Category: MxM JOURNALISM REVIEW

By Ranjona Banerji

 

Following the Pathankot attack on social media, with no access to Indian television news, was a bizarre experience. For one thing, Twitter now seems to be the Government of India’s official means of communication. Information arrives there first as ministers and government officers tweet away. However, it is unclear whether something as serious as an attack on Air Force Base should have government agencies tweeting about it.

 

Secondly, it is now obvious, as far as this government is concerned, who in the media has access to whom in the government and whom the government uses to disseminate the information it wants out there. As senior journalist Saikat Datta pointed out on Twitter this week, “handout journalists” had been releasing information that Indian security operations in Pathankot were a success even while the assault was still on.

 

You may argue that these sycophant journalists cannot be wholly blamed since the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh himself tweeted that the attack had been foiled two days before it was over. In fact, even as I write this, combing operations are on.

 

What was also evident on Twitter is that journalists who favoured the government were at a loss about what to tweet about. The apparent confusion over what was happening in Pathankot was bad enough. Mixed messages were coming out of government agencies and sources. And to make matters worse for the BJP loyalists is that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not to be seen. Far from taking charge of an escalating situation, he was giving a speech about the importance of yoga. He tweeted extensively over the three days of the attack. However, aside from a couple of tweets about the “enemies of humanity” and the pride we feel in our Armed Forces, most of his attention was on science, yoga, cities and various saints and seers.

 

What is a loyalist journalist to do under such circumstances? The prime minister and the government were being roasted on Twitter. So our friends of the BJP fell back on two of our usual suspects. One lot started with attacking Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on increasing crime rates in his state. The other targeted Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his government’s plan to restrict cars on the roads in an attempt to deal with the national capital’s severe pollution problems.

 

The Nitish Kumar ploy was a non-starter. No one was remotely interested. The Kejriwal attack worked better if only because so many vocal and loyalist journalists live in Delhi. However, the odd-even number-plate restriction had been discussed down to the bare bones when it was first announced and besides, there were some reports that it was working.

 

The elephant in the room however remains: Pathankot. It was the biggest news for three days and will undoubtedly continue to be so. There is context – the proximity of the attack to a friendly supposedly unscheduled ‘happy birthday’ meeting beween Modi and Nawaz Sharif. There is the larger issue of resuming talks. There are the outrageous claims made by BJP president Amit Shah that no Pakistani terrorist would dare to enter India if Modi was prime minister. There are the usual problems of intelligence miscommunication, of a fumbling government and the Punjab administration saying it cannot cope with cross-border assaults. And there is the fact of the attack itself, the deaths, the apparent lack of equipment and so on.

 

It is almost impossible to imagine what sort of a journalist would even think that tweeting about Bihar’s crime statistics was remotely relevant at a time like this. It needs to be pointed out that these are not junior reporters and sub-editors. These are people in senior positions in mainline establishments. Even funnier were the subsequent attempts at the mildest possible criticism of the PMO’s tweets about yoga during an ongoing attack on an Indian Air Force base. If you have ever seen a cat tentatively trying to dip its paws in the water and then retreating, you would know how amusing it can be.

 

Unfortunately, this is the sort of journalist who is now most powerful in India. Go figure.

 

By Ranjona Banerji

 

The fallout of the Pathankot attack appears to remain at the top of the news cycle in India which is hardly surprising. Although I have written last week about our sycophantic media, unable by instruction or inclination to show the BJP and the Central government in bad light, one has to salute courageous publications like The Telegraph, Calcutta for instance. Not only has it called the entire operation “Pathanblot”,(http://www.telegraphindia.com/1160106/jsp/frontpage/story_62434.jsp#.Vo5IXfl97IU) , the newspaper has also written a very strong editorial arguing against the “martyr” status given to every fallen soldier. This is a common practice by India’s most well-known TV anchors who have absolutely no concept of the meaning of the word “martyr”, inasmuch as they understand concepts at all.

 

In the hyper-nationalistic atmosphere that prevails in India now, where words like sedition and treason are thrown around very lightly, you have to admire a newspaper which can question the actions of a slain officer during a terrorist attack. Yet, the concerns raised here are pertinent and need to addressed urgently. http://www.telegraphindia.com/1160107/jsp/opinion/story_62467.jsp#.Vo5JVvl97IU

 

The website thequint.com also carried a letter by Lt General HS Panag (retired) to Major General Pradyot Mallick (retired) on the Pathankot attack. It is a scathing analysis of what happened at the Air Force Base in Punjab.

http://www.thequint.com/opinion/2016/01/06/the-pathankot-attack-was-a-disgrace-for-us

 

There is some hope for the media if at least some media houses, old and new, are willing to look for facts rather than toe some party line. The last two years have shown the most abysmal standards in Indian journalism for all that everyone who is not pro-BJP is sought to be presented as a Congress stooge. The evidence at the moments points in quite another direction.

