MxMIndia

Tag: freaking news

  • This is a real "break" and exclusive, not the "today the sun is shining" sort of breaking news story that TV has made infamous, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: The Hindu breaks a great story with Jayanthi Natarajan’s letter to Sonia Gandhi

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The Hindu of January 30 has broken a fine story about former minister and long-time Congress spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan’s letter to Sonia Gandhi, talking about the way she was humiliated by the party and forced to resign in 2013. This is a real “break” and exclusive, not the “today the sun is shining” sort of breaking news story that TV has made infamous. The text of the letter is here: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/full-text-of-jayanthi-natarajans-letter-to-sonia-gandhi/article6835522.ece

     

    The Hindu also has a cover story about Natarajan’s situation and her reliance on Congress son and heir Rahul Gandhi’s advice. http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/i-honoured-rahuls-requests-jayanthi-natarajan/article6835930.ece

     

    Times Now has run away with the story and as usual, worked hard to confuse viewers. It is hard to tell from watching TV news alone whether Rahul Gandhi wanted Natarajan to clear projects for industrialists or to stall projects to save the environment. And from the morning, the channel has run BJP spokespersons rubbing their hands with glee. The Congress was missing in the morning at least which makes one wonder if Times Now has any “sources” (TV wallahs are so proud of flaunting them) in the Congress at all. Any viewer knows the channel has many direct lines to the BJP.

     

    Further, the point which Times Now has chosen to focus on is Rahul Gandhi’s involvement in the running of the government and what Manmohan Singh was doing. This seems an odd angle when there are so many more obvious ones in front of them. But the ways of Times Now are mysterious to all!

     

    The other news channels though continue to be obsessed with the Delhi state elections and the two most likely chief ministerial candidates, Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi. India being a massive country with over a billion in population it is only natural that a few million who live in the national capital are of any importance.

     

    As a plug, I post my view of the Delhi elections which appeared to the website DailyO: http://www.dailyo.in/opinion/kejriwal-vs-bedi-why-i-dont-care-who-the-next-delhi-cm-is-delhi-elections/story/1/1730.html

     

    **

     

    Narendra Modi’s 10,000 pound suit and Barack Obama’s visit to India continued to dominate media space not least because of general incomprehension about what this visit achieved especially when it came to the nuclear deal. India’s best commentators and experts (no, I am not talking about TV) have laboured to explain this to us.

     

    Social media and websites have had a blast about the Obama visit. Here are a variety:

    http://www.buzzfeed.com/regajha/pm-of-swag

    http://scroll.in/article/702854/Six-hilarious-ways-Modi-tried-to-match-Obamas-cool-quotient-but-failed-miserably

    And, http://www.dailyo.in/laugh/five-things-indians-would-not-have-noticed-about-modi-before-obamas-visit/story/1/1707.html

     

    **

     

    The Government of India put out an ad on Republic Day which carried the Preamble to the Constitution before the 1976 amendment which included the word “secular” and “socialist”. This has caused several uproars on social media especially between journalists who are proud of being partisan. Commentators have also weighed in, some pointing out that the Indira Gandhi government rushed through the amendment. Others have demanded the government come clean about whether it wants to remove or retain the words and still others have said that the change needs to come from Parliament and not from a government ad. Phew.

     

    Meanwhile Venkaiah Naidu has confirmed that this government is committed to being “secular”. A storm in a teacup or some exploratory steps to check how the nation reacts? We can have another fight about this on social media soon.

     

    **

     

    January 30 is also Martyr’s Day, the day Nathuram Godse killed a frail old man in cold blood. Indian Express traces some of Godse’s steps on his way to murdering Mahatma Gandhi:

    http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/retracing-godses-journey-in-gwalior-house-son-lives-with-a-locked-secret/

     

     

  • Also: for many of us now well into in middle age, RK Laxman was the last word because he was us: bemused, amazed, amused and horrified at what was happening around, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Any journo going to ask who paid for PM’s name-engraved pinstripes?

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The death of RK Laxman was not unexpected but is no less a loss for all that. India’s best known cartoonist without a doubt, his subtle, sharp wit and his use of an “ordinary person” as a hapless observer to world events made him stand apart from the others, no matter how talented.

     

    For many of us now well into in middle age, RK Laxman was the last word because he was us: bemused, amazed, amused and horrified at what was happening around. For me, my favourite cartoon remains one he did after Richard Attenborough’s film Gandhi was released. A well-fed minister-type walks out of the cinema, turns to the man next to him and says, “Very moving. A true story I believe.”

     

    And there, in a few words was everything wrong with what politicians have done with our legacy.

