MxMIndia

Tag: freaking news

  • We have this bizarre tendency to accrue to ourselves credit for any action or achievement of a person of Indian origin, even if those achievements have nothing to do with India, rues Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Ground keeps shifting on Devyani Khobragade case

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The affair Khobragade is getting stranger and stranger. The media seems to be divided between patriots and human rights activists. But this is still a case where the ground keeps shifting beneath your feet, so yesterday’s position can become today’s embarrassment.

     

    The first reaction upon hearing that Devyani Khobragade, part of the Indian consulate in the US, was arrested for not paying her maid fair wages according to US law was to bemoan this practice of ill-treating domestics which is rampant in India. Then the news said that Khobragade had been arrested and handcuffed in front of her children and strip searched and “cavity searched”. The pendulum promptly sprung to outrage against the US. Add to that dark conspiracy mutterings about how the maid in question, Sangita Richards and her family had been spirited away to the US to “save” them from harassment by India, how Richards’s in-laws worked as US embassy staff and you have a story fit for Lawrence Durrell’s Esprit d’Corps.

     

    There was much cheer that the Indian government – usually depicted as wimpish on news channels especially since we do not declare war on Pakistan and China every third day or on the whims of the anchor – had actually taken a tough stand. In between Arvind Kejriwal and Anna Hazare and the Lokpal Bill and Justice AK Ganguly, TV news carried footage of the barricades in front of the US embassy in New Delhi being demolished. Certainly a seminal freedom fighter movement for Indians born post-Independence.

     

    This was also a great time for foreign affairs experts to lend their weight and experience to the matter. The general consensus was that the US was high-handed, good that India stood tough and that domestics are routinely ill-treated in foreign lands. The Times of India in an edit said that had India been economically stronger, the US would never have done this to us. The Hindustan Times on Thursday had an excellent foreign affairs page which covered all aspects of the case. The Indian Express told us how the Khobragades, daughter Devyani and father Uttam, Maharashtra bureaucrat owned several properties, including in the controversial Adarsh building in Mumbai.

     

    I have one more take on this. The man responsible for taking all this strict action against Khobragade is a public prosecutor in New York called Preet Bharara. Bharara is of Indian origin. When he became prosecutor, the Indian media fell all over him as if he had singlehandedly found a cure for HIV/AIDS. We have this bizarre tendency to accrue to ourselves credit for any action or achievement of a person of Indian origin, even if those achievements have nothing to do with India. It is as if we are so insecure in ourselves that we need anything at all to give us solace or succour or just make us feel good about being Indian.

     

    But Bharara does not want to be Indian. He is an American. In fact, he seems to have insistently and steadfastly pursued erring South Asians, perhaps for reasons of his own. There was no need for the Indian media to fete him in the hysterical manner in which they did. This worship of NRIs and their doings has to stop. In 2009, when Venkataraman Ramakrishnan won a Nobel for Chemistry he made it very clear that he did not owe the Nobel to India, much to the embarrassment of a salivating media.

     

    One understands that there is a need to address the large Indian “diaspora” as they are called these days, regardless of the implications of the term, if only because many greedy Indians and governments want their foreign exchange. But there is a need to be circumspect and sensible, as the adulation of Bharara shows. And if we the media are really so concerned about addressing NRIs, why not investigate those who suffer the horrors of human trafficking and slave-like conditions when working abroad? Not all NRIs are aunties in polyester saris 40 years out of date carrying free diapers for poor relatives or aunties dressed in some abomination of a TV soap outfit who come to India only to shop for more ugly shiny clothes or even a New York prosecutor who wants to be more loyal than the king.

     

  • Television, which makes epics out of gossip, just about blanked the story out. There are allegations that some newspapers have taken critical stories off their websites, notes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Cagey media and the curious case of the Aston Martin accident

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The curious case of the Aston Martin accident in Mumbai continues to interest social media even as newspapers and news channels are tiptoeing around it. The reason for this discretion in an otherwise hysterical media is simple: the car belongs to Reliance. Even more, er, terrifying, is the fact that there are allegations that it was being driven by Mukesh Ambani’s son.

     

    Here’s the story so far, according to the cagey media – barring very brave all out coverage by Mumbai Mirror: At 1.30 am on Sunday morning, December 8, a speeding Aston Martin hit two cars on Peddar Road. Both cars suffered damage, the first moving across the divider to hit a bus on the other side. What is curious is that the Aston Martin was apparently followed by two other cars which bundled the driver out and away. There were, according to newspaper reports, no casualties: minor injuries all around. The car, said the police, was registered to Reliance Ports and Infrastructure.

     

    On December 9, a driver presented himself to the police and claimed responsibility. The problem started when the witnesses and victims claimed that the driver they saw was a young man not a portly middle-aged man with a moustache. The company claimed that the car had not been used so was being taken on a customary spin. The “rescue” of the driver by two cars following the Aston Martin was downplayed.

     

    Soon after this, mention of Reliance vanished from the papers and the story vanished too. Television, which makes epics out of gossip, just about blanked the story out. But social media has another more sinister version: various blogs and Twitter accounts claim that two people were killed that night and the deaths are being covered up because the man driving the car was Mukesh Ambani’s son.

     

    There you have it: a classic cover-up, “mistaken” identity or just an ordinary hit and run?

     

    There is no proof so far that anyone was killed. But there is ample proof that the media has not played up the story and there is ample suspicion that the facts don’t match the stories. This is from a Mumbai Mirror story of December 10: “One of the most vital questions that the police are seeking an answer to is that why were two Honda CRVs, with a large security detail, tailing a car driven by a chauffeur and not carrying any Ambani family member. They also want to know why the security personnel whisked the chauffeur away in one of their cars and did not report the matter to cops immediately.

     

    Foram Ruparel, 25, who was driving the Audi that was first hit by the Aston Martin, said she had a good view of the man driving that car. “I could see in the rear-view mirror the car was moving at a high speed, weaving left and right. And then, in a flash, it hit my car. I had a decent look at driver’s face. He was a young man,” she said.

     

    Foram said the driver of the Aston Martin tried to flee, but the car stalled a little distance ahead. “In seconds, there was a swarm of security men around the car and they bundled the driver into one of the SUVs and sped off,” she said.”

     

    There are also allegations that some newspapers have taken critical stories off their websites. There are some who claim that the same Aston Martin Rapide, which apparently costs Rs 4 crore, was seen at the party held by the Ambanis for Sachin Tendulkar. The fact is, Reliance has not denied owning the car. The questions being raised have to do with the driver.

     

    So far, this much is certain: the deaths have not been corroborated even by the witnesses who have been quite belligerent. And the media has definitely not been as diligent as it needs to have been. Has pressure been put on the media here to downplay the story? The evidence points that way… The enormous influence of the Ambanis and Reliance notwithstanding, some independent thought and action here would be most welcome. And all kudos to Mumbai Mirror for sticking to its guns.

     

  • The BJP rep's accusation that Arnab Goswami has taken money from lobbies in a discussion on Sec 377 is unacceptable, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Down with Meenakshi Lekhi!

    YouTube screengrab of BJP's Meenakshi Lekhi on Newshour on Times Now on Thursday, December 12

     

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    I have been both an admirer and a very harsh critic of Times Now’s editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami in these columns. But now I come as an admirer. His equanimity in dealing with an appalling personal comment on the News Hour debate on Thursday night is truly commendable. The BJP’s Meenakshi Lekhi accused Goswami of taking money from interested lobbies in a discussion on political reactions to Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which criminalises homosexuality.

     

    While Lekhi is free to have her personal opinions about homosexuality and morality, she perhaps found herself cornered in this discussion. Her stand was that the whole fuss about the Supreme Court recriminalising homosexuality was “much ado about nothing” – although the media and many sections of Indian society are up in arms. The media has sided with human rights, dignity and the rights of the LGBT community. These may not be the same views as the conservative part of society, which Lekhi’s party represents. But to accuse Goswami and the media of being paid to stand up for Constitutional freedom is unacceptable.

     

    It is to Goswami’s great credit that after a somewhat menacing exchange with Lekhi, he continued with the show. However, by then the atmosphere had changed and it was a very subdued and hurried end to what had until then been a lively discussion.

     

    Casual conversation nowadays often refers to “paid media”, thanks mainly to the media itself discussing it. But that does not give licence to people to point fingers at someone’s personal integrity without proof on national television. The idea itself is ludicrous: that the LGBT community will have paid everyone from the media to lawyers to politicians to speak out against a clear attack on human rights. If indeed the LGBT community could do that much, then Section 377 might have been struck down long ago by legislation.

     

    But logic is not part of this argument. The fact is that the Congress, unlike its normal pusillanimous self these days, came out strongly against Section 377. The BJP has obfuscated the issue. Lekhi herself first said that she was happy that Section 377 was not struck down. And then she came up with this “much ado about nothing” line, a blatant misuse of Shakespeare if any. Instead of being feted on news television the way it normally is these days, Lekhi found herself under attack. A mention of the RSS – the mother organisation from which the BJP draws its moral strength and raison d’etre – and Lekhi saw red.

     

    It is possible that Goswami will be the larger person and let Lekhi’s comments go. But they are no less reprehensible for all that and represent an attack on media integrity as a whole. In my view, Goswami should not let it go. Legal action is a possible recourse for him since Lekhi’s remarks can be seen as defamation. But the media and the BJP need to relook at the suitability of Lekhi as a spokesperson. Much as television in India has challenged all norms of civilised behaviour, this one crossed the line.

     

    **

     

    The English media has been, as is evident, ranged against the Supreme Court after this judgment and came out in full support of the LGBT community. Newspaper coverage, from front pages to editorials, has spoken in one voice. So has news television. This is most welcome. Although there is likely to be a backlash from conservative and religious voices – letters to the editor already suggest as much – the media has not flinched. Indeed religious leaders of all colours have been made to explain themselves on TV, much to their discomfiture. Interviews with parents of gay children have given us the human picture of the families and support structures affected by this judgment. The grandmother on Barkha Dutt’s show on NDTV is most memorable, bringing tears to everyone’s eyes. Rahul Eeshwar – who often represents the right wing voice on TV especially on religious matters – was shot down when he tried to present his bogus science on Times Now on Wednesday night. Vikram Seth’s interview to Karan Thapar on CNN-IBN’s Devil’s Advocate presented the pain of the Indian homosexual in erudite terms.

     

    **

     

    Social media as ever was at the vanguard of the anger against the Supreme Court and Twitter certainly offers a quick idea of how the wind is blowing – even if it is limited socially and economically. For the most part, apart from some absurd tweets which said Sonia Gandhi was against Section 377 because all homosexuals are Christian, the rabid side of Twitter was less apparent.

     

  • Ranjona Banerji's found Rajya Sabha TV the best for election results given its latest figures and the studio being filled with journalists and analysts, not politicians and the discussions were robust but polite and interesting.

    Ranjona Banerji: Tweedledum, Tweedledee, Twitterdom

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Sunday was a busy day for the media and my heart goes out to all newspaper and web columnists whose profound writings are scheduled for that day. For just about anyone who was interested in the news was of course watching TV and tracking the results of four crucial Assembly elections.

