MxMIndia

Category: MxM JOURNALISM REVIEW

  • Ranjona Banerji reviews the content on news television and the morning papers

    Can we pay attention to what’s put out?

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    There was an intriguing contradiction in the way Indians abroad were carried in the news in the last week or so. While the murder of Anup Bidve of Pune in Manchester and the ill-treatment of Indian traders in China got an enormous amount of coverage, the annual government mela for our brothers and sisters who no longer live in India was not treated with the usual fanfare. Does that mean that Indians who suffer when in foreign lands are newsworthy but non-resident Indians who return to visit us are no longer so valuable? Since the India story is now located in India, is the media now yawning about NRIs? I have no answers, but I find this trend interesting.

     

    Meanwhile, our TV channels have taken their outrage about suffering Indians to new levels. US Republican presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman has been subjected to some racial abuse in the US for his adopted children, who are apparently Chinese and Indian. This had our morning anchors foaming at the mouth. Also, according to the on-screen updates, US Hindus were also very angry. Is this a new category of people, US Hindus? Does it include people of non-Indian origins who might be Hindus? So why would Indonesians or Nepalis (for instance) be so angry about the anti-Huntsman ads? What about followers of the Iskcon movement in the United States? Are they US Hindus? Are US Christians, Buddhists, Muslims and Sikhs (who might be of Indian origin) not bothered? What about the Chinese (regardless of religion or regionality)? Or all people concerned about racism?

     

    It is a futile wish, but one still does occasionally hope that Indian TV channels paid a little more attention to what they put out.

     

    **

     

    As expected, Indian cricket has been under the scanner with all the accompanying hysteria. I understand that journalists have short memory spans but still, don’t they get bored of jumping from one extreme to the other whenever things go right or wrong. Sack the team, sack the board, worship the team (to be fair, almost no one says worship the board!), are the predictable mantras depending on performance. Then it’s an inevitable battle between oldies and youngies – strangely, whenever the selectors lean towards one or the other based on media and expert advice, there’s usually a disaster on the cricket field.

     

    Partly of course, the new belief (most prevalent in the new media) that India has to excel at everything it touches is to blame.

     

    **

     

    The travails of Anna Hazare’s movement against corruption continue. The Times of India on Saturday had a front page story about Shanti Bhushan’s duty evasions and on the edit page, there was Shanti Bhushan lecturing us about corruption! The Indian Express on Monday tells us that Anna Hazare’s followers and friends (of the pre-Jan Lokpal variety) have been redoubling their efforts to point out that India Against Corruption is “100 per cent pro-RSS”.

     

    **

     

    Mid-Day’ Mumbai edition carries a story about how the son of a former Mumbai police commissioner (RD Tyagi) has been accused of beating up customers to his beer bar and the Mumbai police have been slow in taking action. This misuse of power by the Mumbai police needs more exposure.

     

  • 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.)

     

  • Ranjona Banerji reviews the content on news television and the morning papers

    Mumbai papers go aggro on civic issues

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The municipal elections due in Mumbai next month are being treated almost like assembly elections. For weeks now, Mumbai newspapers have been giving readers details of the projects undertaken, completed, unfinished, citizens’ grouses, movements and expectations. apart from a ward by ward breakdown of performance by the incumbent Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance, details about new political formations and many citizens’ groups have also been provided, analysed and assessed.

     

    There can be no doubt that this election to the biggest and richest municipal corporation in the country is been seen as a litmus test for the state and general elections. The Congress and Nationalist Congress Party, after some hissing and spitting, have decided on their seat-sharing and are apparently well-prepared to take on the incumbents.

     

    Is there anything to choose between the papers? as is its wont and reach, The Times of India has gone for a carpet-bombing strategy. The Hindustan Times has gone for the focused approach, concentrating on particular issues. Mid-Day has also looked issues as well as the political twists and turns. Saamna, the Shiv Sena mouthpiece, has looked to attack Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, which has certainly eaten into its own constituency.

     

    This is the sort of coverage that Mumbai newspapers are very good at and indeed have taught a lesson or two to other city editions about how to go in-depth into local issues.

     

    Interestingly, the anti-corruption movement led by anna Hazare has not jumped into the fray. Yet, most problems which people have with government non-performance and bribery are at the local and municipal levels. Your Member of Parliament cannot get you constant water supply or smooth roads or garbage disposal.

