with the electronic media in sensationalizing or pandering to emotions? Whenever we, the people become victims of emotionalism in any large democracy, it becomes the prime duty of the media to educate them. The gullible masses are prone to seek and expect miracles to happen and can easily be tricked into accepting an apparent solution. The media has to come out to warn that miracles are not possible by emphasizing need to be cautious, even cynical of quick successes.

    Secondly, it may sound strange but the media, by definition, is supposed to be critical and is duty bound to take a negative stand by pinpointing weaknesses and lacunae in any proposal or happening which the gullible and innocent person may accept without complain or questioning. Social responsibility is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact it is expected that a newspaper editor or channel editor be so detached from the theatre of activity that he should be able to swim with ease against even torrential current of people’s emotions. The editors should not ride waves of emotionalism. Such objectivity is a pre-requisite in journalism.

    Thirdly, why do the media fail to grapple the historical fact that a political revolution is possible almost overnight but there cannot be a social revolution? Social change can take place only on evolutionary lines. History has shown us time and again that change for the better by slow absorption, not by convulsion, but by assimilation this is the only formula for social change. There are no short cuts to social change, no miracles, and no magical remedies.

    The same newly cropped up weaknesses were displayed by our journalists when the Anna phenomenon was taking shape in Delhi. Society should have been warned that wiping out corruption is not an easy task. Team Anna has only made a beginning. The entire country is aroused and is up in arms against corruption. All these are good signs, but nothing much per se is going to be achieved by the mere introduction of Anna’s Jan Lokpal Bill in Parliament. The roots of corruption have reached deep within our system. Again, on the issue whether the electorate is sovereign or the Parliament, the media should have brought out that our Constitution-framers have taken care to see that no section enjoys absolute sovereignty.

    Even while appreciating the novel idea of distributing caps with I am Anna written on them, the media should have warned the agitators about the limited use of such symbolism. It was on the contrary seen going overboard and was quick to call Anna Hazare as the Second Gandhi.

    The catapulting of Anna Hazare into a national figure is largely the media creation. Media is responsible for creating his larger than life image. One is not even sure whether he has the qualities of a national leader. But media called him as the second Gandhi. Let’s face it. To compare Anna with the Father of the Nation is a cheap gimmick. Comparison of the two is odious. Anna lacks vision. He also lacks wisdom, one doesn’t even know how much the Gandhi literature he has read. The original Gandhi did not even approve of the ways of revolutionaries as he believed that to assassinate is the highest kind of censorship, but Anna does.

    Aroon Tikekar is former editor of Loksatta

  • The coverage of the Telangana unrest in Andhra Pradesh by the media has come under criticism for a variety of reasons

    Media under scanner for Telangana coverage

    By Viru Desai

    The coverage of the unrest in the Telangana region in Andhra Pradesh by the print and audio visual media, the vernacular media in particular, has come under the scanner for a number of reasons. Being an emotive issue, Telangana has become an explosive subject for the media in AP since the time the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), the regional outfit headed by headed by K.Chandrasekhar Rao, came into being and is currently leading the movement for gaining statehood for the region. The oft-repeated complaint of Telangana activists, including the TRS, is that the statehood movement is not getting the due it deserves in the Telugu media because it is owned by media barons from Coastal Andhra. However, the perceived bias of these media organisations needs to be debated in detail.

    Just as every section of society in Andhra Pradesh is currently divided on regional lines — from the polity to the most mundane of organisations — so also is the media in Andhra Pradesh. With the vibrant media scene in Andhra Pradesh commanding an approximate readership (Telugu) of between seven and eight million, the Telangana issue has taken centrestage. The issue has also generated a lot of interest in TV channels. It can be said that the media too has not been untouched by the vitiated atmosphere of uncertainty and mistrust sweeping the state.

    The ownership and staffing pattern in the Telugu media is a mixed bag. Of late, a lot of professionals hailing from Telangana have joined Telugu media organisations, while the proprietors mainly belong to Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema. This has, however, not clouded the news selection and editorial coverage of the contentious Telangana issue in the Telugu media.

    To make a dispassionate observation, right from the largest selling Telugu daily, Eenadu, to Andhra Jyothi, Sakshi, (all owned by Seemandhra media houses), Vaartha and Surya, every Telugu publication is giving wide coverage to the Telangana movement. Day after day sees the ‘Sakala Janula Samme’ (general strike) which has continued for over 23 days and the RTC strike, getting wide coverage in the pages of these dailies. The myriad bandhs, rasta rokos and other forms of protest too have cornered a lot of space in these dailies.

    On the audio visual media front, the most popular TV channels, TV9, ETV (owned by the Eenadu group), Sakshi channel (owned by the Sakshi group), ABN Andhra Jyothi, NTV and TV5 are devoting a lot of prime time in the news section to the Telangana stir. On the other side of the line, the channels identified with the pro-statehood movement such as Zee 24, HMTV and T News are going overboard by highlighting the event.

    One interesting sidelight, though, is that the print media is refraining from examining the issue critically. Normal life has been affected substantially with public transport totally paralysed since the launch of the RTC bus strike, schools and colleges shut down since a month, medical services hit, increasing power cuts due to the coal miners joining the strike and so on. There is no sphere of public life that has not been affected adversely. Yet there are hardly any sharp reports that are bringing the agony of the common man to the fore. It is the poor and the lower middle classes who are at the receiving end. Whether it is the aggressive postures or even threats of the T-activists to some media houses, for this stance is the question.

    The writer is a media practitioner and commentator based in Hyderabad.

