MxMIndia

Tag: Bahujan Samaj Party

  • It's been a week since Living Media announced a 27.5% buy by KM Birla. While the minister didn't comment, we spoke to politicians across party lines

    What politicians think of big biz in news media

     

    By Karuna Madan

     

    Even as Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni recently said that the Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) did not hold any direct stake in any news media company in the country, politicians across the party lines feel that the statement does not hold water. Rather, they lament the sorry state of affairs caused due to the unholy and unnatural nexus of business and news in India .

     

    Vice president of the main opposition, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Karuna Shukla regrets the fact that the mighty corporate and business houses are investing in news media only for the purpose of “twisting” public opinion or government policies in their favour.

     

    She feels that the news media must, essentially, be free and neutral at all times and circumstances: “You see, the news media is supposed to be free, neutral and free from biases. So much so that even the advertisements shown or published by the media groups defeat the very concept of neutrality. The case of 2G spectrum can be taken as a valid example. These business groups are now moving to all possible avenues of money-making. But news is sacred, it should not be touched. It cannot be sacrificed at the altar of big bucks.”

     

    “The people we are talking about are smart. They are not only buying stakes in media but have now started their own newspapers. Today it is ‘their money’ which is controlling news media in India . Their money decides how much truth must be revealed and how much be kept hidden. What are they trying to prove by buying stakes in existing media houses or starting their own news businesses? Investment by industrialists in media is no social service. They have no social responsibility. They invest only with the intention to influence public opinion; creating favorable opinion for them and disapproving opinion for their competitors,” Ms Shukla emphasised.

     

    Ambeth Rajan, Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha), from Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) said that the news organisations these days are not only taking money from big business houses of the country, they are also shamelessly taking directions from them and blindly following the diktats.

     

    “These corporates decide what news must be flashed and what not, and which news item can be used for blackmailing a certain politician or a rival business group. You see a certain kind of news flashing on a particular channel only because it has the potential to harm the interests of the rivals or support the interests of a particular segment of society or a particular political party. All this is orchestrated and staged. Is this what we know and understand as ‘sacred business of news’,” Mr Rajan averred.

     

    A powerful Congress leader at the Centre, who does not want to be named, told MxM India that “nobody is a saint here. Yahan doodh ka dhula koi nahin hai.”

     

    Meanwhile, Nilotpal Basu, Member of the Central Secretariat of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), describes it as “very disturbing trend.” “Corporate investment in news media is nothing but marketing, rather aggressive, shameless marketing. The big business houses do not really bother about what repercussions it will have on the state of affairs in the next ten years or so. These big business houses are aware of the power of media and are abusing that. The industrialists in the country exploit the news business, particularly during elections at the state and national level,” said Mr Basu.

     

    “The corporates are investing and owning media to influence media space and policy directions. We are opposed to unregulated investment of corporate in media. These investments undermine the concept of free media, and media as an avenue for information. This is extremely sad that this trend is going completely unchecked and the government seems just not bothered to rectify the malady,” he added.

     

    Likewise, Prabhodh Panda, Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha), Communist Party of India (Marxist), feels that the news media was controlled by the corporate sector even earlier by way of paid news, which came to be openly discussed only recently: “We know that the corporate sector is trying to influence public opinion by investing in news media. Even otherwise, the media is mostly publishing or telecasting paid news. It is an unethical practice by media groups, which must be curbed. It can be curbed only if the governments at the state and national level display the political will to do so. Media must maintain high stands of morality and ethics. The government, particularly at the Centre, must initiate steps to ensure that the media is not abused by the industrialists for their petty benefits, sometimes even at the cost of national security. Also the Press Council of India should come out with guidelines on the entry of corporates in the news media business and adopt a firm stand in this regard. What else the Press Council of India , or for that matter Prasar Bharti, are for,” said Mr Panda.

     

    Interestingly, Debabrata Biswas, General Secretary, All India Forward Bloc, stated that the motive behind corporate investments in news media is an open secret: “It is a well known fact that the multinational companies are completely controlling print and electronic media in India and even outside the country, thus trying to influence international government policies and the state of world economy. Earlier, the character of news media was altogether different. It was more of a catalyst to bring about positive change in the society. It played a major part during the freedom struggle of the country. News essentially meant positive and developmental reportage, free of all kinds of biases and prejudices. It was aptly described as the powerful fourth pillar of democracy. When one talked of media, one talked of an independent and neutral news providing machinery, not of the handmaid of industrialists. These industrialists have now completely taken over the business of news, directly and indirectly. Everyone knows that Birlas, Tatas and Ambanis are now controlling the newspapers and news channels in the country,” said Mr Biswas.

     

    Amarjit Kaur, National Secretary, Communist Party of India (CPI), feels that the investments by big business houses into the news media is most certainly “not innocent investment.” “The purpose of investments made by the big business barons of India into our news media is only profit, profit and more profit. Industrialists know that they can get their projects cleared within no time if they have a direct or indirect influence or say in any popular newspaper or new channel having a good subscriber base. These news outfits then act as agents of the corporates. But unfortunately, nothing much can be done about this new trend of corporate interest in media, the reason being that the government is pro-corporates and it shows. If the Information and Broadcasting Ministry is turning a blind eye to this malaise, do you think, the common man has any choice. We can only lament the situation which is turning worse by the day due to utter failure and inaction on the part of the government in this regard,” said Ms Kaur.