     

    **

     

    The last six or eight months saw the media looking at internal issues, most specifically the anti-corruption movement and its fallout. But with the suspension of the Lokpal Bill, geopolitics and the neighbourhood have both resurfaced. India’s military capabilities and strategy vis-a-vis China are back on the edit pages and the turmoil in Pakistan is also getting attention. TV channels, predisposed to sensationalism, have concentrated more on former military dictator Pervez Musharraf’s decision to return to Pakistan. The run-up to the US presidential election, however, is yet to find much space in the Indian media.

     

    **

     

    another Test series is due to begin and it will be a good test to see how much hysteria can be generated from a good or bad performance by India.

     

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

    Outrage unlimited

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    So, as expected, the turmoil inPakistanstarted consuming our TV channels. The day started with a video of the exploitation of the Jarawa tribals of the Andamans, put up by an Observer reporter on the Guardian website. There was shock and horror all round, as you could hear someone egging the tribal women to dance. One of the benefits of TV is that you can easily generate outrage at such events and what was earlier acceptable is now seen as taboo. A growth of sorts, perhaps, through exposure because all too often our middle classes are least bothered about the plight of the underprivileged (o dear, do I sound like Katju?).

     

    Unfortunately, though, there seems to be some confusion as to when this Jarawa video was shot and the reporter who got it has claimed protection of sources privilege. This may mean that the horror will die out as officials will do little as they don’t have enough to go on. Follow ups are the only answer, but one wonders.

     

    The disgraceful episode of a Dalit woman being beaten and paraded naked in Maharashtra because her son ran off with an upper caste girl also got some TV time as did rats nibbling on a patient’s face in a Jaipur hospital. The more the “otherIndia” gets noticed, the smaller the divide will become, perhaps.

     

    By the late evening, it wasPakistanwhich was top of the news, as one more military coup seemed imminent. Some channels ran direct feeds fromPakistanand it was fascinating to see that in spite of the difficult times, studio guests did not yell, scream, talk over each other and generally create a massive drama. How would we react under similar circumstances? Sigh.

     

    The international channels did not on Wednesday evening concentrate onPakistan. Other things were happening like the Republican battle to choose a presidential candidate and, as usual,Europe’s economic woes.

     

    * * *

     

    The Darul demand for a visa ban on Salman Rushdie has got far more play on TV than in newspapers. Today’s Times of India has some Muslim scholars and activists asking for more tolerance from fellow Muslims. Meanwhile, Uma Bharti of the BJP was calling the proposed quota for Muslims within OBC reservations another “Partition”. Again newspapers paid her far less attention.

     

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

    Journalists’ covenants on cricket and more

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Aging batsmen, an arrogant captain making bad choices, indifferent performances, the Indian Premier League and the Board for Control of Cricket in India- all or some of these are to blame for the Indian cricket team’s unfortunate performance in Australia.

     

    Television, which was building itself up, started in a slow frenzy at the start of the weekend but it was all out there – foam, fits – by Sunday evening. Arnab Goswami of Times Now, amply helped by his alter ego Boria Majumdar inAustralia, was extremely saddened as only he can be by Indian cricket captain MS Dhoni in particular. Had Dhoni denigrated Test cricket by suggesting that he might retire from that version of the game? Was this the end of civilisation as we know it and so on? He was supported by Bishen Singh Bedi who was sputtering at the mouth with anger and by the cynical observations of another guest who got Goswami and Bedi even more enraged.

     

    Newspapers are still more circumspect but try ‘Shame Old Story’ and ‘Disgrace’ from The Times of India, ‘Perth Pangs’ and ‘India blunder, Oz plunder’ from Hindustan Times. Sunday Mid-Day tried to put a spin on it with ‘Bright Spark’, referring to bowler Umesh Yadav getting five wickets but the strap line below the headline emphasisedIndia’s batting collapse.

     

    Luckily forIndia’s beleaguered cricketers, a week is a very short time in journalism. Just before the India-Australia series started, I seem to rememberAustraliabeing hammered for losing toNew ZealandandIndiafeeling all pumped up because of its enormous talent and at-home victories. A couple of days atMelbourneand all that moaning and hype was completely reversed.

     

    My journalist friends and colleagues tell me that I should not be so hard on my fellow journalists and that it is the job of journalists to get hysterical and to have no memories at all, especially when it comes to sport. There is apparently some mysterious covenant signed by sports journalists (us general purpose journos are not privy to this procedure) by which they have to swear that they will make every effort not to remember what they had said or written the week before. Also that every loss by a sports team or person has to be portrayed as the end of the world and every victory had to be the best ever. I know this to be true from my experiences as a tennis fan (empirical evidence!).