  • Starting with the government’s failure to protect cows, the print media has been vociferous in its criticism of Modi

    Modi and Gujarati media: Two swords in one sheath

    By Urvish Kothari

    Blatant and vitriolic criticism of Narendra Modi seems to have become the norm for Gujarati dailies of late. Gone are the days when the Gujarati print media, with an average issue readership of more than 1 crore (according to IRS 2011-Q2), mostly adored the chief minister. It supported, or at least was non confrontational  about his publicity blitzkrieg and his self-projection as a tough, non-corrupt, pro-development, ‘No. 1’ leader with a subtle and not-so-subtle communal slant.

    As is evident from events of the last few months, Modi has been constantly at the receiving end in many issues — be it the arrest of Sanjeev Bhatt or his three-day Sadbhavana Fast. The prominence and the column space allotted to arrest and release of IPS officer Sanjeev Bhatt in the Gujarati media would have been unthinkable a couple of years back.

    While English dailies reported the whole episode with restraint, news and images of Sanjeev Bhatt were being highlighted on first and last pages of Gujarati dailies. Bhatt was made out to be a ‘singham’ — a hero.  The pro-Sanjeev Bhatt coverage was not just about appreciating the uprightness of the officer but was fuelled, to a large extent, by the anti-Modi ‘line’. Gujarati dailies had a field day when the late Haren Pandya’s wife vaguely pointed her finger towards the CM in her husband’s murder.

    Recent rhetoric against the Modi government, which was, in effect, against Modi himself, took off from very unusual point: the issue of cow slaughter. The issue was hardly discussed in the public forum. But suddenly the failure of the Modi government in protecting cows became the war cry in two major Gujarati newspapers.

    The purpose of the intensive news campaign that ran for days was to prove that Modi was un-Hindu, if not anti-Hindu. It was to falsify his deeply entrenched claim of being ‘the saviour of the Hindus’.

    Even the usual non-political Modi-baiters were baffled by the anti-cow slaughter campaign which gathered momentum so suddenly. The stage was set, and then came the burning issue of the appointment of the Lokayukta.

    Gujarati dailies grabbed the issue with both the hands, one daily even lowering its masthead with the news of the appointment of the Lokayukta by the Governor and the government’s legal challenge to it.

    When the Supreme Court referred the Gulbarg Society case back to the lower court and declined to monitor it further, Modi famously tweeted ‘God is Great’ and projected the SC’s decision as a ‘clean chit’. Many news channels echoed his view, but Gujarati dailies were more cautious and less jubilant.

    His three-day ‘Sadbhavana Fast’ was treated with scepticism and a pinch of sarcasm, due to the pomp and politics involved. There was criticism about the expenditure incurred during the fast and even the memory of Mahatma Gandhi was invoked for an uncharitable comparison.

     Gujarati dailies have been vocal in making allegations of corruption and in giving considerable weightage to the statements of Congress leaders in Gujarat recently. A Gujarati daily recently devoted a full page to CAG’s criticism of various departments of the Gujarat government. A clean image no longer remains Narendra Modi’s USP, at least for the Gujarati dailies.

    Mostly unfavourable and critical of Modi, for the reasons best known to them, Gujarati dailies have been conscious not to indulge in anything that may be perceived as ‘secular’ by a majority of their readership. During the Sadbhavna Fast, Modi’s advances towards the Muslim community were met with veiled criticism. One Gujarati daily even frowned at his attempted pro-Muslim approach in a eight column banner head line: ‘Allah-o-Akbar: Modi begins his fast’.

    The real irony is, Gujarati dailies with their massive reach have been successful in reflecting general sentiment but their capacity to generate or shape public opinion has diminished considerably — more so in the case of Modi’s criticism. Yet, there is a strange equilibrium between the anti-establishment stance adopted by the Gujarati dailies and Modi’s wide-spread popularity.

    There is a saying in Gujarati that two swords can’t stay together in one sheath, and that seems to be the case when one looks at the strange co-existence of flourishing Gujarati dailies as well as the sustaining popularity of Modi.

    The writer is a Gujarat-based senior journalist and columnist

  • Like a grand infatuation that is pursuing its natural course towards an inevitable end, the heady, halcyon days of the media’s romance with Mamata Banerjee as the harbinger of “change” or “parivartan” are coming to an end.

    Shika Mukerjee: Mamata dream sequence ends

    By Shikha Mukerjee

    Like a grand infatuation that is pursuing its natural course towards an inevitable end, the heady, halcyon days of the media’s romance with Mamata Banerjee as the harbinger of “change” or “parivartan” are coming to an end. Sunday, October 30: the mainstream print media is showing distinct signs of doubt about Didi’s capacity to deliver on her promises; her announcement that for the next one month all her attention would be focused on “industry,” her “Diwali-gift” of projects to the people of West Bengal produced sceptical headlines.

    Of the two dozen or so daily newspapers in Kolkata, the story of the Diwali gift or Industrial Revolution was the lead in many, the second or even third lead in some and appeared below the fold in a few rare exceptions. It is not a categorical imperative that Mamata’s initiatives on industrialisation must be the universal lead in every newspaper or even television. The Telegraph said, ‘A Diwali ‘gift’ but not so perfect’. The Times of India said, ‘Industry bonanza hits Singur hurdle’. The Ananda Bazar Patrika said, ‘Mamata takes the field to gain Industry’s confidence.’ Ekdin said, ‘Assurances of Industrial revolution in West Bengal to restore its golden past’. Pratidin said, ‘Now the Industrial Revolution.’ Bartamaan said, ‘Migration in search of jobs to end: Mamata.’

    On television, especially the top five 24X7 Bangla news channels, more widely watched and consequently of greater significance in terms of reflecting popular sentiment, the story was listed a long way after news on crib deaths and the newest Maoist demands. National news channels insistently reported on the growing number of crib deaths and the failure of the political leadership, namely Mamata, to respond to the situation as an emergency.