     

    Also, some may have been there for the entertainment. Because news channels can sometimes top their counterparts in the general entertainment category when it comes to drama, melodrama, tension, denouements, overacting, hamming, emotion and any other over-the-top human reaction you can think of. Humour, outrage, sneering and jeering are to be found on social media, however.

     

    I started Sunday morning with NDTV, Prannoy Roy and Dorab Sopariwalla for old times’ sake and it was a soothing, enlightening, gentle humour-filled experience. This was marred somewhat by the presence of Meenakshi Lekhi of the BJP who may be many things but she is not a soothing experience. I switched between all the channels and watched the big guns at work. The most electrifying was of course Times Now which like is all the other channels combined plus a huge dose of amphetamines or maybe whatever Lance Armstrong was so fond of. Terrifying to watch actually.

     

    My vote then goes to Rajya Sabha TV. It has the latest figures. The studio was filled with journalists and analysts, not politicians and the discussions were robust but polite and interesting. I really admire Indian news addicts who crave the tamasha that is news television. I find it jarring and at the end of the day, extremely hollow. Several people I spoke to said they were happier tracking the elections results on Twitter, which is usually the first with information anyway. I myself was on Twitter while watching TV for most of Sunday.

     

    **

     

    By Sunday evening, discussions were about the demise of the Congress and the phenomenal success of the Aam Aadmi Party. The “Modi wave” was also discussed and on Sunday and Monday morning many commentators felt that the Gujarat chief minister and the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi had made a difference to the BJP’s four victories. By Monday evening and Tuesday morning, the “wave” had become a “ripple” as vote share and constituency wise figures trickled in.

     

    The lobster quadrille being danced out between the BJP and AAP in Delhi – where no one has a majority – dominated the news however. The whiting, the snail and the porpoise were not sure where to tread. There was and still is a sort of Carrollian air to these elections. Cheshire cats everywhere, Tweedledum and Tweedledee in usual combat and with the calls for leaders like Indira Gandhi, some Red Queens shouting “Off with their heads” will soon pop up.

     

    Tuesday’s newspapers are full of advice for both the Congress and Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party. The BJP won four states and will form a government in three but it is a bit eclipsed by the Congress’s remarkable losses and the AAP’s spectacular showing. Such is India that the results of the Mizoram assembly elections got a little lost.

     

    Anyway, the show, ladies and gentlemen, has just begun. Get a drink, settle down and enjoy the ride.

     

    **

     

    MS Dhoni has to thank Arvind Kejriwal because no one has noticed India’s dismal performance in South Africa except for diehard cricket fans. Columns however are undoubtedly being written to blame Sachin Tendulkar. Oh, wait, of course…

     

    **

     

    Tarun Tejpal too has been knocked off the headlines. Intriguing however is this massive defence of Shoma Chaudhury in The New York Times by well-known columnist Roger Cohen. Far be it from anyone to tell a columnist what to write about but a few more facts may have helped him to understand why Chaudhury faced as much flak as she did: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/10/opinion/the-beast-in-indias-midst.html?_r=0

     

    **

    And finally, this is a personal crusade and a little out of my territory. Sunsilk Shampoo has an ad on the front page of The Times of India’s Mumbai edition headlined: “Love your Straight Baal?” The copy goes on to read, “Every girl knows that there is one magic moment just after a shower when your hair is wet, aligned and perfectly straight.”

     

    This ad is a direct attack on people who do not have straight hair and especially people with curly hair. On behalf of all curly-haired people, I object. Nor do I know anything about this stupid supposedly “magic moment”. So there!

     

  • It is almost impossible for anyone on Arnab Goswami's guest list to have an opinion that is not the same as his. This is a crime almost punishable in the court of popular opinion if not under the Indian Penal Code, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: How disagreement with Arnab is a crime

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The death of Nelson Mandela, the most recognised icon of freedom and equality in the second half of the 20th century, not unnaturally consumed news television on Friday morning. The anti-apartheid fighter-politician, who led South Africa to freedom from racist rule, was perhaps the most famous follower of Mahatma Gandhi in today’s world.

     

    Al Jazeera ran a very moving short film on Mandela’s life, CNN played US president Barack Obama’s reaction. The BBC showed live scenes in South Africa, where people celebrated “Madiba’s” life. Indeed most news channels concentrated on Mandela on Friday morning, with the best Mandela coverage from Headlines Today. The other Indian news channels (English) interspersed stories about Mandela’s death with other news of the day.

     

    **

     

    Every journalist and every newsroom yearns for a juicy story, something that you can really get your teeth into. But Indian news television often behaves like a pack of wild hunting dogs (or hyenas?) sensing their prey is getting away and going into frenzied attack mode. Watching the exit poll results being played out on TV seemed like that anyway. Not that the guests behaved any differently. There were charges and counter charges made at full volume – and not even from the much-blamed uncontrollable spokespersons for political parties. These were journalists, commentators, academics slugging it out.

     

    Times Now led the pack and as is now well-known amongst TV news watchers, no one can beat Arnab Goswami in full flow. He has effectively defeated all his rivals and is India’s prime anchor by a long shot. On Tuesday, he scampered and thundered all over his studio as the exit poll results were discussed, diagnosed and dissected down to the nth degree but of course as shallowly as possible, keeping the limits of TV in mind.

     

    Arnab-watching is now a separate spectator sport. Having returned to this arena after a six month hiatus (barring a few relapses here and there), it is evident that Goswami has only grown. Now, it is almost impossible for anyone on his guest list to have an opinion that is not the same as his. This is a crime almost punishable in the court of popular opinion if not under the Indian Penal Code.

     

    If this was the level of high-pitched excitement on the day of the exit polls, one can only imagine what is going to happen on Sunday, December 8 when the actual results are revealed. I think that it is time that jugglers, clowns and fireworks are made part of TV news discussions because they will add wonderfully to the carnival atmosphere. Indian news television has scaled new heights which even the most prescient and incisive 1975 film Network could not have foreseen.