     

    We already know that TV people have their own covenant which makes them swear to try and “save” Indiaat every opportunity and know as little as possible about any subject which gets them all excited.

     

    The cocktail of these two covenants makes for some very dramatic viewing and for those with longer attention spans, there are newspaper articles. Some sober commentators in print will try to look at the larger picture and to extrapolate future courses of action from past experiences. They may be chucked out of the Lodge for breaking the covenant unless they are long term offenders. But in these times, the hysteria will win. Except of course tillIndiawins something!

     

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

    Media frenzy over VK Singh’s age

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    On Monday night, I really thought the world had come to an end, what with India’s army chief suing the government over his date of birth. At least, that’s what I understood from Times Now, Newsx and a random sampling of Hindi channels. NDTV had move on to Pakistan to look at their own crisis, with the military playing its usually stellar role of villain cum hero.

     

    But by Tuesday morning, oddly, India was no longer at the brink of some terrible crisis. Yes, the army chief’s problems were headlined everywhere and while newspapers found his court action unprecedented, they were not concerned that India was at some crossroads or the other. The issue is undoubtedly serious but TV likes to see everything as a catastrophe or a victory and this attitude can cloud real issues.

     

    From my point of view, the big story was the ASER report about the tragic state of rural education in India (I confess that column for Mid-Day tomorrow is about this). The report made to the front pages of most newspapers but the attitude of the Times of India, I found most intriguing. A single column on page 1 spent half the space talking about how this report wasn’t the biggest as it claimed to be – as if that was the main point of the exercise. One inside report was about a possible education ombudsman and the other about enrolment of girls being up. Compared to this meagre sampling, DNA, Indian Express, Hindustan Times focused on the revelation that class 5 students cannot even read class 2 textbooks.

     

    * * *

     

    The Times of India was the only paper (only?) to carry the story of the possibility of writer Salman Rushdie not attending the Jaipur Literary Fest because of security concerns raised by the government after some hardline Muslim groups objected to his presence. TV is all over this story now and judging from the latest “source” news, the government may well be changing its mind.

     

    The lack of commitment to freedom of speech and expression from our government agencies remains a worry. The attempts to muzzle Google and Facebook have also got plenty of newspaper space.

     

    * * *

     

    The Indian Express had its fifth Ramnath Goenka Awards for journalistic Excellence in Delhi on Monday. Vice-president Hamid Ansari said that “watchdog journalism” is “vibrant journalism”. He also pointed to the more pertinent problem – that the slow corporatisation of the media has led to falling standards. “The slow erosion of the institution of the editor in Indian media organisations is a reality. When media space and media products are treated solely in terms of revenue maximisation strategies, editors end up giving way to marketing departments.”

     

    The cat is out of the bag as far as the media is concerned and we need to address this issue more seriously than we have so far, no matter how many EMIs will suffer as a result.

     

    Press council chairman Markandey Katju couldn’t resist a little dig about the poor intellectual level of most media people but that still is the lesser problem. Ansari’s diagnosis is more apt.

     

    * * *

     

    One suspects that MS Dhoni must be thanking army chief VK Singh for taking him off headline news!

  • TV is an extremely expensive business and most news channels would not have gone overboard on Anna’s campaign if there was no promise of gains – present or in the future. Who put up the money for the coverage, asks Sanjay Kapoor.

    Newswatch: Sanjay Kapoor on Team Anna & the fast co

    By Sanjay Kapoor

     

    In January 2011, Anna Hazare was virtually unknown to Delhi’s self obsessed middle class. A year later, after he had unleashed a tumult against the government by sitting on a fast till the central government appointed an all powerful Jan Lokpal or ombudsman against corruption, and controlled all the headlines of the national media, Hazare is slowly slipping away from prime time news. What he and his verbose bunch of supporters have to figure out in the coming days is: what do you do when the gaze of the TV cameras shifts? How do you get them to look at you again?

     

    These questions must be surely gnawing at an ailing Anna Hazare as he strenuously pedals on his stationary exercise bike to regain his health and also find a way out from this dead end. He must be wondering what really went wrong at his “fast fest” at MMRDA grounds of Mumbai, where he did not get the kind of fawning and gushy support of the people as he got in Delhi. Not only were the crowds thin, even the TV news channels, unlike in the past, refused to bloat their numbers. Delhi, surely, seemed a distant memory. What really went wrong for the anti-corruption movement that seemed to threaten the stability of UPA government?