    A month or two earlier, no market savvy newspaper or television channel would have given a negative spin to any story featuring Mamata as the principal actor. By describing her Diwali gift as old projects repackaged as new, the newspapers are signalling that the romance is nearing its end. Some newspapers even listed which of the 10 projects that Mamata had announced as new initiatives had been sold to the public before. Some said that the list included so many public sector projects that the lack of interest of private investors was obvious. Some even quoted unnamed industrialists and public sector officials on why the list was a made up story of possibilities.

    One strong indication of the romance going stale was a story in The Telegraph on October 21, ‘Mamataisms at the Crossroads’, that analysed and checked off the status of her initiatives on her priority issues during the long, long campaign against the Communist Party of India Marxist’s misrule and arrived at the conclusion that she had made little headway though many starts, even if most were false ones.  The clash between the suave and pedigreed Trinamool Congress finance minister Amit Mitra and the former less socially elite, but no less academically qualified finance minister Asim Dasgupta was a delicious play off in which Dr Dasgupta has certainly scored a bull’s eye. As the story appeared, it was evident that The Telegraph, The Ananda Bazar, Ekdin, The Times of India were all clued in on who would win the fight.

    Assisted by the media, Dasgupta launched a methodical and technically sound demolition job on Mamata’s claims that a mere 6 per cent of the state’s money was available for development. The apparently academic point that Dasgupta made – on how the calculation was wrong – is in effect a lit fuse, politically. The positive play that Dasgupta received is the measure of the decline of Mamata’s magic in the media. The contrast is particularly striking because three months ago, when he made a similar point and was very critical that the new government had not presented a conventional budget, the media found ways of converting the criticism into the peeve of a loser. It dragged in seriously negative evaluations of his tenure as finance minister of the CPM government and quite openly jeered at him.

    It is intriguing that whereas Dasgupta’s earlier salvos did not get any support from the popular band of economists, this broadside had several economists, including one or two known CPM baiters and Trinamool Congress admirers confirming the accuracy of the ex-finance minister’s statement.

    In contrast, the very soft treatment that Mamata has received over crib deaths underscores her star quality.  The “failure” of the health system in tackling a crisis was played up in terms of the numbers of crib deaths at the BC Roy Memorial Hospital for Children. Media went out into the districts to find more instances of failure, in a show of initiative that indicates that the story has regained its own life instead of being a frame within which Mamata and her government are artfully displayed. But the media did not pick on her when she brushed aside questions at a press meet, declaring, “ask the health secretary” and “this is about industry”. Nor did it bay for her blood when she responded “What can I do.”

    The quagmire in which negotiations with the Maoists have been stuck, the declining credibility of the negotiators, the revision of strategy for dealing with the obviously reinvigorated ultra Left has not led to direct criticism of Mamata, but it has produced a shift in treatment. Even though the media has not underlined the abrupt change in Mamata’s stand, from declaring “There are no Maoists-Phaoists in West Bengal” to calling them “supari-killers” and “cowards,” it has turned watchful and cautious about the chief minister’s capacity to handle the problem, classifying it as one of the “Mamataisms.”

    Industry, finances, health, Maoists covers much of what Mamata promised as part of her Parivartan politics. By reserving judgment on the promises that she made – return of land to unwilling farmers of Singur, now mired in a legal battle, ending the Maoist problem, opening the doors to a flood of fresh investments, delivering better governance, extracting more money from the Centre – the media has played fair or even handled her with kid gloves. It has not clamoured for answers at the gradually but noticeably fewer press meets. She has not been cornered or pushed up against a wall.

    In fact the media has been unusually, almost unethically, gentle in its interactions with Mamata Banerjee. It has tolerated, even after she became chief minister, the ferocious regulation of access that she exercises with the media. It has accepted with good grace the fact that there are some newspersons who have 24X7 access to her and that the rest have to depend on these select few for camera footage and reporting. The band of faithful is privy to the best footage at every photo-opportunity; they are welcome in her office and get interviews. The rest have to make do with crumbs cast their way. The absence of protest is, as one journalist said, a measure of her “charisma.”

    Put differently, the news media cannot function without the crumbs because its audience or public remains loyal to the charismatic leader. No media publication or channel can afford to black out the things that Mamata does or says. No media channel can complain on air that it never gets a chance to interview the leader. No media channel can protest if a newsperson from another “house” sits in on an interview when it is finally granted. If after this prolonged discriminatory treatment the media has chosen to suck it up rather than raise a furore then it signals the popularity of Mamata Banerjee and the risk of annoying her. Therefore even when media persons privately complain bitterly about the “humiliation,” “discrimination” and “difficulty,” they have not as yet turned critical or even objectively analytical. The stories that the media does not report vastly outnumber the stories that it does; the discretion is exercised over what the public and positive image of Mamata can bear versus the stories that reveal the negative in terms of faults, whims, bad decisions.

    A year back, the CPM government would have been excoriated if it had spun the funds available for development story in the manner in which Mamata presented her desperate case at the National Development Council meeting in New Delhi. It would have trashed stories about promised bailouts by the Centre, especially Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the West Bengal government for reasons of political sympathy. It would have gleefully pointed out that the Centre’s failure to deliver on promises was a pointer to the declining clout of the political leadership of West Bengal. In other words, Mamata is getting the best deal that the media has ever offered to any member of the political establishment anywhere; it has suspended disbelief and meekly accepted its assigned role in the Mamata era, as a faithful purveyor of designer messages.

     

    The writer is a senior journalist.

     

     

  • The reader should not be choosing what he wants and ignoring the rest. For that he can walk through the libraries and go for the books he wants to read or even browse through racks of DVDs.

