MxMIndia

Tag: politics

  • It is not possible for news to “break” every five minutes. Anyone who says otherwise is lying, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Breaking News? Ha ha ha!!!

     

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Breaking, breaking: Sachin Pilot of the Congress is about to join the BJP, will not join the BJP, will not speak to the Gandhis in charge, the Gandhis in charge will not speak to him, the Gandhis in charge have spoken to him, Pilot has met the BJP president, Pilot has not met the BJP president, the Rajasthan government has fallen, the Rajasthan government has not fallen, Pilot is a turncoat, Pilot is a true patriot, Ashok Gehlot is a greedy old man, Ashok Gehlot is a not a greedy old man, Pilot has more followers than Gehlot, Gehlot has more followers than Pilot, the Congress is finished, the Congress is not finished, the BJP is buying, selling and then back to Pilot is meeting, not meeting, crisis averted, not averted…

     

    O to be a political correspondent in such high spirits! Okay, I cannot make claims about my own sources about what spirits were consumed while all this “news” was put out, but I hope someone somewhere had some fun doing it!

     

    As I write this, at 10 am, I have no clue what’s happening. And as I watch the news, it is clear that no one has any clue. Maybe the players involved know, maybe they don’t.

     

    And thus the whole problem of “breaking news” and “source-based journalism” all gets exposed. Yes, it is big news if the Rajasthan government falls. But the merry-go-round of conflicting “information” does nothing for media credibility. I know we hope that everyone will forget. And someone will pull out from the depths of all the rubbish that one person who predicted everything correctly – most likely a friend of theirs – and then that person will become the new Nostradamus or Messiah or placed on some spurious pedestal for the next 10 minutes.

     

    In fact, given the massive jumble playing out in the media in front of us, there is more chance of scientists discovering what dark matter is than anyone giving us a true “inside” story on these wheeling-dealings

     

    Am I being unfair? Errr, maybe. Anyone in a newsroom has been here. You have to trust your colleagues and at the same time, you have to get them to ask tough questions of their sources (Here’s a hack, half of them won’t ask those tough questions because they will lose access). In any evolving situation, it’s difficult to know what’s happening. But the demand for constant, instant news makes life tough for correspondents on the frontline.

     

    Strangely, few in these newsrooms appear to care what happens to their credibility when they put out streams of conflicting information. As for the poor correspondents under unrelenting pressure, who knows what “sources” they are forced to rely on? Voices in their heads? Neighbourhood chatter around tea stalls? Friends and neighbours? And, most likely, vested interests around political formations who either have an agenda or just want to stir up the pot. Or both. Which is where newsroom filters would be vital but according to my mostly reliable sources, many newsrooms have just done away with filters these days.

     

    It is not possible for news to “break” every five minutes. Anyone who says otherwise is lying. And that is why, Pilot is shifting here and there, the Gandhis are somewhere else, the BJP is there and here and Gehlot is where he is.

     

    Is it surprising that some news channels would rather concentrate on what Amitabh Bachchan had for breakfast?

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She is also Consulting Editor, MxMIndia. Her views here are personal

  • Mail Today celebrates its fourth anniversary today in a year with 104-page edition

    Mail Today celebrates 4th anniversary

    By Akash Raha

     

    Mail Today celebrates its fourth anniversary today in a year that has seen overwhelming change. The daily compact will celebrate the milestone by putting together a 56-page section dedicated to the ‘The Game Changers’. This section accompanied the main edition of 48 pages today.

     

    In the pages of the anniversary edition, the Mail Today team of reporters and editors across the country will profile a diverse lot of people. From Anna Hazare, who has reset the country’s political agenda, to Mamata Banerjee, whose gale force swept away the Left bastion in West Bengal, from the Supreme Court of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia, which has turned the constitution into a force for change, to Subramaniam Swamy, the unraveller of the 2G spectrum scam, these change agents have given us reasons for hope even in the nation’s darkest moments.

     

    Speaking about the anniversary issue and the way ahead, Rahul Thappa, COO, Mail today said “Mail Today in its own inimitable way has been a harbinger of change in the newspaper industry over the last four years. Our fearless content and often irreverent voice has offered the new Indian an intelligent option to the content they otherwise had be contented with. We have grown from strength to strength over the last four years and in doing so have defied conventional thinking. We have made a significant dent in the Delhi/NCR market and shall continue to consolidate our strength in the High Net Worth homes of the region. Growth is the only imperative for us and we shall be a harbinger of change to in other parts of the country as well. In our fifth year we plan to continue to delight our readers and surprise our competition and in doing so cement our positioning as the voice of the new Indian.”

    Even though corruption may have dominated the news headlines, but these harbingers of change drivers, in their own ways, have redefined the rules of engagement in their chosen fields and made stellar (and sometime debatable) contributions to our lives and lifestyle. These men and women have changed the way we relate to politics, business, sports, films, fashion, cars, books, gadgets and gizmos, and the arts. The anniversary edition hereby celebrates the inevitable fact of contemporary India.

    The anniversary issue celebrates the achievements of many remarkable Indians too who have catalyzed change without getting the media attention they deserve. People such as Kumar Mangalam Birla, who has refused to pay ‘facilitation money’ despite losing out on project, or Suneet Singh Kohli, the creator of the world’s cheapest tablet, or the UP Lokayukta Justice (Retd) N.K. Mehrotra, who has got Mayawati to suspend four of her corrupt ministers, or Mahaveer Golechha, the AIIMS scientist who has invented a candidate drug for the cure of Alzheimer’s Disease, or even the farmers of Bhatta Parsaul, who at a tremendous personal loss took on the state government and a powerful lobby of builders to make land acquisition at just rates a national issue.