     

    **

     

    If there was one thing that was not on display during TV coverage of US president Barack Obama’s visit to India and the Republic Day parade, it was subtlety. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has two main cheerleaders in the upper echelons of TV, I use the word “journalism” here for want of a better alternative: Barkha Dutt of NDTV and Rahul Kanwal of Headlines Today. It is hard to tell who’s the bigger fan of the two because the competition is fierce. Dutt felt that people watched the parade because of Modi, thus demeaning the rest of us who have watched the parade for ourselves for decades regardless of who the PM is or was. Kanwal was overwhelmed by Modi’s fashion choices.

     

    However, am unsure whether either commented on what had emerged about Modi’s fashion choices: his suit for the parade had his name woven into the supposed pinstripes and is said to have been from Holland and Taylor, England and cost 10,000 pounds. Is anyone going to ask who paid?

     

    If anyone does, it will be “evil liberal Congi sickular paid newstrader presstitutes” since too many Indian journalists have ditched objectivity for hero worship. Or will those selfie-taking Delhi political journalists actually do their jobs?

     

    As it happens, the world’s media was on to the name in gold weave story and we are something of a cause for giggles around the world. Not a good day for a “patriotic” Indian.

     

    Meanwhile, as for the parade, you heard it here first: There has never ever been a Republic Day parade in India until Narendra Modi became Prime Minister last year. Whatever you thought you witnessed before was in your imagination or your delusions.

     

    **

     

    One tragedy: the fact that India is so young that almost no one remembers the joy of listening to Melville de Mellow’s mellifluous tones taking us through the parade.

     

    **

     

    A cause for amusement: the hysteria in Indian media over Barack Obama’s visit. It’s true we do it every time. But it’s no less amusing, our patent inferiority complex. What they did, what they ate, where they went, body language, gestures, clothes and all the rest of it. No chance of the media of other nations behaving like that when our dignitaries visit so maybe we should petition the World Association of Newspapers and other such organisations asking for similar coverage? Actually, we provide that ourselves too, as we saw with Modi’s overseas visits.

     

    The US media I believe is preoccupied with a storm.

     

    Enough said.

     

  • There is no life without the "Should" for Indian TV journalists though sometimes they do revise the "should" to "shouldn't", writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Should TV channelwallahs use the ‘should’ so very often?

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Sports journalists in English-speaking countries favour this sort of a story: “Can Roger Federer win another Grand Slam title?” or “Can Rafael Nadal walk on water?” or “Can Novak Djokovic reunite the former Yugoslavia?” I must qualify that these are the stories that print journalists specialise in, many of them commentators and experts. It must be emphasised that there is no way anyone can actually answer any of these questions, let alone the people who ask them and they know that very well. Also, they can keep asking the same question in perpetuity for their own entertainment and no one’s edification.

     

    Indian TV journalists however are obsessed with the word “should”. So everything is “Should Roger Federer win another Grand Slam title?”, “Should Rafael Nadal walk on water?” and “Should Noval Djokovic reunite the former Yugoslavia?” Or, more realistically: “Should the Indian cricket team have only batsmen and no bowlers?”, “Should MS Dhoni solve Indo-Pak relations?” and “Should Lalit Modi be made chief minister of Rajasthan?”

     

    There is no life without the “Should” for Indian TV journalists though sometimes they do revise the “should” to “shouldn’t”, thus demonstrating a subtle understanding of apostrophes and negatives, and also “Why shouldn’t”, thus being philosophical enough to think in various dimensions.

     

    However, it occurs to none of them that “should” is not about news or about debate, it is about speculation. But ah well. As you can see, “can” is used to idiotic effect by other journalists elsewhere.

     

    And here’s one of the silliest headlines you can find, based on the fine newsroom principle where a sub-editor is banned from reading an entire story and must base his headline on throwaway lines within. In context, Roger Federer had a fairly easy first round match at the Australian Open currently on in Melbourne. But not if you read this headline:

    http://www.thelocal.ch/20150119/federer-struggles-to-advance-in-aussie-open

     

    **

     

    Yes, obviously the tennis season is well underway and my mind has turned to other things. Sony Six has wrested the Australian Open, the first of the Grand Slams, away from Star Sports India. Star Sports India is not that interested in tennis, or so an insider told me, which is their prerogative. In the light of which, unfortunately for us tennis fans, they still have the rights to Wimbledon and a few other big tournaments. The other two majors – the French and US Opens – are with Ten Sports.

     

    Sony Six’s first day at Melbourne was all right – no gimmickry, no one sitting in the studio pretending they were on the grounds and no concentrating on unknown Indians while ignoring the biggies. However, they did stop the broadcast while play was still on which is always annoying…

     

    **

     

    Indian TV news now cannot look beyond the Delhi state elections. Or whatever Delhi actually is, since it is not really a state. Everyday on TV is an endless series of breathless speculation about who is going to do what to whom. Since everyone is quitting their earlier parties and joining the BJP, there is some drama on air but not that much.