     

    Operating under the rubric of “India against Corruption’, Anna Hazare’s movement was crafted like the Arab Spring. The main pillars of his campaign were the media and the urban middle class. Interestingly, Team Anna seemed to follow the template put together by Belgrade-based Centre for Applied Non-violent Action and Strategies (www.canvasopedia.org), which seeks to provide consultancy to protests around the world. CANVAS takes the credit for training and supporting civil society activists in countries like Egypt, Tunisia, Myanmar, amongst many other countries, for organising protests. CANVAS recommends non-violent interventions like fasts and suggests the use of media to disseminate a message that the “people see that there is something is wrong, and they are willing to do something about it”. Funded by US-based entities, much of the advice listed on its website finds an echo in what has been witnessed in the country in the last few months.

     

    CANVAS suggestions are usually meant for authoritarian regimes where press is under state control and the only way to reach out to the masses is through social media like Facebook and Twitter; there is no such problem in India. In a noisy and chaotic democracy like ours with hundreds of privately owned news channels following each other’s “breaking news”, this was much easier. Team Anna and its patrons had to get one big media organisation on their side and rest was easy. Call them partners in a conspiracy hatched by patrons of Anna Hazare or a simple display of good reflexes in spotting a big story, the Bennett Coleman group showed great enthusiasm in building the narrative of how “a Gandhian left his village to save the republic from the corrupt”. In the cacophony and melee of TV news reporting there is no clarity of who ” broke the Anna Story” when he descended on Delhi to fast at Jantar Mantar last April, but it was a matter of time when all news channels went overboard in their coverage of his event. Clever camera angles plus filling up the TV screens of small snapshots of people assembling at different places helped in creating crowds when few existed. Truth was manipulated to build a feverish demand for the appointment of an unelected Lokpal to save the country from rampaging pindaris. It is quite unclear how media organisations may have benefited from wall-to-wall coverage of Anna Hazare’s fast at Jantar Mantar and later at the capital’s Ramlila Maidan, but news channel did not seem shy in expending their resources on it. Statistics show that there were 5592 pro-Anna and only 62 anti-Anna segments in the Jantar Mantar coverage. During the Ramlila ground fast it perhaps got worse. TV channels were unhesitatingly and unashamedly uncritical of the movement.

     

    Television coverage is an extremely expensive business and most of the news channels would not have gone overboard in hysterically reporting on Anna’s campaign if there was no promise of gains – present or in the future. Who put up the money for the coverage of the campaign? There were rumours that a colossal corpus was created in Bangalore to fund the anti-corruption campaign. Hence Team Anna showed great reluctance to campaign against the disgraced former BJP chief minister BS Yeddyurappa of Karnataka. Rumours also abound that due to the high financial stakes the Anna story was pushed more by managers and editors than by reporters. Some of the reporters covering the fast were even heard complaining that they were under pressure to make the “Gandhian’s” agitation look pretty.

     

    Pains were taken to make the movement look non-political, but it became clear at Ramlila Maidan and later that the spine to the movement was provided by the front organisations of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Crowds and news coverage is seldom spontaneous. It takes a lot of effort to get people out for protests. Contractors are used to ferry crowds for the rallies and PR companies are deployed to organise press coverage. On both counts RSS front organisations display great competence. They have enormous capacity to bring in their supporters and also organise favourable media support. Earlier anti-corruption agitations, like the one led by Jayaprakash Narayan in the ’70s and later by VP Singh in the ’80s succeeded due to the support extended by the RSS.

     

    At the Ramlila ground there was plenty of evidence of the presence of RSS front organisations, but most of the media outlets were reluctant to talk about it. The camera and the focus remained on a fasting Anna Hazare and his lieutenants like Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi, rather than those who were baying for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh or Sonia Gandhi’s heads. The ground was full of posters and hoardings to show how corrupt and anti-national the Congress party was. Team Anna and its supporters used the democratic space to demand an entity that was not only against the Constitution but also fascist in character. Quite evidently, such a demand met the approval of those who hate politics and want India to become a hard state.

     

    Anna Hazare became the darling for many of those around the country that saw politics and Parliament as a waste of time. And the way the visual media backed him and his call, it seemed only a question of time before the country got their version of Jan Lokpal, which would have been accountable to none.

     

    Lack of firmness and conviction displayed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his ministers in handling the agitation contributed in reinforcing this impression. Besides the TV channels, newspapers too gave the impression that the Ramlila ground was India’s Tahrir moment and the government would have to give way on the Jan Lokpal bill. Times of India carried a banner headline suggesting it to be another “August Kranti”. Hindi newspapers also went hysterical. Their reporting was little different from the kind on display when the Babri Masjid was brought down by hysterical mobs in Ayodhya many years ago. There were only very few publications that did not go overboard and were critical of the undemocratic noises and demands that were being made from Ramlila ground.

     

    Parliament acquitted itself through reasoned debate and conveying the sense of the house on the Lokpal issue allowing Anna Hazare to end his fast.

     

    Subsequent media scrutiny, both by foreign and national media, showed Anna Hazare and his team members in their true colours. Hazare was really a village tyrant who believed in tying the drunk to trees if they consumed alcohol. He also believed in giving capital punishment to those who were found guilty of corruption.

     

    Kiran Bedi was discovered to be fudging travel bills on many of her visits. There were also allegations that were brought out by the media about short-changing the Delhi Police on the issue of providing computer education to the children of constables. Arvind Kejriwal, the brain behind the movement, too, was found to have messed up in a showdown with his previous employer, the income tax department.

     

    As the true picture of these crusaders came out in the open, the government, it seems got into the act and began to reach out to some media houses. It is not clear what quid pro quos were worked out, but when Hazare sat in Mumbai, there was a sea-change in the gaze of the cameras and the way his fast was reported. For a movement that drew strength from crowds and media coverage feeding on each other, Mumbai was a big dampener. Worse, Anna, who looked a champion in Delhi, fasting for almost a fortnight, could not last more than a day. All the rumours about how electrolytes sustained him in Delhi returned when his fast collapsed.

     

    Team Anna claims to be at the crossroad of their movement. Their cluelessness and confusion would deepen if the Congress party does well in the assembly elections. And if it does not, then they will be back on the streets claiming victory in their defeat. This time, though, there would be no ambivalence about whom Anna is hunting with.

     

    Sanjay Kapoor is the Editor of Delhi based Hardnews Magazine.

     

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

    Journalism, a very intriguing career choice

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The Economic Times has an interesting story on how High Street brands record higher sales atDelhiairport than any mall inIndia. While recording lots of facts and figures and quotes from retailers, the article nowhere suggests one possible reason: delayed flights and trapped passengers. Conspiracy theorists have the chance to build up a case here.

     

    * * *

     

    Is Salman Rushdie coming toIndiaor not? The Times of India set the cat among the pigeons saying that he is not coming or has been de-invited or that the Rajasthan government was playing chicken. Today’s Hindustan Times says he is coming but then doesn’t either corroborate or provide further information. The upshot seems to be that the Jaipur Literary Festival is being neither brave nor cowardly but nothing at all. The newspapers haven’t done enough homework and the TV channels are looking for bogeymen and monsters around every corner and under every bed.

     

    * * *

     

    While television appears to be all in favour of army chief VK Singh and his defiance of the government, newspapers have presented a more balanced view of the date of birth controversy. Indeed, it might even be gleaned from various articles and opinions that newspapers have been a wee bit critical. It is interesting to see that television news anchors and reporters are unable to exercise any objectivity where the armed forces are concerned – it is as if worship has been ingrained since childhood. This makes journalism a very intriguing career choice.

     

    ***

     

    Vice-president Hamid Ansari’s speech at the Ramnath Goenka journalism awards is the main edit page piece in the Indian Express. Excerpts were quoted in yesterday’s Freaking News. It makes some points which are worthy of discussion – editors being coerced by management, better professional training for journalists and the role of the media in a democracy.

     

    * * *

     

    Talk show queen Oprah Winfrey’s visit toIndiahas actually inspired less hysteria than I thought it would. Perhaps much as she “loves”India, she has decided to orchestrate the TV hoopla herself.

     

    * * *

     

    The Hindustan Times has picked the women’s finals at the Australian Open as their “no television” day. They must be crazy if they think someone like me will even pay attention!

     

  • Bollywood and media pay tribute to film reviewer Nikhat Kazmi who succumbed to cancer on January 20, the day her last review appeared in print.