     

    I cannot forecast whether the exit polls are right or wrong or somewhere in the middle or who’s winning and who’s losing but I can tell you that we’re in for a real tamasha treat on Sunday. Cancel those plans to hit the malls guys!

     

    For those who want some clarity into the exit polls before all is revealed on Sundays, these two opinion pieces may be of some help. Dileep Padgaonkar points to the “winds of change” blowing through the nation on The Times of India’e edit page http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/talking- terms/entry/congress_battered_bjp_upbeat_but_regional_ parties_will_be_game_changers_in_the_general_elections.

     

    And Seema Chishti provides an analytical breakdown of the significance of these elections in The Indian Express: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/signs-and-wonders/1203806/.

     

    **

     

    Clarification: Since there has been a tiny bit of confusion here, I would like to make it clear that this is an opinion piece and has been an opinion piece since I started writing it for mxmindia.com more than two years ago. Just thought I’d put that down in case anyone doesn’t get it.

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator based in Mumbai. She is also Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. She can be reached via Twitter at @ranjona. The views here are her own

     

  • Caravan magazine's long and detailed story into the running of Network18 talks of how founder Raghav Bahl has tilted to the political right, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: When journalists turn media barons

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Caravan magazine’s long and detailed story into the running of Network18 had remarkable similarities with the various stories doing the rounds of Tehelka. Raghav Bahl of Network18 and Tarun Tejpal of Tehelka have been portrayed as very ambitious journalists with grand ideas, some enormous success but both seem to carry the taint of questionable financial sources and dodgy financial practices when it came to their empires.

     

    There are differences too. Tehelka is much smaller than Network18 for one. And, as has been suggested by Caravan and in these columns earlier, Bahl has tilted to the political right while Tehelka and Tejpal are often accused by the BJP’s sympathisers as being Congress stooges.

     

    But this is not about politics. It is about what happens when journalists become media barons. Network18 has been in the news for cutting down on its staff with over 300 people losing their jobs. Media gossip says that these terminations were not done in a humane way – much of it was last-minute and many were not given enough of a safety net in terms of severance pay. An employee with another TV channel, which also cut back on staff but not to this extent, told me that his company made sure that people got at least a year’s pay in severance money, not just one month’s notice.

     

    Only a year before these terminations, Network18 was on a hiring spree and employees were told that the company was doing well. This turned out to be false and the company had to sell stake to Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries to survive. After the terminations, senior management went off to Macau for meeting with each other or whatever they call that corporate rubbish which sounds like a junket. A bit reminiscent of the behaviour of US bankers after they caused the global financial crash of 2008 or is that an unfair comparison?

     

    Tehelka’s finances were also a mess. Allegations have surfaced that while the Tejpal family were enjoying a holiday in London which included a fund-raising art auction, salary cheques bounced back in India. Also, the share ownership pattern of Tehelka appears to have been a merry tangle. Yet those who know Tejpal also say that he was exceedingly generous to his staff and his friends, often from his own pocket. Long before this scandal broke, a close associate had told me that Tejpal lived big when he had money, sharing it with friends and staff.

     

    Many journalists tired of the corporate or “malik” (owner) strangleholds on their profession dream of starting something by themselves so that they can pursue the stories they want and uphold the ideals that brought them here. Is there a morality tale in these two examples? From personal experience, I can safely say that most journalists I know are absolutely useless with money. Present company not excepted.

     

    **

     

    Tarun Tejpal and Tehelka have received any amount of flak from fellow journalists and other commentators. Veteran journalist BG Verghese has written this finely nuanced piece in The Indian Express on where the media went too far and how introspection is needed: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/a-gotcha-trial-by-media/1202488/

     

    **

     

    Calls to control the media or for the media to control itself continue unabated, especially the Talwar murder case. Somewhere hidden in Tuesday’s newspapers is the story of the Supreme Court issuing a notice to all states about media restraint and how an investigating officer should brief the media.

     

    Sometimes popular opinion also echoes this point of view. However while there is no doubt that sometimes the media can go too far or some within the media go too far, government intervention is not and cannot ever be the answer. Self-regulation for the media is the only way forward in a democracy.

     

    As for the Talwar case, I am intrigued by articles in the media saying that the media skewed public opinion against the Talwars, now held guilty by a special CBI court in the murders of their daughter Aarushi and domestic help, Hemraj. I can myself only remember scores of articles and columns insisting that the Talwars are innocent. Thus, perhaps it all evens out in the end.

     

    The media, in case it needs reminding, is not one cohesive body. It is a disparate collection of competing journals, channels and now websites.

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator based in Mumbai. She is also Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. She can be reached via Twitter at @ranjona. The views here are her own

     

  • There has been much discussion about whether the media has been conducting a witch hunt against Tarun Tejpal and Shoma Chaudhury. Ranjona Banerji addresses the issue

    Ranjona Banerji: Is there a trial by media on Tehelka?

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Is there a trial by media in the Tehelka case? Has the media conducted a witch hunt against Tarun Tejpal and Shoma Chaudhury after allegations of sexual assault bordering on rape were made public? As many in the media know and have pointed out, there are innumerable instances of sexual harassment within the media and in most cases justice has not been done to the victim. The Vishakha guidelines which everyone now quotes so freely are followed in only a few media offices.

     

    Looking back, coverage of this case hinged on a few key points. The first was the verbose bombast of Tejpal’s various letters of apology. The second was the release of the victim’s email which detailed the very serious charges against Tejpal. The third was Chaudhury’s aggressive posturing in front of reporters, especially her comment, “Are you the aggrieved party”.