     

    In other news, Barack Obama is coming to India for the Republic Day parade and while you and I might remember him in India before, for the BJP and its fans in the media, this the first time. Plus the cricket World Cup starts in February so we will have more of the “Should MS Dhoni travel to Mars” and “Should Virat Kohli smile so much at Anushka Sharma” sort of stories.

     

    Also I have it on very good authority that Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Ellery Queen, Philip Marlowe and several other detectives are soon going to return from retirement and death to assist Arnab Goswami and his band of TV crime solvers from other news channels to discover who really killed Sunanda Tharoor.

     

  • Commentaries on journalism – often by people who have little or no experience of journalism – sometimes comment in horrified terms about "self-censorship", writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Why it’s not cowardly to differ with Charlie Hebdo

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    While most journalists have stood firm with Charlie Hebdo and condemned the slaughter at the magazine, not all have agreed with the magazine’s position or even carried the cartoons that apparently set off this terrorist act. Across the world we have seen nuanced positions where journalists have explained why their own publications will not or cannot or would not ever imitate Charlie Hebdo.

     

    It would be childish to call these positions cowardly. Rather, it reminds all of us of the restrictions we place on ourselves when we are responsible to a readership. It is easy to get sanctimonious about this but you only need to think about how pornography is not part of your daily newspaper to understand the restrictions already placed on us.

     

    Some columnists like David Brooks in the New York Times defended Charlie Hebdo and then commented that a lot of its content was suitable for college magazines – if that. Some like Teju Cole in the New Yorker have discussed the various hypocrisies in the freedom of expression for all argument. Cartoonist Joe Sacco has used cartoons to explain his difference opinion with Charlie Hebdo in the Guardian – a newspaper which has given money to Charlie Hebdo to continue.

     

    Cartoonists like Hemant Morparia have written about how he felt that Charlie Hebdo was too provocative. Morparia does not seem to mince his words or restrict his ideas but evidently even he places limitations on himself.

     

    Commentaries on journalism – often by people who have little or no experience of journalism – sometimes comment in horrified terms about “self-censorship”. And yet, it is practised all the time because sometimes it is sensible and sometimes it is a question of good taste. What sort of a publication in India today would carry articles which said that it is time we returned to treating some castes as untouchables? The Constitution of India has promised us equality and no discrimination on the basis of caste. If you are a believer in the superiority of your own caste and the inferiority of others, do you have the right to freedom of expression and is a publication forced to give space to your point of view?

     

    This may be an extreme example I know but I have made it only to point out that this is not a black and white issue. Politician Subramanian Swamy wrote an opinion piece which was deeply offensive to many since it argued that Muslims who do not acknowledge their Hindu ancestry should be denied their voting rights. DNA carried the piece after some argument within the newsroom one hears, but most mainstream journals would not have and with good reason.

     

    The right answer here is that every journalist and publication has the right to decide how far it wants to go. We are circumscribed by laws and society whether we like it or not. France has its own laws and its own ideas and even it has had to answer for its long and unsavoury history of anti-Semitism with proscriptions on freedom of speech.

     

    Europe has to deal with the difficulty of neo-Nazi movements and how far they are allowed to go. The US sees conservative religious groups makes the most outrageous and offensive comments about the LGBT communities and people whose sexual and lifestyle choices they do not agree with.

     

    We cannot pretend that everywhere in the world freedom of expression is absolute and only Muslim extremists do not understand this.

     

    But yes, as journalists, we must defend freedom of expression in absolute terms no matter how we practise it.

     

  • Charlie Hebdo pushed the boundaries fearlessly. Most publications will not go so far for a number of reasons writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: The uncomfortable truths the Charlie Hebdo attack makes us face

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and the deaths of 10 cartoonists, editors and employees and two policemen by Islamists yelling that they were doing this for the “Prophet” is so horrendous that no words are enough.

     

    That this bloody rampage was an attack on free speech is self-evident. Charlie Hebdo was a magazine which pushed the boundaries and did it fearlessly. It took pride in being offensive and tried to be as offensive as possible to as many people as possible. Most publications will not and do not go so far for a number of reasons.

     

    The mildest is that extreme satire is not to everyone’s taste. And sometimes being offensive for the sake of being offensive seems childish or even worse, adolescent. Anyone who has watched comedians battling in the “Yo Mamma” vein will know just how difficult being completely open to satire can be.

     

    But just because satire can be difficult or painful does not mean that one must not embrace it. Everything in life is measured by degrees and so can your personal attitude to satire.  In absolute terms however, we need more satire, not less. Wherever there is pomposity, blind belief, bigotry, sanctimonious-ness, self-righteousness, grandiosity, power, hogwash, jargon… you need humour and sometimes only satire will do the trick.

