I’m an avid consumer of political and economic news.
My consumption habits are, however, skewed.
I focus on the US media simply because the US is the best and most entertaining but enlightening reality show on Earth. Many years ago, I had an advertising executive from New York in stitches when, during an argument, I quipped, “Hollywood is not an American institution. America is a Hollywood institution.” Plus, the world’s most prosperous country delivers bonzo production values in everything it does. However, I do assiduously ignore the US media’s take on India and generally the rest of the world because of its “Ugly American” bias.
I rely on magazines like The Economist and a series of well-chosen podcasts (YouTube videocasts) for serious geo-political, technology and economic takes.
I tend to mostly ignore the Indian news media, not because I’m not interested in Indian news but because its professional standards and production values are so horrendously low. I still dip into India Today magazine because its coverage continues to be grounded and unbiased. Though page after page of “sponsored” content is an irritating distraction, everyone, including a storied magazine, must make ends meet in these dog days for mass media.
Over the last couple of months, caught up in the implications of the impending election, I made an exception. I started watching the Indian news channels and reading the Indian newspapers. The reasoning was that the reach of news media, especially the vernacular TV news channels and newspapers, continued to be good. Watching and reading them was one way to get in touch with what was happening on the ground.
The upshot of this experiment was that in a matter of weeks, I was depressed!
As a form of self-analysis, I asked myself, what gives?
A recent article in The Economist,”Are American Progressives Making Themselves Sad?”, offered an interesting perspective. Gallup’s annual global poll on happiness found that progressives are, of late, much less happy than conservatives. The cause for this was a flip in the attitude to change. In an earlier era, progressives anticipated change and were very happy about it. Now, after decades of progressive change, the conservatives are looking for radical change. And since change is inevitable, the happiness pendulum has swung.
But does the progressive-conservative dichotomy, fascinating though it is, explain my depression? Not really. I’m a centrist, and I have no dog in the political fight that is currently raging in India. While one party is a better manager of India’s fiscal and economic policy, India’s financial strength and growth will endure whoever is at the political helm.
Shouting matches about secularism, appeasement, dynasty, authoritarianism, national image, security, threats to the constitution and democracy etc., etc., are just shadow-fighting. Such shouting matches about ephemeral issues are de rigueur in heated political campaigns.
So, the ingredient in my daily diet of Indian mass media coverage of the Indian elections that upset my mental equilibrium was not the content but the tone delivered by Indian politicians from both sides and the tone of the onward transmission by media coverage.
The bile, from both sides, is poisonous. The rhetoric is devoid of all reason. Instead of providing a patina of deliberation and studied comments, the media seeks to amplify the bile and the unreason.
As I drowned in this murky media sea, I perceived a country and a society riven by strife where misery ruled, and the only alternative was another form of misery.
And then I remembered that the most potent pillar of modern society globally, including in India, is business, not politics. The Edelman Trust Barometer 2023 confirms this. The finding is that people’s trust in business is consistently higher than that of government, the media, and NGOs. Given this, perhaps the state of Indian business better reflected the mood and state of India and its people than its politics. I, therefore, added India’s business news channels and newspapers to my daily diet of Indian mass media. Soon, I found relief. The tone is measured. The analysis is grounded in numbers. And the mood is cautiously optimistic. India is in good hands, I realised. Its economy and businesses are in good hands. Hands that will find equilibrium and growth whatever the political dispensation. Isn’t it evident when State Governments play a crucial economic role, and businesses continue to boom under State Governments of varied hues?
My analysis is probably too facile, but it helped me beat the downward loop. For this reason, I must thank CNBCTV18. You guys are steadfastly devoted to the numbers, financial reports, and the stock market with a smile, steadily ignoring the political storm outside your studios. Thank you once again. Bill me for therapy if you must, though I pay the requisite subscription charge.
PS: My fellow MxMIndia columnist, Ranjona Banerji, regularly reviews the news media scene in India. To do so, she must digest a daily diet of Indian news media over the years. After my experiment, my admiration for her has increased manifold. What perseverance! What an iron stomach! Hats off!