     

    The gauntlet had now been thrown down to the rest of the media. And yes, as has been said before, the media is the aggrieved party. Everyone is the aggrieved party. For a journalist to ask this of another, shows how easily we forget our professional compulsions when matters become personal.

     

    There is another less savoury aspect to the reaction of the media. For all the sterling work that Tehelka did, many journalists were uncomfortable with sting operation journalism as well as with Tehelka’s very self-righteous approach. If there is anyone who knows that being self-righteous in the media is a sham, it is a journalist. We have to live on cynical pragmatism while following an idealistic principle. Being judge and jury is not our calling. Being the mirror is. To be sure, it’s a tightrope walk. So it is possible that many of us found Tehelka’s sanctimonious front a bid galling and that made this case a bit more intriguing.

     

    However, at the bottom of it all, lies some unacceptable behaviour and that has nothing to do with the feelings of the viewer. The change of stance by Tejpal, the stonewalling by Shoma Chaudhury, the tenacity of the victim who did not let go and did not capitulate all increased the interest in the event.

     

    And then came Tejpal’s bail application. Even if it was drafted by his lawyers, it contained every bit of misogynistic patriarchy that Tehelka itself has been fighting against. It blamed the victim, it questioned her behaviour after the alleged assault and it claimed that Tejpal was forced to write letters of apology by Chaudhury.

     

    Given all this, it is hardly surprising that the media has been following this case so closely. Add to that the political sideshow with Tejpal somehow blaming the BJP for his predicament and you have a story that no media outlet would miss.

     

    One could also argue that the level of media interest in gender stories has also increased since the December 2012 gangrape in Delhi. Also, while many are questioning why senior journalists are going after Tejpal and not protecting their own it is worth remembering that the victim is also one of our own.

     

    **

     

    The Tehelka case forced me to watch prime time news TV slugfests after almost six months. Most channels and anchors managed a few stimulating discussions on the subject mainly because they avoided inviting politicians: Karan Thapar (CNN-IBN), Nidhi Razdan (NDTV), Sagorika Ghose (CNN-IBN), Arnab Goswami (Times Now), Rajdeep Sardesai (CNN-IBN), various anchors on Headlines Today and NewsX.

     

    Once the politicians entered the scene, it all went downhill of course. And once politicians start behaving badly, all the other guests apparently believe that open season for lack of etiquette has begun. Interrupting, shouting over each other, refusing to answer the question asked – all the fine elements of a “debate” on English news channels in India. And Arnab Goswami I see has only grown in stature and now his whole show is unashamedly about his own opinions. My advice: dump the guests and have a nightly chat with the nation about what needs to be done.

     

    **

     

    Wags on social media have been pointing out that Tarun Tejpal has achieved what the might of the Congress party could not: knocked Narendra Modi off national television. Having said that, Tehelka will peter out sooner rather than later and the Gujarat surveillance case will be back.

     

    **

     

    And Cobrapost and Gulail have now informed the rest of us how politicians – and anyone else – use trickery and cheating to manipulate the social media. Expect some more on that.

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator based in Mumbai. She is also Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. She can be reached via Twitter at @ranjona. The views here are her own

     

  • If 26/11 was the making of Times Now, it was also a battleground for newspapers, writes Ranjona Banerji. For journalists, it was the story of the decade playing out in front of one's eyes

    Ranjona Banerji: 26/11 – battleground news channels and newspapers

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Like many others in Mumbai, I also got a phone call from friends asking me to switch on the TV on the night of November 26, 2008. And then all night, I watched the surreal events being played out in front of millions. The first suspicions were of a drug gang shootout in Colaba – an area known for the unsavoury characters that emerge once the sun sets. But as the focus shifted from Colaba to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (also known as VT) and then to Mumbai’s most iconic hotels, the Taj and the Trident (still called the Oberoi) it was clear that something far more sinister was going on.

     

    Images of the young and gleeful Ajmal Kasab began to flash on TV screens, evil intent apparent in his glittering eyes – or so it seemed to us. There was news of the best and the brightest of Mumbai’s police force being killed in the attacks. There was fear for friends who were out in the area – and never have mobile phones been more useful. There was immense sorrow as news of those missing began to emerge. In my case, it was an old school friend who I had known since we were both five.

     

    But in all this, you had also to look at the events as a journalist. You were not just a voyeur. You were a trained professional with what is in media terms the story of the decade playing out in front of your eyes. The first drum beat roll therefore has to go to television. Many brave young reporters stood out there for three days telling the world what was happening inside the hotels and Nariman House which were under siege for three days after the first attacks on Cafe Leopold and CST on the night of November 26 ended. By Thursday morning Kasab – the only surviving terrorist of the 10 – had been captured.

     

    Much as this was a seminal moment for television, it was a particular turning point for Times Now. It emerged as the best channel covering the events and Arnab Goswami – for a long time playing catch up with TV stars and his former colleagues Barkha Dutt and Rajdeep Sardesai – emerged as a national figure. Dutt and Sardesai made two rookie mistakes – they jumped into the fray and tried to get in front of the cameras instead of being the conductor in the studio. This meant that they could only give viewers impressions. All the ground information still had to come from reporters.

     

    Goswami by contrast stayed in the studio, letting his reporters do their jobs. Editors of newspapers very rarely jump into ground coverage. Not just because they are lazy fat cats but because they know that they have beat reporters trained to do their jobs and it is hard to beat them for information. An editor can go out there to see what’s happening. He or she can provide colour copy. But editors are far more valuable in the newsroom orchestrating coverage. Times Now’s other advantage is that it is Mumbai-based unlike other TV channels which are situated in Delhi.

     

    There have been complaints against Goswami and Dutt that they gave away vital information about the locations of guests to the terrorists. In the case of Goswami, he acknowledged the error and then stopped that line of questioning. The same cannot be said for Dutt.

