MxMIndia

Tag: Sunanda Pushkar

  • The worst that The Times of India has been accused of is not patronage of a political party. The worst has to do with Medianet and private treaties, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: So why did Times make a front-page statement?

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Truth is, we have no political masters, nor do we have any hidden agenda. The only side we take is that of our readers.”

    So what compels a newspaper to make this statement, especially one that declares it is “the world’s largest circulated English newspaper”?

    The Times of India’s edition of January 23, 2014 carried this on the front page. The rather thin (leading to some very ugly hyphenation) single column headlined “To Our Readers” was a declaration that although the newspaper had been accused of first supporting and then turning against the newly formed Aam Aadmi Party, in fact it is for no one and against no one and will support whoever does the “right thing”.

    The newspaper also pointed out its philosophy, such as it is, which includes belief in “the primacy of the individual over the state, and that democracy in its truest sense is the power of one. We believe in personal liberty and in freedom of choice.” There is more in the same vein.

    As to why TOI decided to make this announcement is unclear, except for the allegations that it had switched horses mid-stream regarding the Aam Aadmi Party. But so what? As it itself declares, it has been accused supporting one or the political party in the past and has not bothered to make any front page announcements. Is it because the AAP is the new party of the middle classes, which is TOI’s core readership? Or has someone inside Bennett Coleman suddenly developed a very thin skin?

    The worst that The Times of India has been accused of is not patronage of a political party. The worst has to do with money: the introduction of Medianet where news items are sold for a hefty price and for private treaties, where certain business houses and entities can ensure good coverage for themselves.

    Obviously, there were no mentions of either in this intriguing, and if one may point out, clumsily written and punctuated, front-page editorial declaration.

    **

    However, it is also true that the media seems to be getting polarised politically in a manner last seen during the BJP’s Ram Janmabhoomi movement of the late 1980s. Journals and journalists both declared themselves to be pro-BJP and Hindutva, with an emphasis on a preference for economic reform as well as religious majoritarism. Much of this media anger was also against Congress hegemony and also showed itself in massive support for VP Singh’s breakaway movement.

    Since then, the media has been seen as supporting one or the other political direction although very often the accusations are quite wild. Right now the Indian media is clearly heading towards the Right – except for the gauntlet thrown down by the Aam Aadmi Party and its particular brand of agitation politics. And perhaps that is where TOI’s confusion begins.

    **

    The biggest current problem for the Indian media and television in particular is that it cannot see beyond Delhi. If the Gujarat chief minister was the front page hero for almost six months, he has been ousted by Arvind Kejriwal. Much as the AAP and Kejriwal have changed the game, they are certainly not the only stories in India. Yet day after day we are subjected to a series of Delhi-centric stories.

    Part of the problem is that Delhi has become the epicentre of journalism in India. As a result, once strong regional media entities have been forced to pay extra attention to the national capital. Most TV channels are headquartered in Delhi – Times Now being the notable exception amongst the top English channels. And our star TV anchors cannot see beyond their neighbourhood. Who knows what has been happening in India and the world over the past couple of weeks. All we know is that Sunanda Pushkar thought her husband was having an affair and then may or may not have killed herself and that Arvind Kejriwal slept on the streets next to his car for a few night until he was sent some hot paranthas.

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. The views expressed here are her own. Ranjona Banerji can be reached at @ranjona

  • Everybody in India who takes part in the English media knows more about Sunanda Pushkar in her death than before. There is no justification at all for making this story more important than any other, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Did Sunanda Pushkar story merit top billing?

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The last few days saw the news cycle consumed by Sunanda Pushkar, Shashi Tharoor and Mehr Taraar with allegations of affairs and unhappiness. There was a tragic culmination to the story with the suspected suicide of Pushkar. But how important was this story, that newspapers and news channels gave it top billing?

     

    Sunanda Pushkar was the wife of junior minister Shashi Tharoor. The world (other than the cocktail circuit of Dubai and perhaps New Delhi) knew of her because of the controversy of the Kochi IPL team, where both she and Tharoor had some involvement. It was IPL commissioner Lalit Modi who revealed details of the Kochi team through his Twitter account. Tharoor had to resign as minister, Pushkar removed herself from the Kochi team and the rest of us became familiar with the term “sweat equity”. Tharoor married Pushkar and then both became the darlings of the Delhi cocktail party crowd.

     

    So far, there is no indication of how important either Tharoor or Pushkar are to the national narrative. When Pushkar started tweeting last week from her husband’s phenomenally popular Twitter account, it was all about how some Pakistani female journalist was stalking her husband. The journalist in question, Taraar, denied allegations, Tharoor said his account had been hacked, Pushkar said it wasn’t hacked and that she had been tweeting. She made elliptical allusions to an affair and then to how she had been made the scapegoat in the IPL controversy. All this was played out on social media and to a salacious mainstream media.

     

    Still, nothing of national interest is visible here except a gossipy prying into other people’s lives. It is true that Pushkar made it all public but that has no bearing on the importance of the material. Then Pushkar is found dead by her husband in a Delhi hotel room and that ends all other news. Apparently, top news anchors even stopped the nightly debates when they got the news on the cellphones.

     

    When Princess Diana died in a car crash in Paris in 1997, The New York Times famously decided not to make it the top story of the day. By any reckoning, Diana was more famous than Pushkar. As obituaries of the poor woman appeared in newspapers across India, most people had nothing more to say than Pushkar was warm, vivacious, a good cook and lit up parties when she entered them. Others mentioned that she was a bit of a social climber and old school friends popped up to tell us that she was a shy, withdrawn girl who wanted to shrug off her small town origins.

     

    The significance of the front-page leads and top billing on news channels is still unclear. The Delhi government with India’s new hope Arvind Kejriwal is involved in all kinds of bizarre tactics. Rahul Gandhi and the Congress are making valiant efforts to get back into the conversation. Narendra Modi is smarting from Kejriwal’s popularity while trying to save the country. And enough other sundry horrors happening all over the country and world to keep journalists occupied. So why did this story get so much importance?

     

    Here’s a theory: Delhi’s journalists knew Pushkar and Tharoor socially and therefore felt a personal loss with her death. They also felt some guilt at the way the affair allegations were played out in the media. The decision to make Pushkar top news was therefore a personal one, where the reader or viewer was forgotten. There is no justification at all for making this story more important than any other, even with the understanding that every such decision is a judgment call that can be contested.

     

    Even with Shashi Tharoor being a minister, this story was overplayed. The only takeaway is that everybody in India who takes part in the English media knows more about Sunanda Pushkar in her death than before. C’est la vie?