    Newswatch: News cannot be customized

    By Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr

     

    It is the old story of a death foretold, and which is for ever deferred. The novel died and it has managed to live on. Poetry died, but a Swedish poet gets the Nobel for literature this year. Philosophy has died. And still there are a few too many philosophers around. So it is with the print media. The newspaper is dead. This was what that ostensibly venerable but really pseudo-ish news paper, The Economist, had prophesied not too long ago. And in the middle of market meltdown in the western world, most of the newspapers editors and owners are singing the dirge as well.

    India seems to be bucking the trend as of now. Newspaper circulation, including that of the English language ones, is rising and rising briskly too. Many social and economic factors have been invoked to explain the phenomenon. It is being said that the explosion of literary in a billion plus country means millions of readers every year, and that the high will persist longer than imagined. There is of course the cliche that we are a booming economic power in a world flattened by recession.

    Whether the newspaper survives as we know it is indeed a billion rupee question with long-term implications and with no philosophical or existential strings attached. Newspapers may change and even disappear but news will remain with what the 1930s British (Anglo-Irish really) poet Louis MacNeice summed up in a sardonic spirit, “Give us this day our daily news.” I an information age, news is not going to disappear into a black hole though there is the real danger of too much trivial news creating a mountain of information trash.

    Beyond the playful and woeful prospect of dealing with too much news, what seems to be of greater interest is whether the reader should be able to choose what he or she wants, the so-called customized news, whether in the newspaper, on the radio, on television and on the Internet. This seems to make immense market sense, and the idea is being bandied about as the ultimate winner in the business of purveying news.

    The dangers seem to be obvious to anyone except those who want to live by a new, untested and unexamined idea. News by definition should not be customized. The consumer – the reader in this instance – should not be choosing what he wants and ignoring the rest. For that he can walk through the libraries and go for the books he wants to read or even browse through racks of DVDs to get the sub-genre of films he or she is interested in. A similar exercise can be carried through on the iInternet as well, where you can Google and Yahoo the subject or theme you are interested in. You will not have to know anything about anything else.

    The idea of news is that a person gets to know things which one is not necessarily interested in. The Greek economic crisis is indeed of no interest to anyone but the Greeks themselves, and thanks to the overvaulting ambition of Eurozone, it has become the nightmare of rest of the European Union as well. News is all about something that has happened which may or may not impact you either in the immediate or in the distant future. The fact that it has happened needs to be noted – the word recorded sounds a little too pompous – for whatever it is worth and relegated to the archives. Someone interested in it will retrieve it sometime somewhere.

    So, those in the business of news cannot afford to package things for the consumers. That is a retail exercise that can take place lower down the supply chain as it were. The basic issue is that news – whatever has happened or said – has to be collected and gathered. Newsgathering is the primary function. The choices come much later. Customization of news cannot be made the basic premise.

     

    The writer works with the DNA newspaper at its Delhi office.

  • It is clear that Katju is a confused man and seems to miss both the woods and the trees, writes Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr

    Newswatch: Katju, a harmless Rip Van Winkle

    By Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr

     

    Justice Markandey Katju, the chairman of the Press Council of India, has written a long-winded piece in The Hindu of November 5, expressing his views on the state of Indian society, economy, media and what to do with it all. It is a meandering argument with usual college textbook learning thrown in, with quotes from Firaq Gorakhpuri, Tulsidas, Shakespeare, some kind of socialist critique, some talk of a transition from the feudal age to an industrial age.

     

    The basic premise of the good judge is that India is in the age of 18th-century Europe, and what Voltaire, Diderot and Rousseau did then should now be done by the Indian media; fight the establishment, fight feudalism, fight superstition and worry about the plight of the poor people and the suicides of farmers as does P Sainath in The Hindu (Katju mentions Sainath by name). That is, fight the evil windmills.

     

    Then he talks of the need to regulate the media, especially the electronic media, which have programmes on astrology, devote more newstime to Lady Gaga and Kareena Kapoor’s wax image at Madame Tussaud’s than to the health and educational problems of the country.

     

    It is clear that Katju is a confused man. He has a bird’s-eye view of the situation, and he seems to miss both the woods and the trees. The judge is gravely mistaken in saying that India is passing from the feudal to the industrial age. There is no feudalism except in the minds of Marxist historians. The rural social set-up we find today, including the rightly hated caste panchayats, is not an example of good old feudalism but of an undeveloped rural bourgeoisie, with false sense of honour and tradition, with enough money and little wit. To think this is feudalism is reading the situation wrong with the help of dated textbooks, especially banal liberalism of the HAL Fisher-type A History of Europe, which is a silly book in retrospect or the CPI-type NCERT history textbooks in India.

     

    Katju is worried as to what will happen to displaced farmers moving to cities and not finding jobs because steel and automobile companies are producing more with less workforce. This is a perennial problem that has been with us for the last 60 years and more.  Farmers will pick up new skills as time goes along. All migrations involve changing lifestyles and working conditions.

     

    Then he makes the futile observation that more than 90 per cent of Indians are migrants, excepting the pre-Dravidian tribal populations. Now that statement is neither true nor false in any meaningful sense of the term.

     

    So, why was the media, especially the electronic media, getting angry with Katju? He uttered the word ‘regulation’ and said that no freedom is absolute. In themselves there is nothing wrong with the two ideas. Regulation if translated to transparent and fair rules is indeed the basis of any institution or sector. And even ardent liberals would accept that no freedom is absolute. We do not have radical liberals who argue for absolute freedom of speech, including hate speech. Our liberals are timid and politically correct.