     

    There were also complaints that the media concentrated on the five star hotels because it is anti-poor. This argument is ludicrous. The attacks moved to the five star hotels and stayed there as commandos fought a deadly battle with the terrorists. There were no terrorists at CST from Thursday onwards. Also, as events unfolded as fast as they did, it is unfair to expect the media to have a foolproof coverage plan. For a long time, no one had a clue what was going on, least of all the authorities.

     

    If 26/11 was the making of Times Now, it was also a battleground for newspapers. The Times of India was at the spot and that gave it a massive advantage. But even though I was working there at the time, I have to give a big shout-out to DNA. I had watched in horror as DNA was paralysed during the July 2006 serial bomb blasts in the train service. I could not believe that I had just joined a newspaper which fell to pieces during a crisis like this – when it should in fact have claimed it as its own, as a new entrant to the Mumbai market.

     

    DNA redeemed itself during the November 2008 terror attacks. In one of those remarkable miracles – which I had seen once before in The Times of India’s Ahmedabad edition during the Gujarat 2002 riots – the newsroom rose as one. Internal conflicts and politics were put aside and everyone assumed responsibility. It was a stupendous effort and it showed in print. The other newspapers could not match us – for that time at least.

     

    The tragedy at the personal level remained however. Old friend and fellow journalist Sabina Sehgal did indeed die in the attacks on the Taj. And in another note, none of the promises made to Mumbai at that time have materialised.

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator based in Mumbai. She is also Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. She can be reached via Twitter at @ranjona. The views here are her own

     

  • Neither Tarun Tejpal and Shoma Chaudhury can inspire confidence, either as leaders of an organisation or from an editorial perspective, writes Ranjona Banerji. If Tehelka is to maintain its motto of being fearless, frank and so on then it needs new management, she says.

    Ranjona Banerji: Time for both Tejpal and Shoma to quit Tehelka

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Sexual harassment of young females by senior male editors is one of the Indian media’s worst-kept secrets. Everybody knows several stories of young women being propositioned, coerced and threatened by men in positions of power far above them in the pecking order. And everyone also knows that those that complain usually lose their jobs. And yet, for all its moral posturing about problems elsewhere, the Indian media has been satisfied with doing little but some private outraging.

     

    Will the Tehelka story change all that? At first glance, it seems that Tehelka tried to follow the old path of cover up and forget about it, after a young female reporter accused the magazine’s editor-in-chief Tarun Tejpal of sexually assaulting her. The responses from managing editor Shoma Chaudhury suggest that the top management decided to close ranks with their boss. Tejpal himself “recused” himself from the magazine in an extremely ill-judged letter in florid prose full of Biblical and religious overtones. He talked of atonement, penance and laceration all of which would be significantly poetic if it wasn’t so vomit-inducing.

     

    The story broke through the social media after news emerged that Tejpal had stepped down for six months. But it was soon clear that this stepping down or atonement was nothing but smoke and mirrors. Tejpal’s letter talked of misreading a situation and taking responsibility for an unfortunate incident. Had he looked leeringly at a young girl and asked her to come up and look at his etchings, “misreading” might perhaps apply. But what Tejpal did – according the young woman’s complaints doing the rounds on the Internet – was sexual assault and could be construed as rape.

     

    This makes Chaudhury’s responses to the media even more inexplicable if not inexcusable. What happened is not an “internal” matter and a questioning media cannot be dismissed as being more upset than the “aggrieved party”. Indeed, Chaudhury’s statement that the “aggrieved party” is satisfied was countered by the complainant telling news channels that she was far from satisfied and she was angry that her complaint had not been circulated internally the way Tejpal’s was.

     

    There has been some discussion that Chaudhury being female should have stood by her staffer and understood her pain. However history demonstrates that the sisterhood has not really stood up for itself within media organisations. The Network of Women in Media has become stronger over the years but it is an outside organisation. Loyalties within are another matter. Having said all this, it is still astounding that Chaudhury was not moved by the young woman’s complaint which talks of a very grievous assault and then an appalling attempt at flirtation which turned into threats.

     

    Instead, Chaudhury wrote an email to the staff, filled with the most sanctimonious hifalutin nonsense: “We have also believed that when there is a mistake or lapse of any kind, one can only respond with right thought and action. In keeping with this stated principle, and the collective values we live by, Tarun will be stepping down for the period mentioned”.

     

    What is “right thought and action” and what are these “collective values” one may well ask.

     

    However, without getting as sanctimonious and self-righteous and morally reprobate as Tehelka, the outraged media must turn now that spotlight on itself. NDTV’s Nidhi Razdan said on TV that her channel has followed the Vishaka guidelines of the Supreme Court on sexual harassment. Sachin Kalbag, editor of Mid-Day, also said that Mid-Day is Vishaka compliant in a tweet. What is the story with other media organisations? How do they handle complaints of sexual harassment? How have perpetrators been punished? What sort of a future can the complainant look forward to in the organisation? It must be mentioned that the victims need not only be women and that the perpetrators need not always be men. But even while being politically correct and upholding gender equality, the sad truth is that it is women who usually bear the brunt.

     

    That the entire media has come out in support of the victim is heartening and might even suggest that a few small changes may happen… Poor Rahul Singh who tried to defend Tehelka’s track record as an investigative magazine got short shrift on Times Now. As several participants pointed out, it was Tehelka’s founder Tejpal who had damaged his own magazine’s reputation. In a side note, because politicians were not invited to primetime news debates on the subject, discussions on the Tehelka issue were conducted with some decorum and minus the high-decibel pyrotechnics viewers are normally subjected to.

     

    The correct thing would be for both Tarun Tejpal and Shoma Chaudhury to quit Tehelka. Neither can inspire confidence, either as leaders of an organisation or from an editorial perspective. If Tehelka is to maintain its motto of being fearless, frank and so on then it needs new management.

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator based in Mumbai. She is also Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. She can be reached via Twitter at @ranjona. The views here are her own

     

  • Do the people who come on television news channel discussion ever watch themselves on re-runs, asks Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Do news channel panellists know how awful they look and sound?

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Was the biggest story of last week Sachin Tendulkar’s retirement from cricket? Possibly yes. Was it the only story of the week? Definitely not. But for television channels ducking out of covering the expose on snooping charges against the Gujarat government this was the explanation: “Saturday was Sachin’s day”. But these are 24 hour news channels. To fill up 24 hours only with Sachin Tendulkar is not just impossible, it is downright foolish.

     

    The immediate allegations on social media were that the news channels were too frightened of Narendra Modi to cover the Cobrapost.com and Gulail story. (Incidentally, news channels are usually called “paid Congress agents”, an accusation which shows how divided social media is politically.) It certainly was curious that this story was ignored. After all, what Cobrapost.com and Gulail had exposed was that Amit Shah, then home minister of Gujarat, had asked the Gujarat police to tail and record all the activities of a young woman on the instructions of “Saheb”. That “Saheb” was Narendra Modi was confirmed by the woman’s father and BJP president Rajnath Singh. The taped conversations were part of the evidence provided by IPS officer GL Singhal to the CBI, as part of his own defence after being arrested in the Ishrat Jehan case, alleged to have been killed in a controversial “fake” encounter. Cobrapost.com and Gulail said that they could not verify the authenticity of the tapes.

     

    Even so, it makes for a story and every newspaper in the country thought as much. TV woke up a day late – after the story had front-paged practically every newspaper in the country. And of course, they jumped straight into “debate” mode which saves them the cost of newsgathering, once the bulwark on which journalism rested. I have to confess that I did not watch any of these “debates” but I have heard that Anniruddha Bahal of Cobrapost.com did not get a chance to speak in between all the yelling and screaming of the representatives of political parties.

     

    While BJP followers have long claimed that the entire English media is on the payroll of the Congress party, is there now a good case to made that the entire English television media is on the payroll of Narendra Modi and the BJP? While Cobrapost.com and Gulail were announcing their story at a press conference, news channels were showing the world one more speech by Narendra Modi, Gujarat chief minister and prime ministerial hopeful.

     

    **

     

    Dare one suggest that this primetime screaming contest that we have all got used to in India, looks very unseemly in an international context? The Australian Broadcasting Corporation brought its lively Q&A programme to India this week (I get ABC from my cable operator but this episode was also shown on DD). Panellists included Karan Thapar, Shashi Tharoor, Swapan Dasgupta and Shoma Choudhury. The idea was to increase India-Australia communication and attack stereotypes. Half the panellists demonstrated just how irritatingly self-righteously smug we are in India.

     

    But most unedifying of all were the spats that Swapan Dasgupta got into with panellists over Narendra Modi (sigh, him again). Karan Thapar dealt with him with that razor-sharp firmness he uses on The Last Word. But Shoma Choudhury succumbed and the two, seating next to each other, proceeded to have wonderfully absurd verbal pyrotechnics. Do these people ever watch themselves on reruns? Do they know how awful they look and sound?

     

    **

     

    After the revelations of Cobrapost.com and Gulail story, many pro-Modi fans brought up the case of Rahul Gandhi being accused of kidnapping and raping a woman called Sukanya Devi as defence of the Gujarat chief minister. As it happens, the case against Rahul Gandhi was first thrown out by the Allahabad High Court as being “malicious” and later by the Supreme Court as well.  But an internet search on the matter leads to the Firstpost.com website which carried a video with the headline: “Rahul Gandhi raped Sukanya Devi”. I do not quite understand the technicalities of the internet, but Firstpost.com perhaps need to look into being associated to this piece of slander.

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator based in Mumbai. She is also Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. She can be reached via Twitter at @ranjona. The views here are her own

     

  • In her review of the news media, Ranjona Banerji scans the coverage on Sachin Tendulkar's farewell match and the Campa Cola building controversy

    Ranjona Banerji: Not much imagination in the Tendulkar coverage

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Is it going to be all about Sachin Tendulkar’s farewell series or the Campa Cola compound? Either way, Mumbai dominates the news this week, making this a rare exception from all the endless political tamasha that we have been subjected to in recent times.

     

    Tendulkar’s retirement has been everywhere and it takes a very brave Indian Express to not run with the first day’s play on Page 1 of the Mumbai edition, bar a photograph. The rest of the newspapers knew what people were interested in and went with that. With everyone jumping on to the bandwagon though there is a range of Sachin nostalgia writing to pick your way through from the mundane to the sublime. Ayaz Memon’s piece in Mumbai Mirror on Thursday was filled with delightful nostalgic nuggets, based on his long experience covering cricket and as an editor. Clayton Murzello, sports editor of Mid-Day, showed why he is one of the best repositories of Mumbai’s (and India’s) cricket history today. The Times of India dedicated pages to Tendulkar’s retirement but could surely have expended more effort and dipped further into its formidable 175 year archives. The Hindustan Times was adequate but is often better at sports not called cricket. The Economic Times new sports page is still dismal and needs plenty more work.

     

    Cricket writing was once considered an art form but somehow that talent is not showing through enough in the new breed of sports journalists. It does not help that others have jumped on to the bandwagon but not every academic can write like Ramachandra Guha and not every former cricketer can write like Ed Smith. Given that most of the big celebrity names writing on cricket are sponsored and the cash registers can never be silenced, some more effort to nurture in-house writing talent may have good long-term effects.