     

  • In Freaking News, which will now appear every Tuesday and Friday, Ranjona Banerji reviews the fare in the morning papers and the nightly news. And sometimes the afternooners, the newsmags and all that's on the Web

    Freaking News: It’s business as usual after the election euphoria

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Of course the media was to blame for the Bahujan Samaj Party’s loss in UP’s assembly elections. Sure, the Samajwadi Party, Congress and BJP were also involved but the media certainly played a role in the rout of Mayawati. Thankfully – perhaps – the former chief minister of UP did not blame the people, as Prakash Karat, chief dictator of the CPM did, after the Left managed to lose West Bengal to Mamata Banerjee.

     

    After the results were declared, TV land went into a sort of decline. Having expended this enormous amount of energy on getting the results out to the people in the usual frenzied fashion, the day after was a probably inevitable anti-climax. The arrival of Holi did not help either, because everyone went into holiday mood which for most TV channels means showing a stream of Hindi film songs (no point asking) and other fillers.

     

    Life was not different for newspapers as Holi meant holidays on different days across India. Was this a conspiracy by the Election Commission? If I were Mayawati or Salman Khurshid, I would certainly think so.

     

    The Times of India’s early edition for Dehra Dun on March 7 (more on the perils of being stuck with a mofussil edition coming soon) headlined the results as ‘UP has spoken, no Rahul Maya’, with the ‘sp’ of spoken in red. Other puns were also in evidence (Sonrise for Akhilesh and Bad Heir Day for Rahul Gandhi). The Hindustan Times went for ‘Akhilesh Pradesh’, DNA Mumbai had a bit of fun with ‘Rahul knocked down by cycle’.

     

    * * *

     

    Newspaper editorials summed up the results quite cogently. The Hindu argued that just depending on anti-incumbency isn’t enough; parties have to make more effort that expecting the other person to lose. The Times of India emphasised the fact that the Indian voter knows when someone is trying to take them for a ride and rather than traditional promises, deliverance and governance are the keys. Several commentators also pointed out that corruption at the Centre had an impact on local polls, which is bad news for the UPA and Anna Hazare, his team and Baba Ramdev had a little chuckle here. No one missed the fact that the regional parties had trumped the big two in UP either. The forthcoming perils for the UPA and the BJP have both been underlined.

     

    As expected, it takes print to make sense of anything and TV would do well to develop some expertise and analytical skills of its own.

     

    * * *

     

    By the time the euphoria died down, it was business as usual and the Samajwadi Party was up to its usual tricks which TV jumped on with alacrity – a young boy killed, journalists under siege, houses burnt. An IPS officer was killed in Madhya Pradesh, apparently by the mining mafia, several people in Mumbai were hospitalised by poisonous Holi colours and BS Yeddurappa wants his job back!

     

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

    Electoral politics or keeping people happy

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The poor BJP must be quaking in its shoes. There it was, happily chugging along on its collision course with the Congress over corruption and the government’s inept handling of the Lokpal Bill. And then, wham! India’s star TV anchors have turned against the party for a little transgression – nothing more the usual games played in electoral politics.

     

    But were Arnab Goswami and Rahul Shivshankar of Times Now and Newsx, to name just two, willing on Wednesday night to accept that election compulsions made strange bedfellows? Of course not – by admitting Babu Singh Kushwaha, recently chucked out of the Bahujan Samaj Party by Mayawati on corruption charges, the BJP had walked into indefensible territory. In television land, at least, where no person is too unlikely to be made into a saint if an anchor desires it and what goes up can also come down.

     

    On Times Now Meenakshi Lekhi screamed in defence of the BJP and though Goswami gave her time enough, he did not accept her explanation that the Congress was more corrupt or that Kushwaha was admitted into the BJP to help with the elections and not because there were corruption charges against him and that the Congress was also to blame for the CBI filing charges against Kushwaha.

     

    On Newsx Dr CP Thakur was far more subtle and distinctly un-hysterical as he provided the cynical explanation for the BJP – this was the way things were done during elections. You looked for the caste and community politicians to push your party’s case forward. Like Goswami, Shivshankar was also unsympathetic.

     

    They both refused to accept that politics was a dirty game, in spite of what everyone else said. The BJP, they said, had sworn to fight corruption. LK Advani, they said, had gone on a rath yatra against corruption. The BJP had supported Anna Hazare and the anti-corruption movement. And now the BJP had taken into its fold a man sacked by Mayawati on corruption charges and they were supposed to accept it as part of electoral politics? Never!

     

    If I were the BJP, which depends a lot on TV to keep its middle class supporters happy, I would be scared. Is winning UP more important that losing the hearts and minds of middle India which watches TV news? I wonder.

     

    **

     

    Newsx and Shivshankar went a step further than Times Now and put Anna Hazare’s committee in the dock as well. Mayank Gandhi tried to explain how Team Anna (which is what it calls itself now) was not looking at individual cases but systemic change, although it condemned the BJP. This was not good enough for Shivshankar and definitely not for Team Anna supporter and former bureaucrat Arun Bhatia who slammed Gandhi for being mealy-mouthed in his condemnation and his explanation.

     

    To make matters worse, on Thursday morning, Headlines Today carried a detailed report on the rifts within Team Anna over the Mumbai fiasco and support to the BJP.

     

    **

     

    One small sliver of hope for the BJP and Team Anna is newspapers are still slightly more balanced. And the only thing that can save them is if the eagle eye of our anchors shifts to India’s remarkable performance on the playing fields of Australia.

     

    Otherwise, hell hath no fury…