     

    The real red rag in Katju’s long homily is that he wants to set himself as the watchdog of the media, which is what the Press Council is supposed to be. Either there should be no Press Council, or if there is one it has to be watching over the media. The only effective way of refuting Katju is to dissolve the Press Council. If the council is allowed to exist, then this Katju-type of exhortation – vain and in vain – will have a place in the public sphere. It will be interesting to pick holes in it. And it can even be ignored.

     

    Katju’s attitude does hint of paternalist socialism, the kind favoured by the Congress in its unconscious mind, where the government wants to tell people what is good for the people. Katju is no Stalinist – he would be horrified to know that there are intimations of Stalinism in his pompous obiter dicta – but he sounds very much a schoolmaster. It is, perhaps, nice to hear a schoolmaster once in a while, especially when you do not have to fall in line which is the case with Katju and the Press Council. But the truth is that Katju is a harmless intellectual Rip Van Winkle, speaking in the dead debating terms of a bygone era.

     

    The media should not have gone into a frenzy over what he said. As always, the media was looking for a good bone of contention and Katju provided one. The media should be grateful that Katju chose to be provocative in his own outdated manner.

     

    The writer works with the DNA newspaper at its Delhi office.

  • It must come with a great deal of bewilderment for many to discover that a superhuman has the heart of a human within. This should not be a matter of discouragement but of elation.

    Newswatch: Irom Sharmila and the loneliness of the long-distance runner

    By Pradip Phanjoubam

     

    Irom Sharmila is in love with somebody who has been communicating and sharing soul anguish with her in her confinement through letters. A report in The Telegraph, Kolkata declared this loudly. Nothing very strange about this, after all Sharmila is only 39 years of age and has been living alone in a prison cell after having vowed to sacrifice eating to demand the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) for nearly 11 years. Her fast completed 11 years on November 2 which is the day her family says her fast began, or November 5 when the newspapers first took notice of her fast and put it on record in the next day’s edition.

     

    The terrible privation she has inflicted upon herself and how she has been coping with it is next only to superhuman, and it is a wonder that her spirit did not break down long ago. Ordinary men and women would have probably lost their sanity by now. She is still very much alive today, carrying on the fight she took upon herself to shoulder. It must come with a great deal of bewilderment for many to discover that a superhuman has the heart of a human within. This should not be a matter of discouragement but of elation. After all, what we want to see demonstrated is an ordinary human pushing the boundaries of achievement and not a god doing what are humanly impossible.

     

    We would in this sense give three cheers to Sharmila for the revelation and not downgrade her stature in any way, although we do feel as a public figure she should have been a little wary and discreet about going public with her very private life. It is also unfortunate that she had not indicated this to the local media, making it seem as if the local media has been party to keeping her feelings under wraps. Or is it a case of efforts by interested parties to do just this? This should become known sooner than later.

     

    But no great damage done, the truth is out, so be it, and hopefully for the better towards the actualisation of the noble cause she is fighting for. Her direct supporters, and all the rest of us, must come to terms with the new and more human image of the lonely tough-willed fighter, and carry the movement forward with renewed vigour. After all the movement is what is important, and with or without an iconic figure like Sharmila as standard bearer, it should carry on without any sense of loss or that the wind in the sails has diminished. She has done enough to highlight the issue, more than anyone behind the cause can imagine every doing. We should not be on the lookout for a martyr in her. Instead we should be encouraging her to end her self-inflicted privation and carry on the struggle without having to go through all the torture of unending hunger. The issue is the draconian AFSPA and not Irom Sharmila, however great she is.

     

    We cannot however help wondering if Sharmila is not under psychological stress more than ever in the past few months. It is learnt that meeting her even by her own family members is no longer as easy as it used to be, permission now having to be acquired from the chief secretary of the state himself. All of us who have visited the iron lady in the past know her confinement was not so strictly guarded. For whatever the reason, her privation was being deepened and surely her loneliness too in equal measures, after all she is a human too. Imagine 11 years in a prison cell all alone, not even in contact with other prisoners as she is in a special jail ward in the Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital Porompat so as to enable medical care and nose feeding.

     

    Not only this, going without food is not just about tolerating hunger. In fact, in her case, hunger may not be much of an issue for she is fed through the nose and kept alive. But her self-denial is more about foregoing taste and smell of food, some of the most gratifying of all human senses. Any lesser person would have lost sanity under the circumstance. Is this additional stress having a toll on her? We hope not.

     

    In any case, the campaign against the oppressive AFSPA has been allowed to hinge on Sharmila alone for too long. This was not good for her as she is finding out now, or for the movement, for it deprived individuality of individual campaigners, most of them having simply to rally behind Sharmila, abdicating in the process the need to take individual stances in the manner Erich Fromm described the emergence of dictatorships in “Escape from Freedom”.

     

    The episode is sad in another way though. The paradoxical thing is, to be a public leader entails a great deal of sacrifice of private life. Sharmila as a selfless crusader against the embodiment of an oppressive law automatically came to be lifted on an exalted public pedestal. Sharmila as a shy private woman can lead a happy individual life but will disappear from the public domain. This is the difference between an inspirational leader and a common citizen. The freedom to aspire for either should remain with the individual. Let Sharmila decide her own future without any guilt. She has contributed enough already. Manipur and its resistance against the AFSPA must however continue undeterred even if she decides to retire to a peaceful normal life.

     

    Leaders and Followers

    But there are more to what this recent development has proven. The fact that a personal decision of Irom Sharmila is now seen somewhat as a threat to the campaign against the AFSPA in Manipur is a demonstration of the strategic and structural flimsiness of any protracted struggle to resort to hero worship. It has to be said that Sharmila’s direct followers are guilty of having done this to a great extent. Even if it is not hero worship, they had built their campaign with her as the major, if not the only prop.

     

    The approach should instead have been to see Sharmila as a star campaigner, but not the heart and soul of the campaign, but unfortunately, for whatever their reason, this route was not given much importance. And so a single report of Sharmila’s love affair with a hitherto unheard of man, and her reported statement that she is disillusioned with her followers, caused so much trepidation and even the fear that the campaign against the AFSPA would lose much of its steam.

     

    We hope this does not happen and the movement is able to find new legs that could do with but did not absolutely need Sharmila as a prop if she at all becomes unavailable. Indeed, the myriad human rights organisations actively involved in the campaign must now take time off to rethink, retrospect and reorient their future strategies. Meanwhile leave Sharmila to be where she wants to be.

     

    But increasingly confounding is also the reason why The Telegraph chose to give so much prominence to Sharmila’s declaration of her very personal affair. This is even more intriguing for in all of the 11 long years she has been staging her protest fast, even on the day she completed the 10 year landmark, she was not seen as deserving headline space by this newspaper. Many other newspapers and television channels even ignored the event. So why this sudden interest in her personal affairs, even though it is clear she was the one who revealed it to the journalist who did the report.

     

    The timing, whether by design or coincidence is also curious for only a few days earlier the Union home minister, P Chidambaram had announced in New Delhi that the government was considering a review of the AFSPA. Moreover a reflected halo from the Anna Hazare blitzkrieg in New Delhi was beginning to hover over Sharmila, signifying perhaps liberal India’s conscience was being awoken, and the issue of AFSPA was beginning to attract national attention. It was in the midst of this that the story of Sharmila’s love affair butted in rudely.

     

    The story was heart-warming no doubt despite the hiccups caused by a passage suggesting Sharmila was having very serious differences with her supporters, still the question of its timing as well as the prominence given to it, would undoubtedly make many suspicious that it may have motives other than plain journalistic calibration of news value. Thankfully however, it does now seem the sensational revelation is unlikely to sidetrack the anti-AFSPA campaign.

     

    The development also should bring back the old debate of whether leaders make situations or the situations make leaders. The Sharmila case should again highlight the need to find the right balance between two. Leaders with vision give any movement the right focus and charisma, but it is also equally true that it is the peculiarities of a given situation which throws up a leader. For instance it is unlikely Gandhi could have happened in the 18th Century or Abraham Lincoln in the 20th Century.

     

    This notwithstanding, it would be wrong to also dismiss human agency in shaping event and indeed history. If everything were to be predetermined by circumstance and leaders too were forged only by the impersonal forces of history, as Isaiah Berlin noted in “Crooked Timber of Humanity” a difficult ethical situation would arise whereby it would become impossible to hold anybody accountable for history’s many atrocities. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and all the other mass murderers of history would then appear to be no more than quasi-tragic figures, compelled by historical circumstances to do what they did.

     

    In this context, Pol Pot who killed two million of his countrymen in the span of a decade of his rule, believed whatever he did was for the good of his country even on his deathbed as became evident in what was to be his last interview by Far Eastern Economic Review. It would thus be prudent for the human rights movement in the state to assess the situation arising out of Sharmila’s changed emotional constitution from this light.

     

    Pradip Phanjoubam is Editor, Imphal Free Press.

  • Earlier, nothing you wrote could find its way into print without passing through several filters. Much of this still exists but there is an obvious slackening of rigour, says Kalpana Sharma.

    Newswatch: Kalpana Sharma on the falling standards in newspapers

    By Kalpana Sharma

     

    When the new chair of the Press Council of India, Justice Markandey Katju held forth on the competence, or rather incompetence and lack of learning of journalists, we were outraged. How dare a person from outside the media cast aspersions on our competence? Has he any idea how difficult it is to produce readable newspapers and magazines and watchable TV shows?

     

    Yet what was considered inexcusable only a few decades ago now passes without anyone being hauled over the coals. By this I mean the bloomers one can find almost every day, particularly in print. On TV we now know that there probably are as many mistakes as in print. It took the former chair of the Press Council, Justice PB Sawant to catch one such “inadvertent” mistake and to ensure that it was never forgotten. But in print, the errors jump out at you every day – wrong photographs, captions, erroneous headlines, inaccurate data. Are all these inadvertent or do they reflect a lowering of standards in the media – where the rush to print has introduced carelessness that can sometimes prove costly?

     

    Earlier, nothing you wrote could find its way into print without passing through several filters, including people who were clued in on the law. Headline writers generally read the whole story before giving a headline. Even these would be checked before the page was passed. Much of this still exists but there is an obvious slackening of rigour. If there is a ‘post-mortem’ the next morning, and many media organisations have dispensed with this altogether, heads probably don’t roll if there is a mistake unless it provokes a legal notice.

     

    Take just one day in the life of newspapers in Mumbai. On November 28, three newspapers that I read carried stories on the efforts of two NGOs to have a car-free day in South Mumbai. The divergence in the numbers quoted in the reports tells its own story.

     

    On page 5, The Times of India had the following headline: “8,000 ditch vehicles to celebrate car-free SoBo”. (For the uninformed, SoBo is the fashionable name for south Mumbai.) But while the headline was unambiguous about 8,000 people participating, the first paragraph of the report read:

     

    “An initiative to reclaim south Mumbai for pedestrians and cyclists got off to a great start on Sunday morning, with around 800 Mumbaikars ditching their vehicles to participate in a walkathon and a bike-a-thon.”

     

    So who is right? The headline writer or the reporter?

     

    If you thought reading another paper might yield more accurate information, you would be mistaken. Hindustan Times, on the same day, had a six column headline on page 5 stating, “SoBo’s Car Free Day fails to gather steam” and below that: “Poor response: Only 150 people turn up for event, participants complain of poor arrangements.”

     

    How did HT spot only 150 people when TOI counted 800? Or 8,000?

     

    In frustration, I then turned to Express Newsline of Indian Express. It echoed HT’s headline: “Lukewarm turnout, but walkers and cycling enthusiasts have free run”. But unlike the 150 number of HT, Express quoted an organiser claiming that 150 cyclists and 200 pedestrians had participated. So that adds up to 350. So in the end were there 8,000, 800, 350 or 150?

     

    For those outside the media, this might sound like nitpicking. What does it matter? In any case, people only read one newspaper – that is if they read anything except the entertainment supplement.

     

    Yet, the fact that a simple report like this could show such variance actually points to a very basic problem in journalism today. The golden rule about statistics and numbers is: if in doubt, leave out. The structure of newspapers is supposed to provide the checks so that inaccuracies are caught. Journalists are supposed to be trained to be especially careful with numbers. And to double- check everything, even the most trivial detail. When something so basic begins to break down, then you are laying the ground for the kind of mistakes that bring in lawsuits.

     

    So even if Justice Katju’s remarks were sweeping generalisations, I would suggest that they were not entirely off the mark.

     

    Kalpana Sharma is an independent journalist and columnist.

  • Everybody wants to be a part of the action and the media is the vehicle to fame. Unfortunately there has been a tendency for single numbers to be blown up and the complete picture obfuscated to drive home a point.

    Newswatch by Madan Sabnavis: In media showbiz, real figures take a backseat

    By Madan Sabnavis

     

    Media is not unlike showbiz. Everybody wants to be a part of the action and the media is the vehicle to fame. Given the intense competition, it is but natural that every newspaper wants to be one up and every television channel would like to be the first to flash breaking news. Suddenly, even a standard release from the government becomes breaking news for the first channel that flashes the story. From politics to economics, it is the same story.

     

    The economic travails that we are facing today have grabbed headlines as well as eyeballs, thanks to the media, which is a powerful tool for conveying an idea, as we have witnessed in 2011.

     

    The media’s main focus has been on the policymakers and critics, which added zing to otherwise insipid developments. It is not thatIndiais crawling this year. Growth is reasonable, inflation is high, though not unusual as we have had such patterns in the past and the entire hullabaloo on exchange rate is again not really happening for the first time. But all this has come to the fore due to incessant media attention, and in a way, has gotten exaggerated. How fair has this exposure been?

     

    The interesting fact here has been the prevalence of the same basic laws of economics – demand and supply of such views in the media industry. TV channels have hours dedicated to business and economy. As every economic indicator is supposed to affect the stock market, it merits fixed hours of discussion. There are time spaces to fill in with views which get in the big names. This has led to constant interactions with government officials, policy makers, bureaucrats, ex-bureaucrats, economists, CEOs, CFOs, journalists, academicians, journalists, and so on.

     

    More importantly everybody wants the top names in the field, though the rather amusing outcome is that we have the same set of 10-20 experts in each of the fields who circulate the same, standard views.

     

    There is, in a way, nothing really wrong here, but there may have been a tendency to over-react at times as we have started viewing every economic detail on a realtime basis.

     

    Today, economic data in India comes with lags. There is a two-week lag for wholesale prices, a month for exports, consumer prices and industrial data. The lag becomes almost a quarter for GDP numbers. To top it all, there are revisions which can be quite horrendous, since the experts look like having contradicted themselves as they comment based on the information provided at that particular point of time. Now the broader question is whether we should believe such data.

     

    Why do we want to minutely dissect such high frequency data when we know that there will be changes subsequently? This is important because all such data and interpretations invariably affect stock market and investment decisions. If all experts say that interest rates will rise, then individuals will shift to bank deposits, just like how mutual funds may become attractive in case the majority view is that the economy is on track and booming.

     

    With a tendency for over-exposure and the willingness or over-enthusiasm of experts to come online, there may have been a situation of overstating cases. Generally speaking, theory will say that economies do not function in one week or month, but on a cumulative basis during a year. This being the case, in the past we have been looking only at cumulative numbers.

     

    But today if one channel looks at month-over-month numbers, all have to do it to stay in the race. This means forcing the speakers to comment or give their forecasts which they have to do once they are on the phone or on camera.

     

    This has led to a proliferation in the numbers being given on each and every economic indicator by the same person in a short span of time, say one month. When queried on reactions to a dismal number, which is actually a tautological question, the answer has to be that the person is dismayed or surprised or shocked or concerned. But actually, they may not really know why the number turned out to be abysmal.

     

    The official stance always talks of recoveries in the rest of the year while the corporates will always paint a doomsday picture when interest rates have risen. This, in turn, can drive an opinion.

     

    Things have hence been magnified throughout the media on account of relatively higher frequency of economic releases which still are subject to revisions.

     

    Unfortunately there has been a tendency for single numbers to be blown up and the complete picture obfuscated to drive home a point. We have not really had any novel solutions offered in this plethora of debates.

     

    Let us see some of them: We need to have reforms. But did we not have a good economic picture without these reforms in the past? We need to lower interest rates to help industry. Is industry the only sector driving the economy and is this the only constituency that matters? We should stop predatory competition fromChinawhich affects us. But if the product is an import going into your product, would the stance be the same? There is policy paralysis. But this cannot be a solution when the world is going through a slowdown and everyone has to adjust.

     

    Surprisingly, we do not hear western critics saying that there is policy paralysis in the Eurozone which is holding back growth – there as it is understood that all crisis situations take time to resolve as there are various constituencies involved.

     

    How then does one evaluate the performance of the media in bringing to the fore the economic crisis that we are living with? There is a plethora of views, with few interpretations. The viewer or reader has to make a choice and often times, by virtue of selection of the commentators or experts, ends up getting confused.

     

    As the media invariably represents a single view in a market economy, it has helped to bring to the fore the issues, though admittedly, government action is based on a larger public concerns and hence has remained susceptible to media bashing.

     

    We have not really had workable solutions coming forth in these discussions. But, nonetheless it has helped to stoke a lot of debate and create awareness of issues which hitherto would have been confined to only a certain section of people. To this extent, it is a job well done. What about the experts who keep giving their views relentlessly on the same lines? To quote Oscar Wilde, to be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it is simply a tragedy. It’s showbiz after all.

     

    Madan Sabnavis is Chief Economist, CARE Ratings. The views expressed are personal.

  • There was nothing romantic or glamorous about the crime beat, and Oswald Pereira still firmly believes that the best way to survive as a crime reporter is to draw a 'Laxman Rekha'.

    Newswatch: Oswald Pereira on crime reporters and their tryst with the underworld

    By Oswald Pereira

     

    There’s a world of a difference between the underworld in reel life and real life. Dons in reel life are most often glorified or caricatured beyond reality. But now it seems that impressionable young crime reporters and seasoned veterans too while reporting on the underworld have lost touch with reality.

     

    The result: they tend to romanticise their role as crime reporters, assuming a larger-than-life persona for themselves; they are apparently taking more than necessary risks under the guise of investigative reporting.

     

    It’s one thing to be a good investigative journalist; it’s another matter when a crime reporter foolhardily goes into the den of the underworld- virtually bang bang, with a pen against the guns of the mafia.

     

    The fact that some young whiz kid journalists are editors hasn’t helped matters. In the good old days, a seasoned editor would caution and restrain over-enthusiastic reporters, but young editors lack that experience and maturity.

     

    The consequences are there to see: The murder of a journalist and the arrest of another.

     

    Could these have been avoided with more mature leadership or would it have been a different story if the journalists themselves had taken the necessary precautions and there was a system of checks and balances within the organisation?

     

    There are no simple answers to these questions. But there is definitely need for some serious thinking on these issues.

     

    I recall how during the communal riots in Mumbai in the 1980s, there was a fleet of ambassador cars that took us around to cover disturbances. We would inform the editor each time we went out. When the editor thought an incident was too dangerous to cover, he would restrain us. On one occasion, we sneaked out into a dangerous trouble spot in the dead of night out of sheer bravado, without informing the editor. But we had hell to pay when the editor learnt about it and the fact that we were real close to danger.

     

    As a crime reporter, I myself did a fair bit of investigation, going out into the field, meeting the underworld and dons. But I always watched my step and kept my distance. I had realised then that to write the next story, you had to avoid putting your hand into the mouth of the lion.

     

    Even in those days, there were some heady journalists who went about their job without a thought. I can still picture a trembling photo editor, surrounded by threatening members of a top underworld don. Instead of clicking a photograph or two and sneaking away, the photo editor had gone wild with excitement and clicked numerous photographs of the don being escorted down the steps of the court after attending a hearing of a case of extortion against him. This attracted the attention of the gang members and they threatened him with dire consequences. I had happened to know the don’s nephew, a college dropout, who spoke impeccable English. He was a contract killer and warned that he had already half a dozen murder cases against him; so one more wouldn’t make a difference. I intervened on the photo editor’s behalf. The nephew relented and let the photo editor off, only after a firm promise that no pictures would be printed in the next day’s newspaper. Quite interestingly, Mumbai crime branch officials were around, but they stepped in only later and one of them finally escorted the photo editor to his office, pillion-riding on his motorcycle.

     

    My job as a crime reporter included taking down police remand notes from the courts to report in my newspaper. Sometimes, I would be tapped on the back and guys whose necks were as thick as my shoulder would mock, “Writing a story, ah, ah.” I would smile and they would say, “Good, good, continue working.” Sometimes, tough-looking guys with bloodshot eyes, working for some don or the other, would visit our office, after my newspaper published a big story that I had written, and casually announce, “Bhai, wants to see you.”

     

    “Okay, I’ll come,” was my stock reply. Senior police officers too would drop hints or openly propose meetings with dons.

     

    Crime reporters then-I’m talking about the 1980s- too had dangers and temptations. We also had plenty of inside stories on offer from the underworld. But personally, I considered it rather risky to write a story based entirely on information from the underworld, unless, of course, it was verified by official sources… but even if it was, one had to make doubly sure that the official didn’t have a motive themselves.

     

    And journalists were sometimes the targets of the underworld. A crime journalist of a suburban newspaper was hacked by criminals. I pulled up the police commissioner of the area, who happened to be a good friend, and accused him of sleeping on the job. He retorted, “You guys are feasting on the job.”

     

    “What do you mean?” I asked, angrily.

    “The journalist used to extort money from the underworld, showing them the stuff that he was going to print the next day. So they put him to sleep,” he replied and laughed.

     

    That was the case of a crime reporter who paid with his life for demanding a price, not once, but many times over for not printing stories. But there were other crime reporters whose lives were threatened for doing an honest job.

     

    Among the various beats in a newspaper, reporters covering crime seem to be the most vulnerable to attacks. In the profession itself, crime reporters are not an envied lot. But it’s not a beat meant for the faint-hearted.

     

    Personally, among the beats that I covered in newspapers and magazines-crime, politics, business-I found the crime beat the most challenging and interesting; even more satisfying and fulfilling than later senior writing and editorial positions and as editor of niche defence and infrastructure magazines.

     

    But there was nothing romantic or glamorous about the beat; it was hard and difficult. I believed then, and still firmly believe, that the best way to survive as a crime reporter is to draw for yourself a Laxman Rekha… that you should not cross, come what way.

     

    (The writer is the author of The Newsroom Mafia, currently among the top new releases nationwide recently published by Grey Oak Westland.)