    Filmwallahs, scribes mourn film critic Nikhat Kazmi’s death

    By A Correspondent

     

    “After people die, they become stars. Nikhat Kazmi just became four and a half”, a tweet by @NumbYaar as a tribute to Nikhat Kazmi aptly summed up feelings at her untimely death at the age of 53 on January 20, 2011. She was suffering from cancer.

     

    “Was truly shocked to hear about the untimely death of nikhatkazmi…the TOI critic of several years…prayers and thoughts with her family,” tweeted Karan Johar  (@kjohar25).

     

    “Tragic news. Extremely sad to know about the demise of Nikhat Kazmi, one of the most persistent film critics. Am sure wherever you are, it’ll be a 5 star rating, RIP. May God give strength to your loved ones,” tweeted Akshay Kumar (@akshaykumar).

     

    Ms Kazmi was the film critic at Times of India where she had been working for almost 25 years. According to media reports, she continued working till the very end. The last films she reviewed were Sadda Adda, Chaalis Chaurasi, Ghost and Blitz  (a Hollywood film). Ms Kazmi was always generous with her ratings, making no distinction between mainstream Bollywood and smaller independent cinema. And her generosity and grace were greatly appreciated by Bollywood.

     

    “Nikhat Kazmi was generous! Having come to terms with mortality she looked for something good in every film she viewed,” tweeted director Mahesh Bhatt  (@MaheshNBhatt).

     

    “Nikhat Kazmi was a great support for alternate cinema. Her reviews of Red Alert and Mee Sindhutai Sapkal, reaffirmed my faith in going global,” tweeted director Ananth Mahadevan (@ananthmahadevan19h).

     

    Many youngsters also gave her credit for always encouraging them in her reviews.

     

    “RIP Nikhat Kazmi. You enjoyed cinema and therefore encouraged us more than criticized us. We will miss you,” tweeted writer and director Milap Zaveri (@zmilap).

     

    “The 1st ever review I read of Refugee, my 1st film, was by NikhatKazmi. She always pointed out the road to improvement to me. RIP ma’am,” tweeted Abhishek Bachchan, (@juniorbachchan), mere hours after her demise.

     

    “Nikhat Kazmi ji the one person who has always encouraged me. Wrote so beautifully and one film critic I respected a lot! May her soul RIP 🙁 ,” tweeted Neil Nitin Mukesh  (@neilnmukesh).

     

    Not only Bollywood, Ms Kazmi’s death shocked many of her colleagues in the media fraternity too.

     

    Khalid Mohammed, film critic and filmmaker, said he wished he had known her better. “She was based in Delhi, while I worked in Mumbai. We would meet mostly at film festivals which required a group to cover the functions. I can’t say I knew her well, but I wished I had. I admire her perseverance, for she would review Indian as well as foreign language films,” he told MxM.

     

    Trade analyst and fellow film critic Taran Adarsh too expressed his condolences via Twitter: “Deeply saddened by the news of Times of India movie critic NikhatKazmi’s demise. RIP.”

     

    Parsa Venkateshwara Rao Jr, a senior journalist with DNA, had met Ms Kazmi once but she left quite an impression on him. Though he did not agree with her, he said liked her because: “Her heart was in the right place. She understood the importance of Hindi cinema and how it mirrored changing political and social winds of change. She was an anguished liberal,” he told MxM.

     

    Apart from being a film critic, Ms Kazmi was also an author who had written three books, Ire in the Soul: Bollywood’s Angry Years, The Dream Merchants of Bollywood and Times Guide to Hollywood Blockbusters. She had also written two plays.

     

    Whether people agreed with her critiques or not, there is no denying that her reviews in TOI will be missed. “RIP Nikhat Kazmi. A beautiful large theatre, with the coziest seat n all your favourite movies await you:) #respect” – Dia Mirza (@deespeak).

     

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

    Some clarity on Rushdie, please!

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The case of Salman Rushdie and the Jaipur Literary Festival gets curiouser and curiouser. After the Deoband seminary asked that the writer be denied a visa to attend the festival, Rushdie clarified that he did not need a visa to visit India. Newspaper articles and TV debates focused on freedom of speech and the sentiments of Muslim voters keeping the UP elections in mind.

     

    After a couple of days of confusion, the Rajasthan government said it feared violence if Rushdie showed up. Soon after Rushdie announced he wasn’t coming because of death threats reported by the Mumbai and Rajasthan police. It took The Hindu to break the lies off that story – there were no such threats said the Mumbai police and they had passed on no such information to anyone. The Rajasthan police then corroborated this and the Rajasthan government waffled on about how they felt there was a threat and the Union home ministry also issued an advisory about a threat and then said that the government was willing to provide security.