 

What India needs very urgently is TV programmes which analyse the way news is presented. I write this sitting here in the UK where there are any number of shows, serious and funny, which examine newspapers and television news. Personally, the shows which mock the news are top of the list. Of course, Jon Stewart’s Daily Show in the US, now fronted by South African comedian Trevor Noah, set the standard. And John Oliver is also superb – if you have not watched his take on Indian television news, Narendra Modi in America and how the American media ignored the Indian general elections, you should do so at once.

 

The All India Bakchod has taken on the news on Youtube and now on television. And there’s always The Week That Wasn’t. But neither of them is as strong, as confrontational and as in-your-face as they need to be. India has a tendency to get stuck in morass of over-baked notions of self-respect and we need to be taken down frequently. Journalists are no exception and some are far too full of themselves.

 

**

 

Having said that, the illness of concentrating on the trivial and fluttering past the substantial is a worldwide media disease. The often mindless and meaningless potterings of the latest pop star are far more important than any world even unless you count US presidential hopeful Donald Trump, who may qualify as both.

 

By Ranjona Banerji

 

Two things strike you immediately about the way journalism is perceived in the UK: everyone complains about the media all the time and yet no one appears to read mainstream newspapers.

 

That sounds like a contentious and dichotomous statement. But there is little doubt now that the old-style newspaper is now an old world product. Instead, you have that other creature: the free newspaper which is now a regular if not a mainstay. The free newspaper sometimes could be the Evening Standard, which is read by commuters on the Underground who are not addicted to Candy Crush or staring vacantly into space.

 

And there is the neighbourhood paper which has local ads and local news which could be as diverse as a baby born on Christmas Day at a nearby hospital, a theatre personality with a gambling addiction and odd goings on at a local prison. These papers require a lot of hard work and ought not to be sneered at. How many reporters with a mainstream newspaper would climb up to the roof of a building to interview a prisoner who had escaped to the roof of the prison?

 

However, the influence of the media remains. Obviously the internet and television are the main sources of news but sooner rather than later the internet is going to be the clear winner. Every media house which is investing in mobile app technology is looking at the cash register going ka-ching and I cannot see TV keeping pace unless it runs down the same road.

 

It is also true that the UK at least benefits from not having nonstop hysterical and any number of 24-hour news channels. Plus, although people here do not stop making fun of the media for exaggerating issues and asking silly questions, can you imagine how anyone else in the world would react if they were subjected to our prime-time “debates”? Perhaps we should have a time-sharing scheme with international news channels and export some of our savers of the nation so that they can go save the world? How peaceful life would be even if it put me out of a job…

 

**

 

Meanwhile back in India as far as I can see, we are still seesawing between Pathankot, Malda and Arvind Kejriwal. Even the fact that Malini Parthasarathy resigned as editor of The Hindu in one more Kasturi family carousel ride could not keep the media engaged. Off everyone went on to the other roller-coaster ride: “you covered this but did not cover that, this news item is more important than that and you are an anti-national.”

 

**

 

The internet and international media is in a tizzy over actress Jennifer Lawrence’s treatment of a reporter at a post-Golden Globes press conference. The video doing the rounds shows the actress, who had just won an award, mocking a reporter for looking at his phone while asking her a question. It does seem clear that English was not the reporter’s first language and that is why he was possibly looking at his phone.  Although there was some support for Lawrence on the internet, most people seem to find her needless nasty. The video does show some of the nonsense which reporters who deal with famous people have to put up with.

 

Interesting, the Golden Globes are given by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Go figure.

 

Mashable has rounded up the story:

http://mashable.com/2016/01/11/jennifer-lawrence-globes-reporter/?utm_cid=mash-com-Tw-main-link#BnrJUe4W_gqr

 

By Ranjona Banerji

 

The world around tennis appears to be in turmoil over match-fixing allegations. Or is it? The BBC and Buzzfeed broke a story on January 18 on “secret files” about match-fixing at the top levels of international tennis. Offenders include Grand Slam winners and players in the top 50 of the rankings of the game.