     

    Of course, the Sachin Tendulkar story is not yet over so quite likely we shall see some more during the day. One thought on the Star Sports coverage and commentary: The discussion show on Tendulkar and cricket called Sachiiin Sachiiin is far more interesting and in-depth than the non-stop cliché-ridden jabber in the commentary boxes, particularly the Hindi ones. You feel that Navjot Singh Sidhu now has competition from Kapil Dev in how to never stop to take a breath between inanities. A little birdie tells me that apparently those who tune into Hindi commentary need cricket to be explained to them all the while and abhor silence. Sounds a bit… condescending?

     

    **

     

    The story of the apartment blocks with illegal floors in the Worli area of Mumbai has not unnaturally been covered by city newspapers. But it was a surprise to see the Campa Cola compound make it to national television on Monday, as the dramatic story of residents fighting to save their homes played out. There was misery, hope, politics and illegality on plenty of levels making for a great spectacle.

     

    The next day saw the effect of the media at work. Apparently the Supreme Court judge who had ordered that the residents vacate their homes on November 11 watched the media coverage, was deeply distressed and could not sleep all night. The next morning, he ordered a stay on the demolition of the illegal floors and gave residents till May next year to move out.

     

    In between all this were several comments from senior journalists about how because the Campa Cola residents were middle class they got media attention, which slum dwellers don’t get. Undoubtedly there is truth in that remark. But it is also true that the Campa Cola case revealed one more instance of developer-municipality-politician culpability, which affects slum dwellers and the middle class both. Any exposure is therefore not to be sneezed at.

     

    And just to push the point further, I have actually read about slum demolition in newspapers and seen it on TV. How far it has made Supreme Court judges lose sleep I do not know. Room for improvement everywhere perhaps.

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator based in Mumbai. She is also Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. She can be reached via Twitter at @ranjona. The views here are her own

     

  • While The Times of India has done a lot of damage to the media in general with its subsequent treatment of journalists, putting marketing above newsgathering and by introducing money-gathering practices like Medianet, it also took media in India into the contemporary world and set the standard for all other newspapers, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji | Times@175: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The word “sesquicentennial” was not familiar to most in Bombay when The Times of India splashed it all over the city in 1988. But since my school in Calcutta, La Martiniere for Girls, had celebrated its 150th birthday a few years before, everyone in that city knew what it meant. Those 150th celebrations of the Old Lady of Boribunder were a massive announcement in a sense of a new Times of India. Not so much an old lady but of a group that would transform the Indian media scene – in both good and bad ways.

     

    Although I did a story on the 150 year celebrations for the now defunct Bombay magazine, I must confess I remember very little about what happened. Except for the takeover of Victoria Terminus with massive artworks carefully placed between its ornate columns. Situated across each other, India’s most famous railway station and India’s most famous newspaper have long dominated Bombay’s skyline with their Indo-Saracenic architecture, control of commuter and long-distance travels and of course, people’s minds.

     

    But the sesquicentennial celebrations were actually a message to the world that The Times of India had transformed itself. Samir Jain, elder son of Ashok Jain, would now run the paper as his own – unlike his father who had left it to editors and journalists. In the early 1980s, I worked for a while with an advertising agency which handled Bennett Coleman accounts. There were no Jains in sight when you visited the Old Lady in those days. And of course there was Girilal Jain, the editor who was synonymous with The Times of India and ultimately the apparent cause of Samir Jain’s distrust of editors and journalists.

     

    Girilal Jain (no relation) was sacked in 1988, ostensibly for his pro-Hindutva leanings. But some of those stories about his disdainful treatment of Ashok Jain and Samir Jain’s anger at that must have played a part. After Girilal, no editor would be allowed to reach such dominating heights. The subtle hand of the young owner would be felt everywhere. Soon, his younger brother Vineet would make his own mark on the group.

     

    The Times of India has done a lot of damage to the media in general with its subsequent treatment of journalists, with putting marketing above newsgathering and by introducing money-gathering practices like Medianet which is essentially legitimising bribery. However, it also took media in India into the contemporary world and set the standard for all other newspapers. Over the last 25 years, as it now celebrates its 175th anniversary, The Times of India remains the country’s most-read newspaper and continues to mean all things to all people.

     

    I worked for The Times of India’s Ahmedabad edition from 2001 to 2004. In that time, I saw the best and worst of it. The support given to us in the editorial office during our coverage of the Gujarat riots of 2002 was remarkable and commendable. And it was also most welcome as the local government and civil society turned against us for the newspaper’s decision to be fair in its coverage of the riots and our refusal to give in to the sentiments of the Hindu majority. The newspaper’s management in Delhi dealt with most of the anger and the threats to the group.

     

    However, it was also during my time in Ahmedabad that Medianet was introduced and that led partly to my decision to leave the group. Sadly today most other media houses have followed the Medianet example, where people and corporates can get positive or useful news about themselves printed in the glamour sections of newspapers. Journalists either have to give in or find some other place to work. What happens there is not really journalism anyway.

     

    Yet in these 25 years there has been a lot of hard work and massive growth. The Times of India has complete control over Mumbai, its flagship edition, plays a neck and neck race with the Hindustan Times in Delhi and has editions which are either ahead of the others or serious contenders in major cities in India. Times Now is one of India’s most popular news channels. Radio Mirchi rules the FM waves. Indiatimes hogs internet space, especially for NRIs.

     

    Given the newspaper’s oddly distrustful relationship with culture and cultural activities since 1988, I doubt that Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus will be festooned with major artworks by Indian greats again. Perhaps Katrina Kaif and Hrithik Roshan dancing all over the building would be more appropriate? They can pay the newspaper to do it too.