     

    So far then we have examples of religious sensitivities, an election, a controversial writer and governmental pusillanimity. By now, confused readers and viewers were weeping for a comprehensive report putting all these diverse elements together. No such luck. Front page news and top of the hour headlines give you updates but not explanation and analysis.

     

    Editorials and opinions were still about freedom of speech and not so much about all these other angles popping up. India’s long and controversial history of dealing with “sentiments” also needs better examination. Sidharth Bhatia has commented very aptly on our fear “offending” sentiments in Asian Age/Deccan Chronicle. Fali Nariman on the Indian Express edit page points out that blasphemy laws in the UK apply only to Christianity and are still in use.

     

    The additional problem now seems to be that the organisers showed some extra caution or cowardice – depending on how you look at it – by seemingly giving in to official pressure. Apart from a little hysteria on TV from the Hyderabad-based Asauddin Owaisi of the MIM, not enough effort has been spent perhaps speaking to Muslims and their representative groups about the issue, except perhaps by Mohammed Wajihuddin on the Times of India and by the Indian Express.

     

    **

     

    TV and the newspapers have kept up the pressure as far as the story goes, however. Extra twists have come from four writers, who in protest, read from Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, which is still banned in India. These writers were then either asked to leave the festival or left of their own accord. Again, reports are confused. Writer Hari Kunzru writes on his blog that he read from the book as a form of protest but seems to imply that the organisers wanted him to go since they had been “advised” of a threat or arrest. Jeet Thayil is quoted as saying that the organisers did not ask him to leave per se and they must have their reasons. Ruchir Joshi writes in India Today that Rushdie should be judged on fact not fiction.

     

    Everywhere then there is this “perceived” threat from some or the other Muslim groups but it’s all very bewildering. Nowhere have there been reports of massive street protests by Muslims or vandalism or anything similar. The organisers have appeared on TV saying that Rushdie chose not to come and that they had even at the last minute informed him that the Rajasthan government was willing to provide security. Yet, according to TV reports on Monday morning, even a video link up to Rushdie was seen as a terrifying idea.

     

    **

     

    Clearly, what we need is clarity! If someone could please do a little investigation and give us the real and perceived threats and figure out who is really in danger, other than the Indian Constitution.

     

    eom

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

    What the government can’t, Goswami can!

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Last night on Times Now, Arnab Goswami took on the case of an Indian couple in Norway whose children have been taken away from them by the Norwegian authorities. What the government of India could not do, perhaps Goswami will. Child welfare is a concept that Indians know little about (any journalist who has visited orphanages in India or tried to meet any official in the concerned government departments will know what I mean). Therefore, the outrage is all to do with Indians being made to suffer rather than the legality of the case. Indians, as we know, cannot be criticised, attacked, ridiculed, or made fun of. We absolutely will not tolerate it. Look at the anger over a reference to Amritsar’s Golden Temple on American comedian and TV host Jay Leno’s Tonight Show if you want further proof.

     

    Meanwhile, it is amusing to watch Goswami use the BJP’s Mahesh Jethmalani for target practice. If I was Jethmalani, I would ignore calls from Times Now for a bit. It’s not easy to defend the BJP and its Sangh Parivar friends when the debate is about freedom of expression.

     

    TV anchor Barkha Dutt’s American-type accent as she interviewed US talk show empress Oprah Winfrey was also amusing. Where did that come from? Can Winfrey not understand if there’s not a couple of rolled rrrs in every sentence?

     

    **

     

    The Mumbai Anti-Terrorism Squad has made two arrests in the July 13, 2011 bomb blasts in Mumbai. However, given the police track record in such cases, TV and newspapers both displayed a little scepticism here. The two arrested are already in custody for some other cases and the masterminds are still elusive. Everyone has pointed that out. In which case we must ask ourselves if we really want to see giant photographs (Hindustan Times) of police officials with photos of the accused in their hands? Needless glorification of public servants who are just doing their jobs? Return of favours by grateful reporters?

     

    **

     

    It is a measure of how much Anna Hazare and his friends have faded from the public eye that their letters to political parties did not get the full treatment from the media. They asked many questions to which no party has bothered to provide any answers.