 

The story is especially explosive since the first Grand Slam tournament of the year, the Australian Open, has just begun in Melbourne on Monday, January 18. The story is serious but the revelations are not new. These “secret files” refer to the scandal that came to public light a decade ago. The most notable allegation then was against Nikolai Davydenko, then number 4 in the ATP rankings, who was suspected of “tanking” or throwing a match in 2007. The match was highlighted because online betting company Betfair found “irregular activity” on the match as suspended all bets, reporting the matter to the ATP. Davydenko, since retired, was suspended pending investigation but as cricket investigators have found, proving match-fixing is notoriously difficult. According to the BCC and Buzzfeed story, at least eight players flagged by the Tennis Integrity Unit, set up after the match-fixing scandal, are due to play in Australia this fortnight.

 

Interestingly, a respected tennis writer on CNN wondered if the timing of the story was its main significance – to get maximum readership mileage out of the Australian Open, when viewership increases substantially over that of diehard, year-round tennis fans. Since the reports names no new names and most of the investigations are against low-ranked players – most not even in the top 100 of the ATP rankings, the story remains more speculative than constructive.

 

This is where the media runs into legal and ethical brick walls. Without names and without big names, there is no story. But if you do not mention the story at all, you are doing the public and the game a disservice. In fact, what the media needs to show is greater vigilance so that tennis can hold itself to a high standard. But there is an intrinsic problem here. Most sports reporting tends to be personality driven and increasingly, with hero worship thrown in. Under the circumstances, objectivity becomes a rare commodity. Some tennis writers prefer to limit themselves to analyses of the games themselves and playing styles. This leaves larger issues in tennis untouched. This problem can be seen in just about every sport. Does it bear repeating that almost no regular cricket correspondent appeared to have any clues about the extent of the 2000 match-fixing scandal that almost broke the game, in spite of (or because of?) close proximity?

 

There are in fact several problems that affect tennis but few of them get enough coverage. Journalists – and the tennis authorities – shy away from reporting extensively on drug use or violations of tennis rules by players. The fact that top players – especially in the ATP tour – are often fined for breaking time rules or coaching violations are papered over. Journalists appear to have almost forgotten how a much-respected umpire is not permitted to chair a certain player’s games because of personal differences. That players like Richard Gasquet, Marin Cilic and Victor Troiki were suspended for drug use is almost forgotten but a player lower down the pecking order like Wayne Odesnik is much reviled. By contrast, one rather rare loss of control by Serena Williams with a linesperson during the US Open is still referred to.

 

Clearly tennis authorities are too much in awe of their players to take stringent public action against them. Some burden therefore falls on the media. But, in this story, the allegations perhaps do fall short. We need more details and more investigation, not less, if tennis is to keep its reputation intact.

 

By Ranjona Banerji

 

Once more into the breach: That is how the Indian media deals with news breaks. From flip-flopping over the Pathankot attack and a number of senior editors and journalists trying to protect the government from accusations of inefficiency and worse, we now have journalists trying to be fair on Dalit issues. Forgive me if I sound cynical. It is only because I have seen too much anti-Dalit and anti lower caste prejudice from upper caste journalists in newsrooms, especially in recent times. This is nothing but a massive tragedy because if journalists do not stand up for the underprivileged, then who will?

 

So now we have a situation where a research scholar at Hyderabad University, Rohith Vemula, commits suicide under some very unfortunate if not almost criminal circumstances. India discovers that he was part of a group called the Ambedkar Students’ Association, which is considered “radical” by members of the BJP’s student wing the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. Vemula and four other students were suspended by the university over a fight with the ABVP. Vemula’s stipend was withheld for months, leaving him and his family desperate.

 

What made the case worse was that a BJP minister wrote to the HRD ministry to inform them of the ASA’s apparent assault on the ABVP and that these students were “anti-national”. Further, the HRD ministry consequently sent a number of letters to the university until these five Dalit students were suspended. The BJP, as is its wont these days, took too long to respond and several journalists decided to concentrate on the fact that the Congress vice-president rushed to Hyderabad rather than discrimination against Dalit students in higher educational institutions in India or government interference in support of a political party’s student body, which perhaps were the bigger stories.

 

This is not the first time that we have seen upper caste anger against Dalits at institutes of higher education in India. IIT Bombay, IIT Madras, IIT Roorkee, Hyderabad University – these are only some examples of discrimination and prejudice against Dalits. It is a story that ought to be looked at thoroughly and not through the prism of upper caste angst as is evident in websites like Swarajya, for instance where takes the position that these Dalit students, by demanding their rights and holding “uncomfortable” positions, are somehow the problem. By Indian law, caste discrimination is illegal: should journalists be aware of this?

 

On the evening of Thursday January 21, NDTV and India Today TV focussed on this issue. Times Now and NewsX were engrossed on a probable scam in Bihar and CNN-IBN looked at students’ suicides at Kota coaching centres. However to be fair, the media as a whole has made Rohith Vemula a household name and only a few of the usual suspects have been left scrambling to protect the BJP government at the Centre.