     

    Yes, in India, the media has not pushed too many buttons here. “Humour” is something we push to a corner and there are too many Indian citizens with thin skins and no sense of fun. Also, our idea of our society is based on paying lip service to the idea of “respect”. The result is that we end up “appeasing” all kinds of bigotry in the name of “respect”. If we exposed all humbuggery for what it is, we might in fact understand real respect better.

     

    Having said all this, we have also accepted some limits. Racist attacks masquerading as humour are illegal and/or frowned upon. Across western Europe and the US, anti-Semitism is not permitted. In most democracies, making fun of those groups who have been historically subjugated is not acceptable. These are only some examples of where we usually do not go and where we consider we should not go.

     

    But sometimes our self-censorship can be seen as pusillanimity.  And sometimes, in the media and The Government what some would call sensitivity, good sense or self-preservation, has led to the fringe elements of all communities setting the agenda. Many groups from the police to barbers to members of various religious communities have had massive tantrums when they have felt “offended” by sometimes innocuous mentions. Perhaps now, we should laugh at them a little more. We can always exercise good sense because not all attempts at humour are successful but we might now pussyfoot around controversial humour a bit less.

     

    David Brooks in The New York Times provides a more nuanced view of the idea of the Charlie Hebdo sort of satire: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/opinion/david-brooks-i-am-not-charlie-hebdo.html?_r=0

     

    This is an argument which should not end after the attack on Charlie Hebdo is forgotten.

     

    **

     

    How far can a news channel go? Or, to put it another way, how did Times Now’sArnab Goswami accuse Congress MP Shashi Tharoor of murdering his wife Sunanda Pushkar and get away with it?

     

    I must make it clear that I do not know who killed Sunanda Pushkar and I know no more about the case than what has appeared in the media. When Goswami blusters through his introductory monologue about injury number 12 and injury number 17 I have no idea what he’s talking about if indeed he is talking about anything.

     

    When Goswami issues an open invitation Shashi Tharoor to his channel to discuss these numbered injuries and to come clean on what he knows, I realise that this is not journalism any longer. It is not trial by media. It is a news anchor trying to be Jerry Springer or any other such TV host who gets people to expose their innermost private lives for a few moments of fame and the delectation of those who live vicariously.

     

    Earlier I felt, before Barkha Dutt was exposed by the Radia tapes, that Dutt had a good chance to be India’s Oprah Winfrey. Now I feel Goswami has trumped her and can become India’s Jerry Springer. No?

     

     

  • Anyone who has questions about the boat is a traitor and a Congress agent and anyone who swallows every MoD press release is an uber-patriot, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Battle of the Boat

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The Indian media is now involved in the battle of the boat. Some media outlets firmly believe the press release from the Ministry of Defence stating that the Coast Guard had intercepted and/or chased a boat full of terrorists from Pakistan heading to Porbander. Said boat then blew itself up.

     

    Other media outlets have been asking questions, not least because various Indian intelligence agencies have questioned this MoD press release, which came a few days after the event. The Indian Express carried an excellent well-argued front page story by Praveen Swami, certainly the foremost journalist when it comes to Intelligence Bureau stories, poking holes in the MoD release. Some media journalists wanted to know why the Ministry of External Affairs had not sent an official complaint to Pakistan yet and it was only the Defence Ministry which had issued a press release.

     

    Some journalists found indications that the boat could have been a smuggling vessel or a fishing vessel and may not have blown itself up as a suicide mission to heaven so much as it caught fire. Anyone who has been a journalist should know that all government agencies leak and that is where information comes from. Instead, we have fallen into the stupidest us versus them rut possible.

     

    So now the division is clear. Anyone who has questions about the boat is a traitor and an agent of the Congress party and anyone who swallows every MoD press release hook line and sinker like the Gospel truth is an uber-patriot. India Uber Alles and bring on the storm troopers, brown shirts, nights of the long knives, young pioneers, Kristallnacht, what you will.

     

    Is this what we’ve come to? A democracy where journalists cannot ask questions?

     

    **

     

    Have started reading Vinod Mehta’s Editor Unplugged, his sequel to Lucknow Boy. As can be expected, the writing style is breezy, self-deprecating and enjoyable. As with Lucknow Boy, there’s a lot of pride in the journalistic achievements of Outlook magazine and even more about the many journalists he has mentored.

     

    I cannot comment further without reading further, and this is not a book review. But this is a comment on the sort of mild hysteria that the book earned from fellow and former journalists soon after it was released. Most of these comments came from people either not born or still being fed pap by their mammas, pappas and ayahs when Mehta started working in journalism, in 1974.

     

    The objections were to throwaway paragraphs in parenthesis about Tarun Tejpal, the now discredited former editor of Tehelka. Tejpal is out on bail having been charged with rape in a very public incident. I feel I have to make it clear that unlike many of those who had hissy fits on social media about what Mehta has written, I have made my own distaste and disgust for Tejpal’s actions very clear in commissioned articles for print and for websites. I have not hidden behind a veil of privacy on either Facebook or Twitter in my condemnation.