    The game changers in politics, government and business aren’t the only ones who have given us our moments of celebration. We’ve had Ekta Kapoor venture into territories where no film production company had gone before and Sameer Gaur pull off this year’s biggest international sporting spectacle — the F1; we’ve seen the hitherto unknown Abhinay Deo push the creative envelope with Delhi Belly and Kalki Koechlin become the unlikeliest of Bollywood success stories; we have celebrated Prabal Gurung’s designs being worn by Michelle Obama and the elevation of fashion designer Manish Arora as the creative director of the Franco-Spanish design house Paco Rabanne, making him the first Indian to head the creative side of a leading international high-street fashion label.

    Mail Today was launched on November 16, 2007 in Delhi by the India Today group, in collaboration with Associated Newspaper of the UK (publishers of Daily Mail). As per the IRS 2011 Q2 figures, Mail Today showed a growth in readership and is firmly placed in the number three position in Delhi market.

  • Starting with the government’s failure to protect cows, the print media has been vociferous in its criticism of Modi

    Modi and Gujarati media: Two swords in one sheath

    By Urvish Kothari

    Blatant and vitriolic criticism of Narendra Modi seems to have become the norm for Gujarati dailies of late. Gone are the days when the Gujarati print media, with an average issue readership of more than 1 crore (according to IRS 2011-Q2), mostly adored the chief minister. It supported, or at least was non confrontational  about his publicity blitzkrieg and his self-projection as a tough, non-corrupt, pro-development, ‘No. 1’ leader with a subtle and not-so-subtle communal slant.

    As is evident from events of the last few months, Modi has been constantly at the receiving end in many issues — be it the arrest of Sanjeev Bhatt or his three-day Sadbhavana Fast. The prominence and the column space allotted to arrest and release of IPS officer Sanjeev Bhatt in the Gujarati media would have been unthinkable a couple of years back.

    While English dailies reported the whole episode with restraint, news and images of Sanjeev Bhatt were being highlighted on first and last pages of Gujarati dailies. Bhatt was made out to be a ‘singham’ — a hero.  The pro-Sanjeev Bhatt coverage was not just about appreciating the uprightness of the officer but was fuelled, to a large extent, by the anti-Modi ‘line’. Gujarati dailies had a field day when the late Haren Pandya’s wife vaguely pointed her finger towards the CM in her husband’s murder.

    Recent rhetoric against the Modi government, which was, in effect, against Modi himself, took off from very unusual point: the issue of cow slaughter. The issue was hardly discussed in the public forum. But suddenly the failure of the Modi government in protecting cows became the war cry in two major Gujarati newspapers.

    The purpose of the intensive news campaign that ran for days was to prove that Modi was un-Hindu, if not anti-Hindu. It was to falsify his deeply entrenched claim of being ‘the saviour of the Hindus’.

    Even the usual non-political Modi-baiters were baffled by the anti-cow slaughter campaign which gathered momentum so suddenly. The stage was set, and then came the burning issue of the appointment of the Lokayukta.

    Gujarati dailies grabbed the issue with both the hands, one daily even lowering its masthead with the news of the appointment of the Lokayukta by the Governor and the government’s legal challenge to it.

    When the Supreme Court referred the Gulbarg Society case back to the lower court and declined to monitor it further, Modi famously tweeted ‘God is Great’ and projected the SC’s decision as a ‘clean chit’. Many news channels echoed his view, but Gujarati dailies were more cautious and less jubilant.

    His three-day ‘Sadbhavana Fast’ was treated with scepticism and a pinch of sarcasm, due to the pomp and politics involved. There was criticism about the expenditure incurred during the fast and even the memory of Mahatma Gandhi was invoked for an uncharitable comparison.

     Gujarati dailies have been vocal in making allegations of corruption and in giving considerable weightage to the statements of Congress leaders in Gujarat recently. A Gujarati daily recently devoted a full page to CAG’s criticism of various departments of the Gujarat government. A clean image no longer remains Narendra Modi’s USP, at least for the Gujarati dailies.

    Mostly unfavourable and critical of Modi, for the reasons best known to them, Gujarati dailies have been conscious not to indulge in anything that may be perceived as ‘secular’ by a majority of their readership. During the Sadbhavna Fast, Modi’s advances towards the Muslim community were met with veiled criticism. One Gujarati daily even frowned at his attempted pro-Muslim approach in a eight column banner head line: ‘Allah-o-Akbar: Modi begins his fast’.

    The real irony is, Gujarati dailies with their massive reach have been successful in reflecting general sentiment but their capacity to generate or shape public opinion has diminished considerably — more so in the case of Modi’s criticism. Yet, there is a strange equilibrium between the anti-establishment stance adopted by the Gujarati dailies and Modi’s wide-spread popularity.

    There is a saying in Gujarati that two swords can’t stay together in one sheath, and that seems to be the case when one looks at the strange co-existence of flourishing Gujarati dailies as well as the sustaining popularity of Modi.

    The writer is a Gujarat-based senior journalist and columnist