 

**

 

Bhupendra Chaubey of CNN-IBN, who has lately stewarded the channel back to a more professional mode since its ownership turmoil, found himself the butt of jokes on social media and had to face the rage of Bollywood. While interviewing Bollywood actress Sunny Leone, he focused for too long on her past as a porn star, to the extent that he was offensive and misogynistic. His questions included asking her if her presence in front of him would morally corrupt him. He also suggested that actors like Aamir Khan would never act with her. Leone was dignified throughout, which only added to her charm.

 

As it happened, Aamir Khan tweeted he would be happy to act with Leone. Firstpost.com put up this defence of Chaubey, which was a superb move considering that they are sister concerns.

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/in-defence-of-bhupendra-chaubey-outrage-about-the-sunny-leone-interview-is-misplaced-2592884.html

 

**

 

The death of Dr Aroon Tikekar this week marks a sad day for Indian journalism. He belonged to that old school of erudite, informed and free-thinking journalists who cared more for their convictions than for corporate success. He will be sorely missed in all his capacities but especially as a thinker and a mentor. I feel privileged that he considered me a friend.

 

By Ranjona Banerji

 

There are many embarrassments in the life of a journalist. Let’s face it, the job by nature aligns itself to errors. Some are genuine and some are what we like to term “judgment calls”: a rose by any name you may well argue. For those who thrive on sensationalism, the “mistakes” are deliberate: to slightly twist facts, to mislead with a headline, to focus on one aspect while ignoring the context. To a certain kind of editor, this is what sells and this is what needs to be presented to the “gullible” reader. Because after all, if there are people who genuinely believe in the headline, “Woman gives birth to two-headed goat”, then who is the humble press to disillusion them. Yes, “tabloid” or “yellow” journalism has its place: Usually entertaining, often nasty and sometimes punishable by law.

 

However, what about errors that spring from a complete absence of established journalistic controls and checks and balances? What happens when editors themselves decide to put information into the public domain without checking authenticity but having no qualms about maligning people? I do not hold with the theory that all television journalism is bad although I have excoriated it enough in these columns.

 

But, the curious case of the letter about Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose deserves time and attention. Twitter and social media were abuzz this week over a letter written by Jawaharlal Nehru to British prime minister Clement Attlee in 1945 which apparently emerged from the files relating to the freedom fighter, declassified by the government on Bose’s birthday, January 23. Bose’s disappearance, as is well-known in India, has long been a source of controversy and conspiracy theories. The fact that successive governments have refused to release any information has only added to the myth and the dissatisfaction.

 

It is therefore hardly surprising that a fake letter that has been doing the rounds for six months before declassification should excite people who are waiting for information that would put the Congress Party and India’s first prime minister under murky light.

 

But is that reason enough for a seasoned television journalist like Rahul Kanwal, joined by Aditya Raj Kaul, to start pushing this fake letter as real on Twitter and Facebook and demanding an explanation from the Congress Party? The letter had many giveaways. For one, Clement Attlee’s name was spelt wrong and so was Nehru’s. What are the odds that Nehru did not know how to spell both his own name and that of the British prime minister? Further, Nehru was not prime minister of India in 1945 and Attlee was not prime minister of “England”. The letter is unsigned. The grammar is appalling. I can understand that people schooled in the RSS version of Indian history, filled with Vedic spacecraft and advanced infertility treatment, know nothing about Nehru but any regular school-going child knows that Nehru studied in the British public school Harrow and at Cambridge University. He also wrote several books. However much you hate him, his English was close to impeccable.

 

There is more than ideological underpinning that is the problem here, though. It is the rush to get a story out without checking the facts. All Kanwal and Raj Kaul needed to do was sit down and think for 10 minutes. That is, I assume they did not do so. If they did, the situation is truly dire.

 

As I have understood from social media, Kanwal deleted his Facebook post which had put forward reasons on why the letter was real and Raj Kaul apologised. This was only after historians and the general public explained how the letter was fake, which should in fact have been obvious. Here are details on the website scroll.in:

http://scroll.in/article/802403/twitter-starts-to-mock-fake-nehru-letter-with-fake-nehru-whatsapp-messages

 

As for the promotion of the fake letter: that was just bad journalism. There can be no “judgment call” excuse here.

 

​By Ranjona Banerji​

 

Just as television news was my target last week for its various sins, I have to applaud it for taking some issues head on. Gender equality, whether the rights of women to be allowed into temples and mosques or the discrimination inherent in menstruation taboos, the needless criminalisation of homosexuality in Indian law and police brutality against students were some of the subjects which were debated on most English news channels.

