MxMIndia

Tag: The Guardian

  • The revelations are shocking and frightening, especially for the several journalists on the list – 40 in India itself, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Hacked!

     

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Ranjona BanerjiThere are seminal moments in history when journalism is called to account. The Pegasus Project is one of them.

     

    Sixteen news organisations are part of a worldwide media consortium called the Pegasus Project and include The Wire in India, the Washington Post, The Guardian, and Le Monde. The list of the hacked phone numbers was first accessed by Forbidden Stories, a French media non-profit and Amnesty International.

     

    The revelations are shocking and frightening, especially for the several journalists on the list – 40 in India itself.

     

    Therefore, we as a community have to call to account those amongst us who have who have dismissed the revelations of surveillance of citizens using military-use malware. This includes sections of the mainstream media which provide excuses for the governments using this malware. Made by the NSO Group and called Pegasus, this spyware is sold only to nations and not to private individuals. Thus, questions have to be thrown at the Government of India alone.

     

    Since some of our journalist friends have followed the BJP government line that the Pegasus Project was revealed on the night of July 18, especially to derail the monsoon session of Parliament, let’s forget India for a moment, if that is possible, and concentrate on the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi and how Pegasus was used to spy on his family.

    https://thewire.in/world/pegasus-hacking-jamal-khashoggi-wife

     

    The Pegasus Project looks at 10 nations who have used Pegasus under suspicious circumstances.

    The details are here:

    https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/explained-revelations-pegasus-project-and-who-were-those-hacked-152573

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/18/ revealed-leak-uncovers-global-abuse-of-cyber-surveillance-weapon-nso-group-pegasus

     

    There are questions to be asked. When and to what extent can the State in a democracy can spy on people? What protection do our fundamental rights give us? Why is it necessary to use military spyware to snoop on journalists like Paranjoy Guha-Thakurta, Swati Chaturvedi, Rohini Singh, Sushant Singh, to name just a few, if not to check on anti-BJP stories they might be working on? Does the Government of India then work solely for the BJP?

    https://thewire.in/media/pegasus-project-spyware-indian-journalists

    https://www.newsclick.in/government-impinging-privacy-and-human-rights-citizens-paranjoy-guha-thakurta

     

    The sort of dismissive arguments made have included:

    1) This happens all the time. For journalists, this is a massive no logic argument because just about everything we present as news happens all the time. We might as well shut shop because you know everyday someone wins or loses a cricket match or a film tanks at the box office or people die or a bridge collapses or a government gets up to some chicanery.

    2) Other governments have done it before. This excuse stretches back for millennia. