MxMIndia

Tag: Newswatch

  • It is clear that Katju is a confused man and seems to miss both the woods and the trees, writes Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr

    Newswatch: Katju, a harmless Rip Van Winkle

    By Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr

     

    Justice Markandey Katju, the chairman of the Press Council of India, has written a long-winded piece in The Hindu of November 5, expressing his views on the state of Indian society, economy, media and what to do with it all. It is a meandering argument with usual college textbook learning thrown in, with quotes from Firaq Gorakhpuri, Tulsidas, Shakespeare, some kind of socialist critique, some talk of a transition from the feudal age to an industrial age.

     

    The basic premise of the good judge is that India is in the age of 18th-century Europe, and what Voltaire, Diderot and Rousseau did then should now be done by the Indian media; fight the establishment, fight feudalism, fight superstition and worry about the plight of the poor people and the suicides of farmers as does P Sainath in The Hindu (Katju mentions Sainath by name). That is, fight the evil windmills.

     

    Then he talks of the need to regulate the media, especially the electronic media, which have programmes on astrology, devote more newstime to Lady Gaga and Kareena Kapoor’s wax image at Madame Tussaud’s than to the health and educational problems of the country.

     

    It is clear that Katju is a confused man. He has a bird’s-eye view of the situation, and he seems to miss both the woods and the trees. The judge is gravely mistaken in saying that India is passing from the feudal to the industrial age. There is no feudalism except in the minds of Marxist historians. The rural social set-up we find today, including the rightly hated caste panchayats, is not an example of good old feudalism but of an undeveloped rural bourgeoisie, with false sense of honour and tradition, with enough money and little wit. To think this is feudalism is reading the situation wrong with the help of dated textbooks, especially banal liberalism of the HAL Fisher-type A History of Europe, which is a silly book in retrospect or the CPI-type NCERT history textbooks in India.

     

    Katju is worried as to what will happen to displaced farmers moving to cities and not finding jobs because steel and automobile companies are producing more with less workforce. This is a perennial problem that has been with us for the last 60 years and more.  Farmers will pick up new skills as time goes along. All migrations involve changing lifestyles and working conditions.

     

    Then he makes the futile observation that more than 90 per cent of Indians are migrants, excepting the pre-Dravidian tribal populations. Now that statement is neither true nor false in any meaningful sense of the term.

     

    So, why was the media, especially the electronic media, getting angry with Katju? He uttered the word ‘regulation’ and said that no freedom is absolute. In themselves there is nothing wrong with the two ideas. Regulation if translated to transparent and fair rules is indeed the basis of any institution or sector. And even ardent liberals would accept that no freedom is absolute. We do not have radical liberals who argue for absolute freedom of speech, including hate speech. Our liberals are timid and politically correct.

     

    The real red rag in Katju’s long homily is that he wants to set himself as the watchdog of the media, which is what the Press Council is supposed to be. Either there should be no Press Council, or if there is one it has to be watching over the media. The only effective way of refuting Katju is to dissolve the Press Council. If the council is allowed to exist, then this Katju-type of exhortation – vain and in vain – will have a place in the public sphere. It will be interesting to pick holes in it. And it can even be ignored.

     

    Katju’s attitude does hint of paternalist socialism, the kind favoured by the Congress in its unconscious mind, where the government wants to tell people what is good for the people. Katju is no Stalinist – he would be horrified to know that there are intimations of Stalinism in his pompous obiter dicta – but he sounds very much a schoolmaster. It is, perhaps, nice to hear a schoolmaster once in a while, especially when you do not have to fall in line which is the case with Katju and the Press Council. But the truth is that Katju is a harmless intellectual Rip Van Winkle, speaking in the dead debating terms of a bygone era.

     

    The media should not have gone into a frenzy over what he said. As always, the media was looking for a good bone of contention and Katju provided one. The media should be grateful that Katju chose to be provocative in his own outdated manner.

     

    The writer works with the DNA newspaper at its Delhi office.

  • The reader should not be choosing what he wants and ignoring the rest. For that he can walk through the libraries and go for the books he wants to read or even browse through racks of DVDs.

    Newswatch: News cannot be customized

    By Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr

     

    It is the old story of a death foretold, and which is for ever deferred. The novel died and it has managed to live on. Poetry died, but a Swedish poet gets the Nobel for literature this year. Philosophy has died. And still there are a few too many philosophers around. So it is with the print media. The newspaper is dead. This was what that ostensibly venerable but really pseudo-ish news paper, The Economist, had prophesied not too long ago. And in the middle of market meltdown in the western world, most of the newspapers editors and owners are singing the dirge as well.

    India seems to be bucking the trend as of now. Newspaper circulation, including that of the English language ones, is rising and rising briskly too. Many social and economic factors have been invoked to explain the phenomenon. It is being said that the explosion of literary in a billion plus country means millions of readers every year, and that the high will persist longer than imagined. There is of course the cliche that we are a booming economic power in a world flattened by recession.

    Whether the newspaper survives as we know it is indeed a billion rupee question with long-term implications and with no philosophical or existential strings attached. Newspapers may change and even disappear but news will remain with what the 1930s British (Anglo-Irish really) poet Louis MacNeice summed up in a sardonic spirit, “Give us this day our daily news.” I an information age, news is not going to disappear into a black hole though there is the real danger of too much trivial news creating a mountain of information trash.

    Beyond the playful and woeful prospect of dealing with too much news, what seems to be of greater interest is whether the reader should be able to choose what he or she wants, the so-called customized news, whether in the newspaper, on the radio, on television and on the Internet. This seems to make immense market sense, and the idea is being bandied about as the ultimate winner in the business of purveying news.

    The dangers seem to be obvious to anyone except those who want to live by a new, untested and unexamined idea. News by definition should not be customized. The consumer – the reader in this instance – should not be choosing what he wants and ignoring the rest. For that he can walk through the libraries and go for the books he wants to read or even browse through racks of DVDs to get the sub-genre of films he or she is interested in. A similar exercise can be carried through on the iInternet as well, where you can Google and Yahoo the subject or theme you are interested in. You will not have to know anything about anything else.

    The idea of news is that a person gets to know things which one is not necessarily interested in. The Greek economic crisis is indeed of no interest to anyone but the Greeks themselves, and thanks to the overvaulting ambition of Eurozone, it has become the nightmare of rest of the European Union as well. News is all about something that has happened which may or may not impact you either in the immediate or in the distant future. The fact that it has happened needs to be noted – the word recorded sounds a little too pompous – for whatever it is worth and relegated to the archives. Someone interested in it will retrieve it sometime somewhere.

    So, those in the business of news cannot afford to package things for the consumers. That is a retail exercise that can take place lower down the supply chain as it were. The basic issue is that news – whatever has happened or said – has to be collected and gathered. Newsgathering is the primary function. The choices come much later. Customization of news cannot be made the basic premise.

     

    The writer works with the DNA newspaper at its Delhi office.

  • Like a grand infatuation that is pursuing its natural course towards an inevitable end, the heady, halcyon days of the media’s romance with Mamata Banerjee as the harbinger of “change” or “parivartan” are coming to an end.

    Shika Mukerjee: Mamata dream sequence ends

    By Shikha Mukerjee

    Like a grand infatuation that is pursuing its natural course towards an inevitable end, the heady, halcyon days of the media’s romance with Mamata Banerjee as the harbinger of “change” or “parivartan” are coming to an end. Sunday, October 30: the mainstream print media is showing distinct signs of doubt about Didi’s capacity to deliver on her promises; her announcement that for the next one month all her attention would be focused on “industry,” her “Diwali-gift” of projects to the people of West Bengal produced sceptical headlines.

    Of the two dozen or so daily newspapers in Kolkata, the story of the Diwali gift or Industrial Revolution was the lead in many, the second or even third lead in some and appeared below the fold in a few rare exceptions. It is not a categorical imperative that Mamata’s initiatives on industrialisation must be the universal lead in every newspaper or even television. The Telegraph said, ‘A Diwali ‘gift’ but not so perfect’. The Times of India said, ‘Industry bonanza hits Singur hurdle’. The Ananda Bazar Patrika said, ‘Mamata takes the field to gain Industry’s confidence.’ Ekdin said, ‘Assurances of Industrial revolution in West Bengal to restore its golden past’. Pratidin said, ‘Now the Industrial Revolution.’ Bartamaan said, ‘Migration in search of jobs to end: Mamata.’

    On television, especially the top five 24X7 Bangla news channels, more widely watched and consequently of greater significance in terms of reflecting popular sentiment, the story was listed a long way after news on crib deaths and the newest Maoist demands. National news channels insistently reported on the growing number of crib deaths and the failure of the political leadership, namely Mamata, to respond to the situation as an emergency.

    A month or two earlier, no market savvy newspaper or television channel would have given a negative spin to any story featuring Mamata as the principal actor. By describing her Diwali gift as old projects repackaged as new, the newspapers are signalling that the romance is nearing its end. Some newspapers even listed which of the 10 projects that Mamata had announced as new initiatives had been sold to the public before. Some said that the list included so many public sector projects that the lack of interest of private investors was obvious. Some even quoted unnamed industrialists and public sector officials on why the list was a made up story of possibilities.

    One strong indication of the romance going stale was a story in The Telegraph on October 21, ‘Mamataisms at the Crossroads’, that analysed and checked off the status of her initiatives on her priority issues during the long, long campaign against the Communist Party of India Marxist’s misrule and arrived at the conclusion that she had made little headway though many starts, even if most were false ones.  The clash between the suave and pedigreed Trinamool Congress finance minister Amit Mitra and the former less socially elite, but no less academically qualified finance minister Asim Dasgupta was a delicious play off in which Dr Dasgupta has certainly scored a bull’s eye. As the story appeared, it was evident that The Telegraph, The Ananda Bazar, Ekdin, The Times of India were all clued in on who would win the fight.

    Assisted by the media, Dasgupta launched a methodical and technically sound demolition job on Mamata’s claims that a mere 6 per cent of the state’s money was available for development. The apparently academic point that Dasgupta made – on how the calculation was wrong – is in effect a lit fuse, politically. The positive play that Dasgupta received is the measure of the decline of Mamata’s magic in the media. The contrast is particularly striking because three months ago, when he made a similar point and was very critical that the new government had not presented a conventional budget, the media found ways of converting the criticism into the peeve of a loser. It dragged in seriously negative evaluations of his tenure as finance minister of the CPM government and quite openly jeered at him.

    It is intriguing that whereas Dasgupta’s earlier salvos did not get any support from the popular band of economists, this broadside had several economists, including one or two known CPM baiters and Trinamool Congress admirers confirming the accuracy of the ex-finance minister’s statement.

    In contrast, the very soft treatment that Mamata has received over crib deaths underscores her star quality.  The “failure” of the health system in tackling a crisis was played up in terms of the numbers of crib deaths at the BC Roy Memorial Hospital for Children. Media went out into the districts to find more instances of failure, in a show of initiative that indicates that the story has regained its own life instead of being a frame within which Mamata and her government are artfully displayed. But the media did not pick on her when she brushed aside questions at a press meet, declaring, “ask the health secretary” and “this is about industry”. Nor did it bay for her blood when she responded “What can I do.”

    The quagmire in which negotiations with the Maoists have been stuck, the declining credibility of the negotiators, the revision of strategy for dealing with the obviously reinvigorated ultra Left has not led to direct criticism of Mamata, but it has produced a shift in treatment. Even though the media has not underlined the abrupt change in Mamata’s stand, from declaring “There are no Maoists-Phaoists in West Bengal” to calling them “supari-killers” and “cowards,” it has turned watchful and cautious about the chief minister’s capacity to handle the problem, classifying it as one of the “Mamataisms.”

    Industry, finances, health, Maoists covers much of what Mamata promised as part of her Parivartan politics. By reserving judgment on the promises that she made – return of land to unwilling farmers of Singur, now mired in a legal battle, ending the Maoist problem, opening the doors to a flood of fresh investments, delivering better governance, extracting more money from the Centre – the media has played fair or even handled her with kid gloves. It has not clamoured for answers at the gradually but noticeably fewer press meets. She has not been cornered or pushed up against a wall.

    In fact the media has been unusually, almost unethically, gentle in its interactions with Mamata Banerjee. It has tolerated, even after she became chief minister, the ferocious regulation of access that she exercises with the media. It has accepted with good grace the fact that there are some newspersons who have 24X7 access to her and that the rest have to depend on these select few for camera footage and reporting. The band of faithful is privy to the best footage at every photo-opportunity; they are welcome in her office and get interviews. The rest have to make do with crumbs cast their way. The absence of protest is, as one journalist said, a measure of her “charisma.”

    Put differently, the news media cannot function without the crumbs because its audience or public remains loyal to the charismatic leader. No media publication or channel can afford to black out the things that Mamata does or says. No media channel can complain on air that it never gets a chance to interview the leader. No media channel can protest if a newsperson from another “house” sits in on an interview when it is finally granted. If after this prolonged discriminatory treatment the media has chosen to suck it up rather than raise a furore then it signals the popularity of Mamata Banerjee and the risk of annoying her. Therefore even when media persons privately complain bitterly about the “humiliation,” “discrimination” and “difficulty,” they have not as yet turned critical or even objectively analytical. The stories that the media does not report vastly outnumber the stories that it does; the discretion is exercised over what the public and positive image of Mamata can bear versus the stories that reveal the negative in terms of faults, whims, bad decisions.

    A year back, the CPM government would have been excoriated if it had spun the funds available for development story in the manner in which Mamata presented her desperate case at the National Development Council meeting in New Delhi. It would have trashed stories about promised bailouts by the Centre, especially Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the West Bengal government for reasons of political sympathy. It would have gleefully pointed out that the Centre’s failure to deliver on promises was a pointer to the declining clout of the political leadership of West Bengal. In other words, Mamata is getting the best deal that the media has ever offered to any member of the political establishment anywhere; it has suspended disbelief and meekly accepted its assigned role in the Mamata era, as a faithful purveyor of designer messages.

     

    The writer is a senior journalist.