 

In all cases, the TV anchors and reporters on the scene stood against the entrenched views of patriarchy and discrimination. As is as their wont, they gave more than ample space to the various regressive elements in our society in an attempt to appear “fair” – why is this gentleman Rahul Eshwar everywhere? But ​​they also brought to public attention a wide variety of new voices to speak about women’s rights and the sexual rights of Indians.

 

Perhaps I am being unfair to our TV debate shows. Perhaps allowing these regressive voices to share their views only reiterates the irrationality and hatred in their positions. It is also very amusing to watch them squirming – the ubiquitous Eshwar for instance – when menstruation, bleeding and sanitary pads are mentioned. It is even funnier to watch them running for justification when asked to explain why religion discriminates against women.
Unfortunately there are deeper points in all these subjects which TV debates, discussions and screaming matches cannot cover. This is where print comes in and print seems more focused on the various political shenanigans going on, which have their own need for ample space! Websites luckily will give you a bit of both.

 

So should TV news debates have focused on the Supreme Court asking the Gujarat government if it was planning to secede from the Indian Union? Or on The Case of President’s Rule in Arunachal Pradesh, which is getting curiouser and curiouser?
All things considered, social issues are well-suited to TV. As we saw with the khap panchayats or when the 2012 gang-rape case shocked the nation, TV worked extremely hard and effectively to expose and rigorously question the worst ideas and elements that thrive in society. The nuance of politics unfortunately gets lost in TV debates which as we all know and have mentioned often enough, become nothing more than slanging matches.

 

**

 

Since Delhi is the centre of the universe for Indian news television (barring Times Now), the thrashing of students protesting the treatment of Dalits after Rohith Vemula’s suicide by the Delhi police, got national coverage. The Delhi police is run by the Union Home Ministry which of course means the BJP-led government at the Centre. Thus even pro-government journalists were full of outrage – a staple of a media-driven world.

 

Meanwhile, in Mumbai, the same problem prevailed of political sympathy versus public need. The killer smog that has engulfed the city over the past few days and the fact that some members of the municipal corporation were on a junket to the Andamans which Mumbai spluttered took up much TV time. Both the state government and the municipal corporation are controlled by the BJP and Shiv Sena, in various combinations of power.

 

It is too early to come to any conclusions but seemingly, lathis and smog in big cities may sometimes outweigh political loyalties?

 

 

By Ranjona Banerji

 

This Sunday, the Jagdalpur home of Malini Subramaniam, a contributor to the news website Scroll.in, was attacked by a mob. Her car was damaged. And she was accused of being a “Maoist” sympathiser and of “tarnishing the image of the police”.

 

Jagdalpur is in the state of Chhatisgarh and Subramaniam had been reporting on police atrocities in the Bastar region.

 

Chattisgarh has a long history of imprisoning anyone who does not toe the government line when it comes to Maoists. Dr Binayak Sen was once the government’s most well-known target. The government also reacted with full state rage when its “Salwa Judum” or civil militia plan (ostensibly to target Maoist violence) was criticised.

 

Subramaniam’s reporting therefore was exceptionally brave, given the circumstances. And the bias of the authorities is clear since Scroll.in now reports that she was not allowed to file a First Information Report about the attack on her house as the police came up with bogus excuses to stop her.

 

In October, Subramaniam had also written about the alleged torture of two journalists, Somaru Nag and Santosh Yadav, by the police. This story was later picked up by newspapers.

 

As is amply becoming clear, we as journalists need to move beyond our city-centric concerns about the practise of our profession. There are real and imminent dangers to journalists within our borders which need drastic attention. Most international agencies and watchdogs will list the difficulties faced by journalists in known war zones across the world. But there can be no doubt that we need more attention on problems faced in India.

 

Various media organisations have spoken out about the attacks on Subramaniam. Newsminute has written this: http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/shame-shameless-attacking-journalists-their-line-duty-38725

 

Scroll has reported on the problems faced by Subramaniam:

http://scroll.in/article/803203/attack-on-scroll-in-contributor-chhattisgarh-police-refuse-to-file-fir-journalists-rally-in-support

 

And the Network for Women in Media, India (NWMI) has issued this statement, which in fact covers the issue comprehensively:

“NWMI condemns the attack on Malini Subramaniam

 

We, members of the Network of Women in Media, India, strongly condemn the shocking attack on the residence of Malini Subramaniam, a journalist based in Jagdalpur, Chhattisgarh and correspondent for the news site Scroll.In, and the continuous attempts to intimidate and threaten her into silence.