     

    **

     

    The Salman Rushdie controversy continues to intrigue and annoy. It seems to have taken precedence over whether the army chief was born in 1950 or 1951.

     

  • Simply uncorking your memories does not mean that you're a story-teller, admonishes Gouri Dange in 'Naming no Names'

    Gouri Dange: Writing a novel? Who isn’t?

    By Gouri Dange

     

    We are in the midst of an epidemic – an overabundance of unimaginative, thinly-veiled autobiographical pretend-fiction: how I loved and lost in IIT; how I lost and loved in JNU; how I was Cinderella in med college; how I was Cinderella’s ugly sis in IIM, and on and on and on.

     

    My uncle, his neighbour and his neighbour’s sister and her brother-in-law and their cocker spaniel – they’re all writing a novel, it looks like. Ever since Arundhati wrote about ordinary things happening in ordinary places and their far-reaching impact, all of us Indians have come uncorked with our stories.

     

    Now don’t get me wrong, I’m no snob who believes that English fiction writing is the exclusive turf of the chi-chi haw-haw strata. Or that fiction has to come from the deep tortured insides of a writer. I don’t care about the distinction between high brow and low brow and middle brow and no brow. Everything is narration.

     

    What I find (as a reader and as a book editor who reads the works of hundreds of hopefuls) is that too many aspiring Indian writers in English are totally mired in autobiographical material. Again, nothing terribly wrong with that, all writers ‘mine’ their minds and lives. Why, however, a lot of it is unreadable is that many writers are simply unable to take what happened to them and universalize it in any way. The autobiographical never makes the jump to the kind of writing/narration to which other people can relate and in which they can hear echoes.

     

    If the memories and incidents from the past came with any kind of emotional/social/intellectual insights, these stories might have held some interest and become publishable. This is not the case. There is nothing touching or instructive or engrossing or revealing in any of the strings of episodes that a lot of people choose to simply prattle on about.

     

    So much unpublished guy writing (called lad-lit, like chick-lit) is about life in school or engineering college hostel, and monotonously tells you about the adolescent crush on another boy, or the English teacher, the smoking/drinking experiment, or goes into excruciating and baffling detail about the physics lecture. It often boils down to nothing more than those ‘hey remember when we were in college…” kind of reminiscences that are ok when you’re sitting around with four friends, but does not make the cross-over to being readable literature, frankly.

     

    It’s the same with a lot of young (and old) women writers, who are putting in a lot of hard work, no doubt, in telling stories that no one wants to hear. That’s because, again, the stories simply don’t ‘travel’ from the writer’s life, to touch the life of the reader.

     

    The minute you say this kind of thing (as kindly as possible) to a person who wants to be published, sadly, the response is something like: “Oh everyone can’t be a Rushdie.” But I’m not talking Rushdie here at all. I’m not talking about ‘classes’ versus ‘masses’ kind of distinctions. I’m all for more easily accessible writing, but if you’re writing fiction (and not just your autobiography), it has to grow horns, a tail or two, some sharp nails, some moments and nuances in the content as well as in the way you tell it. Or else it’s just canteen (or kitty-party or chai tapri or board-room) chit-chat trying to pass off as fiction.

     

    Sometimes, people write down stories or incidents/anecdotes from their life to better understand the past and its impact on the present. It is therapeutic, perhaps, this exercise. And I’m all for it. However, this does not necessarily automatically transform it into a piece of writing that is accessible and/or of interest to anyone else. For this kind of self-examination to turn into fiction of any kind of wider appeal, much more would need to go into it.

     

    The art and craft of writing is definitely more demanding business than simply uncorking your memories and theories, is what I’m trying to say here to all of you (us) working so hard and hoping so fervently to be published. Self-absorption and contemplating your navel are rarely the right tools to become a good writer, frankly.

     

    There are so many avenues for people wanting to talk about their pasts or their presents, without having to do the complicated hard work of fictionalizing and universalizing the story. There are blogs, and chats or diaries or amateur, informal writers’ forums.

     

    There is a Marathi sentence that I always find very touching when people use it: “Mala kahi sangaychay” – ‘I have something to tell’. This is a universal impulse – but that doesn’t necessarily make it literature. Hemingway put it wonderfully: “All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that it all happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was.”

     

    If you can do that, you are a writer.

     

    Naming no Names is the mid-week column where novelist, columnist and counsellor Gouri Dange presents her tongue-in-cheek view of our world.