     

    In spite of that, I found little offensive in Mehta’s observations. He writes about his firsthand knowledge of Tejpal and that is his prerogative.  Mehta admires Tejpal the journalist and that is also his prerogative. He sounds a little naive in this regard I must admit especially when it comes to Tejpal’s reputation with young women but that is hardly a hanging offence. The only problem seems to be a quote which he has attributed to writer William Dalrymple which Dalrymple denies.

     

    But I remain amazed at the extent of the judgmental stupidity of some of my fellow journalists, including some I have worked with and some who have left the profession. They demonstrate on social media at least a complete ignorance about the way the system operates. It reflects, as I have said in these columns before, either bitter frustration for having left the profession and the perks it offers you or similar anger about not having a voice within their own newsrooms or the media outlet they work for. However, demonstrating their immense disingenuous sense of logic and patently bogus air of outraged innocence on social media cannot possibly help their respective causes, if what they want is fame and acknowledgment within the fraternity.

     

    Did I just say that? After all, in this climate, extreme stupidity in journalists seems to be in high demand. Carry on guys in that case. Maybe someone will listen and give you that column or that TV appearance you so seem to crave. What posterity will say is another matter…

     

  • How many editors and senior journalists do we all know that have turned into management lackeys because they didn't have the courage to stand up for themselves, asks Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Should editors learn to handle owners, managers & staff?

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Rahul Pandita quits The Hindu as editor of the Op Ed page. And this time, unlike the exits from the venerable and respected newspaper in 2013, it is not because of pressure to do with political leanings and support or lack of for Narendra Modi. Instead, it is to do with real journalism stuff: the interference of owner-editors into the newsroom process. Here’s the letter: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sjlbdp

     

    The Kasturi family’s relationship with each other and with the newspaper is on its way to becoming a liability for such a venerable journal and here’s another unfortunate step along the way.

     

    On reading the letter, you might argue that Pandita should have been made of sterner stuff. That this is what senior journalists have to learn to cope with if they want the top jobs. That the challenges of running a newsroom include handling owners, managers and staff.

     

    You might and you would be right up to a point.

     

    Because you could also argue that editors should not have to tolerate constant interference. That editors and senior journalists should be allowed to do their jobs like the professionals they are. That if owners do not want professionals they should not hire them. Because it is this sort of interference that leads to a newspapers or journal losing value in the long run. How many editors and senior journalists do we all know that have turned into management lackeys because they didn’t have the courage to stand up for themselves?

     

    I am unable to comment on news television here because it appears to march to a very different drummer – in India at the moment at least.

     

    But in print, the over-interference of the owner/ manager has been disastrous. In the last newsroom I was part of, this was a daily affair and we had not one but two owners often with contradictory needs and demands. We also had an official plant with limited journalistic skills and experience who worked as a spy for one owner. I realised soon after joining that this was the way new journalism would function in India until editors took a stand.

     

    Many of us quit but I am uncertain how many of us took the sort of stand that Pandita has. Perhaps we felt there was no point. Perhaps we thought about the next job. Perhaps we thought simply about the pressures of making a living. Or perhaps we knew that owners who didn’t value professional skill while we were working there were not that interested in our opinion after we quit.

     

    If we’re lucky and you believe in symbolism then Pandita’s courage will be the stepping stone for the next year, where journalists will speak up for themselves and what they will and will not do.

     

    I am making an example of this resignation letter only because it delineates so many problems editors face but often do nothing about. Except fester… or drink it off… or take it out on family and friends. You take the job because you are addicted to challenge and pressure but this is the sort of pressure you can do without.

     

    **

     

    For the rest, what will 2015 bring us?

     

    More of the same I would imagine except that over time, the pro-government media lobby will shrink.

     

    That we will forget almost everything we did in 2014 and keep repeating it in 2015.

     

    And this one I am sure of: No more yearenders and forecasts after next week.

     

    Phew.

     

  • Whether it's Narendra Modi whom I don't like or Roger Federer whom I adore, media fandom is deeply embarrassing, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Life Before Narendra Modi and Life After

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    This is the season of “yearenders” for the media and I must confess that even I have succumbed to a couple. Sometimes they can be fun and sometimes they are routine for the sake of tradition. Ah, well. Moving on.

     

    The year for the media in India can be divided fairly into two categories: life before Narendra Modi and life after. And more shamefully for the media, those who decided to be part of the fan club and those who decided to stand apart. The first category is large in number and loud in voice. Which only means that the shameful lack of objectivity is on display in neon lights. Who knows who they think they’re fooling.

     

    It will evidently take the media and the jaw-jaws some more time to figure out that the Congress Party is not in power at the Centre and in most of the states any more. Therefore, the constant sneering reference to “Congi journos” paid by the Vatican and the mafia to support Sonia Gandhi (no really, that’s how stupid rightwing hatred can make you) will soon find no traction. The Congress Party is hardly to be seen or heard these days after all. The media that is not pro-Modi is just being itself. And there were a few who were always critical of Modi and most of those are still standing too.

     

    Until the media on the whole realises that its primary role is not to make excuses for the government in power, we will be treated to the cringing sights of famous news anchors calling the PM a “rock star” (you can work out if that’s a true compliment by googling the life story of Keith Richards if you know who Keith Richards is) or taking selfies with him and other Cabinet ministers.

     

    Oddly, as the year ended and what the media rather embarrassingly and without self-consciousness refers to as the “honeymoon period” is over, it was former fan columnists who started showing their talons. There are only so many speeches, hats and NRI dances that anyone can take, apparently.

     

    So what does the crystal ball I don’t have say? More of the same for a little while more until the next Budget…

     

    **

     

    Since we’re looking back, the oddest trend this year was the attention paid to cricket. Usually, cricket takes centrestage over everything else in India, even and especially politics. But for the first time that I can remember, cricket took second place not only to politics but also to other sports. And these are shockers: athletics, badminton, kabaddi, hockey, football and tennis. I mean kabaddi? When was the last time who even heard the word until Star Sports decided (an excellent idea in my opinion) to promote it?

     

    Of course, Sachin Tendulkar had retired and perhaps cricket writers felt the enormous gap left behind by a supernova. And much as they tried, no one else could fill that space although we do have a veritable galaxy of stars.

     

    But for me the funniest phenomenon in media and sport this year was the International Premier Tennis League. India has done very well in tennis over the years and we have some big international names today, Grand Slam champions among them albeit in various doubles categories: Mahesh Bhupathi, Leander Paes, Sania Mirza, Rohan Bopanna, Somdev Devvarman.

     

    But the arrival of the IPTL (conceptualised and organised by Bhupathi) in Delhi in December put the media into a tizzy. This is the non-tennis media because as they know, big stars including Rafael Nadal come to Chennai ever January for the Chennai Open, one of the first events on the ATP Tour. Also, Vijay Amritraj’s Champions Tennis League, with its own cache of international tennis stars, had just played in India to half-empty stands and perfunctory media coverage.

     

    So what made the IPTL such a media sensation that every journalist who knows nothing about tennis jumped on to the bandwagon?

     

    I’m guessing it was the glitz, the professionalism and it was, more than anything else, it was Roger Federer. I confess I have followed the tennis player since when he was a player and not a star and I can safely say I have never read so much breathless half-baked rubbish about Federer as I did when he reached Indian shores. I get Google alerts about Federer and even I confess that I did not read half of them because they were so much frothy nonsense.

     

    The conclusion: Whether it’s Narendra Modi whom I don’t like or Roger Federer whom I adore, media fandom is deeply embarrassing!

     

    See you in 2015.

     

  • We have seen much of the media in thrall and awe of the former Gujarat chief minister and now leader of the free world, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: News TV in a permanent state of end-of-the-world-ness

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Election results day today and I’m assuming that every news channel in India is in a state of high excitement. Almost as excited perhaps as yahoo.in was when Salman Khan’s sister got married.

     

    This has been the story of the year and the story of every year as far as 24 hour news television is concerned: A permanent state of end-of-the-world-ness, no matter what’s happening. It could be Narendra Modi fans dancing in New York, it could be women beating up men in a bus in Haryana, it could be a minister who smiled at someone he or she shouldn’t have. The details are immaterial. The positioning and the hype have to be the same.

     

    Lack of discretion is one way of looking at it. Providing equal opportunities to all news events is another. And this is an ideal time to segue into what really was the story of 2014: the (so far) undying love (admiration, obsession, devotion) to India’s now not so new prime minister Narendra Modi. As ever Arnab Goswami of Times Now set off the trend with his fawning interview of the then PM aspirant. Since then, we have seen much of the media in thrall and awe of the former Gujarat chief minister and now leader of the free world. O, isn’t he? Well, he might well be soon, given his enormous popularity in all foreign lands. Or so the media would have us believe.

     

    Some columnists in print though would rival TV’s fawning fandom. Having told us that Modi was the next best thing for India after the invention of the wheel (invented in ancient India, obviously), now they have found ways to blame the following for all the things Modi has not done yet: bureaucrats, Nehru, the Congress, the Opposition, RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, “fringe elements” in the Sangh Parivar, non-fringe elements like the RSS, Smriti Irani, the weather, the world economy and the Planet Uranus. Okay. I made up the last one but it’s only a matter of time. One day, they will have us believe, when Modi has conquered all these dragons, the world will change for the better.

     

    Yeah.

     

    Of course the evil Congi Marxist Macaulayist Missionary Muslim anti-Hindu Wicked sections of the media carried on with their anti-Modi propaganda. This is despite all the best efforts of some of India’s best TV anchors. Some people will never learn.

     

    **

     

    The biggest news casualty of 2014 has been cricket. There was a time when every small doing on the cricket field and the BCCI’s backyard would overshadow everything else as far as the media is concerned. Instead politics and the media’s misunderstanding of what makes a rock star have hogged all the media space.

     

    The Indian cricket team, N Srinivasan, the Supreme Court have tried their best to get back to earlier ascendancy positions but to no avail. There have been occasional successful incursions into media space short bursts of supremacy but not enough and not as much as the years before. Will 2015 be any better for Indian cricket? Or while the media has been distracted, have kabaddi, football, hockey and tennis made significant inroads?

     

    Any ideas?

     

  • … though we are still in the laudatory stages where every word and action of the prime minister is treated like signs from the Almighty on High, especially on TV, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Tiny cracks emerging in Delhi’s media’s love for Modi govt

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    If you listen to Trinamool Congress MP Derek O’Brien on TV, then almost the entire media and most certainly the Ananda Bazaar Patrika group is against Mamata Banerjee and the Trinamool Congress. But if you visit Calcutta and read the The Telegraph, it is clear that the media has no option in the matter. As a matter of course, the media should be anti-establishment and the TMC is the Establishment. The ABP group had earlier supported the TMC against the Left Front.

     

    Of course, the media in Bengal is greatly assisted by the shenanigans of the TMC and not least by the chief minister herself. The Telegraph outdid itself with a couple of front page headlines last week. The first was on December 12, after TMC minister Madan Mitra was arrested by the CBI in connection with Sharada chit fund scam, when the front page punned on “Madan” and “Madam”.

     

    The second was on December 14, when Mamata Banerjee made one more unsavoury reference to a bamboo being inserted into the human body while attacking the BJP for Mitra’s arrest. The headline simply said, “Ouch” and below that was a picture of bamboo with a sharpened point. When a CM stoops to such language, the media cannot be expected to stand back and applaud.

     

    **

     

    However, the same does not necessarily hold true of the rest of the media when it comes to the government at the Centre. We are still in the laudatory stages where every word and action of the prime minister is treated like signs from the Almighty on High, especially on TV.

     

    And yet, when it comes to our Delhi-based intelligentsia and the columnists who tell us what’s what because they know it all, there are a few tiny cracks emerging. Tavleen Singh for the second week in a row is not too happy with the Modi government, Madhu Kishwar has been fire and brimstone ever since Smriti Irani was made HRD minister, Surjit Bhalla’s columns on the economy now find not enough is being done and Ashok Malik has not been gung-ho about the new government’s foreign policy among other things.

     

    All these columnists, among others, had earlier told us that the new Modi government was going to be a magical mystery tour where all our dreams would come true. Instead it’s turned into a bag of conjurer’s tricks with deft sleight of hand and smoke and mirrors being used to deflect attention from the lack of actual work. One supposes that no journalist can ignore the signs for too long. So far however, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is being spared and the blame for lack of action and bad decisions is being put on the shoulders of bureaucrats, the RSS, “fringe elements” and just about anyone else.

     

    **

     

    But to see how the fan club continues, it is worth trying to watch an interview of BJP president Amit Shah on Headlines Today. The interviewer is Rahul Kanwal and although he asks tough questions, his dulcet tones can be a lesson to all people who want to learn how to woo and coo. And when Shah refused to answer a single tough question, the matter was taken no further.

     

    Does that hoary old chestnut: “Let’s wait and see” have any traction here? I wonder.

     

  • It is very tempting here to blame television for making heroes out of, to use Suhel Seth's favourite word here, dolts, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Is it okay to blame TV for Suhel Seth’s insulting comments on Viren Rasquinha?

    By Ranjona Banerji

    The outrage on Twitter the past couple of days was over the comments of adman and TV personality Suhel Seth at the Times Literary Carnival over the weekend. Those without media-sponsored short-term memory problems might recall that an invitation to editor and rape accused Tarun Tejpal just a few weeks ago caused huge anger on the social media circuit. The invitation was withdrawn in a huff by the festival’s curator, veteran editor and columnist Bachi Karkaria.

    Sunday’s sessions at the festival included one on the future of sport, which included as a panellist former Indian hockey captain Viren Rasquinha. Suhel Seth was part of the next session and in his introductory speech he said (about Rasquinha), “Don’t know what that bald guy is doing on a panel on sports. What’s he done?”

    This caused immediate mayhem with Rasquinha furious and tournament director Karkaria had to go up on stage and apologise. I spoke to veteran journalist and India’s best known cricket writer Ayaz Memon who moderated the session with Rasquinha. He said, “Seth’s comments were nasty, unacceptable and symptomatic of the complete ignorance about sport in India.”

    So just what has Rasquinha to do with sports? He is not just a former India hockey captain, he is also an Olympian and an Arjuna Award winner. He is chief operating officer of Olympic Gold Quest, India’s best agency for sporting (and spotting) talent, which has had much success with the sportspersons it has nurtured at successive Olympic Games and other world events.

    Seth on the other hand worked in advertising, owned an advertising agency and is also known for general schmoozing and networking in Delhi’s social and political circles. He has done bit roles in a few films here and there. Not in the same league as Rasquinha (no Olympic status, please to note) but his connections, his fluent and smart-alecky language, have made him a regular on TV news debates. Clearly, he was trying to be too-clever-by-half and it backfired.

    Rasquinha tweeted his anger. Seth finally apologised. But only after he was attacked on twitter, which Seth also referred to.

    The carnival (how else to refer to it?) itself is not to blame here. They could not possibly have known that Seth would insult a guest on another panel. Seth stands along here, wallowing in his cleverness. He is known for a particular kind of behaviour. His ignorance about Rasquinha is excusable. No one can be expected to know everything. But the reason – if indeed it is fair to use the word reason in such a context – for such comment is unfathomable. Rudeness is a more appropriate word than clever. Or perhaps this was an attempt at humour.

    Some people feel that any publicity is good publicity and that the carnival gained from the Tejpal notoriety and will only benefit from this as well. All that may well be true. But it is no less distasteful for all that.

    Once again it is Twitter which has flexed its muscles and made its presence felt. The power of social media can be over-estimated and blown out of proportion especially when you consider the number of people who are not on it. But nor can its power be denied. It is very tempting here to blame television for making heroes out of, dare I use Seth’s favourite word here, dolts.

  • TV, as we have all had drummed into us by now, operates on a different spectrum. It is a hungry, demanding master which wants to be fed constantly and instantly, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Chutney journalism on news telly?

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    There is a little mystery surrounding the sisters from Rohtak, Haryana, who were filmed beating up some men who allegedly molested them on a bus. Another video has emerged of them doing the same thing elsewhere. Who knows, either they are women who have had enough and will not put up with male superiority or they are serial thrashers of men in public places. The mind boggles at the second. Does one applaud or condemn?

     

    However, that’s the subject of another debate. First, let’s get past the media which brought them to our attention. The women were immediately dubbed “bravehearts” on TV. This term is now used for everything from a soldier killed in the line of duty or above and beyond the call of duty and any civilian who stands up to someone else in everyday life. One can only assume that some fan of Mel Gibson or perhaps William Wallace first used the term. Actually on second thoughts, strike the William Wallace reference. What are the odds anyone today has heard of him. The movie too came out in 1995 when most of today’s editors were in nappies being fed pap by their mummies and ayahs.

     

    At any rate, the term “braveheart” has been rendered meaningless by overuse. Then we have the first video itself. It ran endlessly on TV, the women were interviewed, primetime debates were held but was any journalistic due diligence used at all? Did anyone find out about the provenance of the video, the background of the story, speak to witnesses or undertake any journalistic work of any kind? Or was the video taken at face value and presented to the world as is? Of course that’s what happened: Because it was in newspapers that a larger story emerged.

     

    TV, as we have all had drummed into us by now, operates on a different spectrum. It is a hungry, demanding master which wants to be fed constantly and instantly. Time is a luxury TV does not have because, ironically, it is ruled by a 24-hour news cycle. But philosophical truisms apart, what does this make of the basics of journalism? As we can see, in plain Indian terminology, a fine chutney.

     

    **

     

    If you missed this when it was aired, then you have denied yourself a barrel full of laughs. This edition of Left, Right and Centre on NDTV is a must-watch because of Trinamool Congress spokesperson and MP Derek O’Brien. He defends Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, attacks the media particularly the Ananda Bazaar Patrika Group and provides some real gems like: “Naveen Patnaik is Naveen Patnaik, Tarun Gogoi is Tarun Gogoi and Mamata Banerjee is Mamata Banerjee.”

     

    Indeed.

     

    At the end of it all, the other participants and the anchor Nidhi Razdan have no option but to laugh. This is not a spoof by the way.

     

    http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/left-right-centre/mamata-vs-bjp-is-the-trinamool-chief-nervous/346936

     

    **

     

    The idea of a “reader’s editor” or an ombudsman has not been taken too kindly or seriously by most Indian media houses. The only consistent exception has been The Hindu. In this excellent piece for The Hoot, Sumana Ramanan, who was reader’s editor with The Hindustan Times in Mumbai, discusses her experience:

    http://thehoot.org/web/home/story.php?storyid=7928&mod=1&pg=&sectionId=19&valid=true