 

According to reports in the news site, Scroll.In, a group of around 20 persons had come to her residence at about 6p.m. on February 7, and shouted slogans attacking her, including ‘Naxali Samarthak Bastar Chodo. Malini Subramaniam Mordabad’ (Naxal supporter, leave Bastar. Death to Malini Subramaniam). The mob apparently tried to instigate neighbours to attack her and said that she was a Naxal supporter. Early on February 8, morning, at around 2.30am, a motorcycle slowed down her home and threw stones at her residence.

 

Ms Subramaniam has identified two of the men in the mob — Manish Parakh and Sampat Jha. Both had visited her residence on January 10 last month and were members to the Samajik Ekta Manch, a Jagdalpur based forum formed to counter Naxalism in Bastar and support the work of the police in the area. Parakh is the secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Yuva Morcha and that Sampat Jha is a member of the Congress in Jagdalpur.

 

The online news site, Scroll, has documented the level of intimidation faced by Ms Subramaniam and has pointed out that, over the last year, she has been writing consistently on issues of adivasis and of displacement, mass sexual violence as well as other human rights violations. It is these reports that the Manch appears to have targeted as being ‘pro-naxal’ and anti-police. Subsequent to the Jan 10 ‘visit’ by members of this Manch, Ms Subramaniam also received late night enquiries from the local police and had to face a number of questions and submit documents giving proof of her identity. The news-site had tried to take up the instances of intimidation with Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh but received no response.

 

It is clear that the local police, which is tasked with protecting its citizens, has chosen to look the other way while the mob demonstrated outside her residence. It has made no attempt to register an FIR or investigate the incident, much less ensure the safety and protection of Ms Subramaniam and her daughter.

 

Already, journalists across the country have lodged strong protests over the arrest and continued incarceration of two journalists from Chhattisgarh, Santosh Yadav and Somaru Nag. Now, in this incident, the indifference of the police and the state administration as well as the Chief Minister is a dangerous portent for freedom of expression and for the safety and security of media persons.

 

We demand that Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh immediately announce a full and thorough investigation into the incident and take steps to ensure the safety of Ms Subramaniam. His failure to do so can only be taken as an indication of his tacit support for such heinous and coercive tactics.”

 

**

 

It can only be hoped that Subramaniam’s case will get ample publicity, not just for her but for all journalists who work in spite of threats, intimidation and worse.

 

As journalists, surely we must now stand together and not give in to divisive political manipulation. Unfortunately, as we all know far too well, often journalists aligned with the government in power will use their influence and resources to back some particular party’s ideology and action.

 

One can only hope that this is not one of those times.

 

Subramaniam needs our full support and courage for her safety and future but also for all of ours.

 

By Ranjona Banerji

 

After a long gap, I decided to watch Arnab Goswami, the voice of the nation on Times Now, India’s most loved and hated news anchor. And I was in luck. Because Thursday night was the night that he decided to champion women’s rights; and you have to concede that love him or hate him, when it comes to women’s rights, nobody one does it better. I am being extremely serious here. For all the problems I have had with Goswami’s style of journalism, when it comes to women’s rights, he is tops!

 

The subject was the sexual harassment allegations against Dr RK Pachauri, scientist and part of a Nobel Prize winning team for work on climate change. Sexual harassment cases in India have always been treacherous territory and even more so when the accused are rich, famous, influential and so on. Given the details of the accusations, Dr Pachauri was suspended from TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute). But now he’s back and in a higher position than he was before in what seems to be a clever sleight of hand by his friends at TERI since he was the boss anyway.

Hence, the outrage.

 

The subject therefore was gripping enough. A very senior doctor, who works with women’s issues and empowerment, pointed out to me recently Goswami takes on such issues more often than anyone else. But the problem seems to be that guests on such shows have also twigged on how to manipulate the inevitable screaming match (“open debate”) to their benefit. “Let me speak let me speak let me speak” they go on, while saying nothing. Goswami interrupts them when he disagrees and this leads to higher decibel levels.

 

Other guests know how to stay on the star anchor’s good side so they agree with him, adding their expertise when necessary. This means that they will be invited again and again. Pachauri’s lawyer however took the “let me speak” route which meant that he not only annoyed the anchor but everyone else. It did not help that he was trying to defend the accused. Nor did it help that he decided the best way to do so was to personally attack Goswami and the media.

 

Pachauri’s lawyer also put up a sheet of paper claiming his mike had been switched off which further aggravated the host. He said that Goswami was not a judge and that he should have his own show where only he speaks. It is hard to understand whether the lawyer was being ironic or insulting or just thick since his own show is precisely what Goswami does have and he has established his authority over his show very emphatically over the years. It is Goswami who makes the show and everyone knows that. An easy tip for guests who want to remain in the public eye – do not upset the anchor!

 

If Pachauri’s lawyer decided that he was the entertainment for the evening, we have a few problems here. The first is that the subject at hand was vitally important. The allegations against Pachauri are very serious and have not been made by just one woman. Students at TERI University of which Pachauri is the head have said they refuse to receive their degrees from him. The people on the TERI governing council are also big names. Although Friday’s papers report that the council will re-look at Pachauri’s role at TERI, it cannot be ruled out that the attention on this case prompted a re-think. For this, Goswami and others who highlighted sexual harassment cases including this one, please take a bow.

 

However, through his show Goswami discussed media houses which are supporting Pachauri and are part of his large circle of influence. There was an old Tamil film song which asked “Who is the black sheep? Who? Who? Who?”. I repeat the question here! Who?

 

By Ranjona Banerji

 

It had to happen. Just when I praised Arnab Goswami and Times Now for taking on Dr RK Pachauri and TERI in their unacceptable behaviour in the sexual harassment case against Pachauri, Goswami gets his channel into full jingoism mode deciding to bypass journalism for grandstanding.

 

Let’s get back to the beginning. On February 9, some students at the Jawaharlal Nehru University organised an event in support of Afzal Guru, the terrorist who had been hanged for his role in the 2001 attack on Parliament. Guru’s involvement had been a matter of controversy then as it seems to have become again.

 

But what’s happening now is something else. Like the last government, this one seems trigger-happy on the “sedition” angle to suppress all criticism. And as journalists, our primary role has to be to watch and report, not jump in and take sides. There was, as people have pointed out, something immensely cynical in the way Times Now decided that it had to play the “patriotic” card at all costs. This is one of those double-edged cards. Is it patriotic or anti-national to mention for instance that many Indians do not have access to adequate healthcare or toilets or education? You could well argue that it presents India in a bad light internationally to keep harping on our shortcomings. But if you never mention it, are you ignoring the reality for most Indians and failing as a journalist?

 

So when journalists, students and teachers are attacked by lawyers at the Patiala House Court on February 15, as they waited for JNU students’ Union leader Kanhaiya Kumar’s sedition case to come up, how is a newsroom to respond? The usual procedure is for journalists to stick together and such violence to be condemned. The police stood by and did nothing. This normally makes Times Now furious. However, this time it broke the code and decided to concentrate on the families of those police and security personnel killed in the 2001 attack on Parliament to demonstrate the channel’s high regard for patriotism and sidestep the travesty of rule of law and the frightening excesses of mob violence on display at Patiala House Court.

 

This is Alok Singh of the Indian Express on what happened to him on February 15:

“You will not shoot videos,” he said. I told him I wasn’t recording and was only making a phone call. A third man, also in black robes, rushed over and slapped me. “Desh ke gaddar (anti-national),” the group shouted. Within seconds, I was surrounded by at least 10 men in lawyers’ coats. They started slapping and punching me, targeting my face and head. I remember screaming at them, “I am a journalist..I am a journalist.” But nobody seemed to care. After a few more seconds, they stopped but then another man dressed like a lawyer walked up and slapped me again. They kept shouting at me, “He recorded a video…get out of here…get out.” Finally, a lawyer from the court came to my rescue. He stopped the assault, and told me to quietly leave the premises. I asked for my phone, which was handed over to me. The screen was cracked. – See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/jnu-patiala-house-court-attack-indian-express-journalists-recount-the-assault/#sthash.YP4MWRDV.dpuf.

 

In case Indian Express is not credible enough for Times Now’s idea of journalism, here’s Sana Shakil, a journalist from The Times of India, its sister concern (or big brother, to be technically correct):

“The agitators’ attention then turned to us. We thought our press ID cards would guarantee us safety, but of course that wasn’t to be. A journalist who sported a beard was called a traitor and his ID dismissed as fake by the assailants; I was told that I looked like a JNU student and was abused harshly for looking at my attackers in the eye.

 

The frenzied lawyers threatened to teach us, “deshdrohi (traitorous) journalists”, a lesson. “Bone bhi todenge aur phone bhi todenge, (We will break your phones as well as your bones,” rasped an angry advocate. From my five-year experience of legal reporting, I thought things would be fine once the judge emerged from his chamber. But even as the pro-BJP/anti-JNU slogans got more raucous, the judge did not make an appearance. Instead, corralled by them, we continued to be tortured physically and mentally.”

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/One-of-them-said-bone-bhi-todenge-phone-bhi-todenge/articleshow/51001849.cms

 

Through the day on television, most news channels focussed on this behaviour. So did most primetime shows. However, Times Now could not be bothered, as it continued with its “patriotic” line. Whatever was happening on Arnab Goswami’s show was not journalism. It was not amusing. And it represented precisely why Goswami’s show is popular and why sensible people cannot watch it. I must in this congratulate Zakka Jacob of CNN-IBN as he stuck to his guns no matter how absurd Sudhanshu Trivedi of the BJP behaved on the evening debate.

 

Meanwhile, the dangers of journalists and media houses aligning too closely with political establishments remain. The fact is that the people who beat up journalists, students and teachers outside the Delhi court were aligned to the BJP. The fact that you as a newsroom or a media house cannot shift away from that alliance to stand with your fellow journalists when they are under attack, demonstrates your understanding of what being a journalist means. Or not… most likely, not.

 

By Ranjona Banerji

 

The intimidation of journalists is not new and it is not unprecedented. And yet it is intriguing that this is reason that some of us come up with when there are new attacks on our community. The physical attacks on reporters by lawyers outside the Patiala House Court on two days this week cannot and must not be condoned.

 

The Mumbai Press Club held a protest meeting outside its gates on Wednesday and I was proud to be part of this. At a discussion afterwards, some of us tried to analyse what has been happening and how we should respond. Many senior journalists like Darryl D’Monte and Sidharth Bhatia were reminded of the run-up to the Emergency and the eventual clampdown on the media by the Indira Gandhi government in 1975. Nikhil Wagle reminded everybody that it is not just BJP or RSS governments which have attacked journalists – just about every political party has. Gurbir Singh spoke about the murder of Jagendra Singh for exposing the criminality of a Samajwadi Party politician. Ayaz Memon reiterated that we have to fight on, against all odds.

 

The battle that we are fighting now though is on two fronts. One is the affiliates, supporters and members of the BJP and its larger family. And the second is members of the media themselves. It is customary, or has been, for journalists to stand together when they are attacked. But watching some TV news channels like Times Now or reading the tweets of some journalists, you wonder where this profession is heading. Regardless of which political party you feel you support or like or prefer, what does it say when you choose that affiliation over your junior staff and fellow journalists being attacked for doing their job?
Does the newsroom of Times Now, for instance, hold together or how does it cope when its editor-in-chief is bombastically yelling for some bizarre notion of nationalism every night when this is how its reporters are treated by supporters of the government?
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Wheres-the-SC-now-lawyers-taunted-me/articleshow/51032085.cms

 

Meenakshi Bhanja of Times Now, in this piece carried in The Times of India and others from the stable, writes about how 40 lawyers surrounded her: “One lawyer asked, “Kaun ho tum?” I said I was a Times Now correspondent. I showed them my SC pass. Other lawyers in the crowd snatched my SC pass and tore it up and started taunting me, “Ab le aao SC ko apne saath. Kahaan gaya SC iss waqt?””

 

At the very least, one would have expected a bombastic anchor to lambast those lawyers after that?

 

But no, we were just murdering democracy with one more yelling match on who was more nationalistic and how students were the scourge of society.

 

Maybe George Bush was right: if you are not with us, you are against us?

 

**

 

Meanwhile, there is evidence that the videos that have been doing the rounds of JNU students’ union leader Kanhaiya Kumar being seditious were in fact doctored. One would expect our patriotic news channels to issue some sort of apology but expectations, as Hindu philosophy tells us, are bound to bring us distress.

 

But here are a couple of tweets to make your life happy.

 

This is Swapan Dasgupta, who openly bats for the BJP who shows some grace at least, even if a “but…”:

“I checked with responsible people. There is a part of video clip I retweeted that may be dodgy. I erred & say so openly. Larger q’s remain.”

 

And this is former colleague Abhijit Majumder, editor of Mail Today, about whom I am speechless:

A fake video doesn’t change the fact that Kanhaiya organised event with break-India posters, slogans, intention. So, #IStandWithNation

 

The nation however is larger than petty patriotism and hopefully always will be.

 

**

 

And to a miserable end, this is the sad story of Malini Subramaniam, hounded by the Chhatisgarh government and police for reporting for Scroll.in
http://scroll.in/article/803821/how-the-chhattisgarh-police-succeeded-in-hounding-out-those-who-questioned-it

 

**

 

If you don’t understand that there’s a battle, perhaps you really should look at PR as a career option. At least that way you will be honest about what you do.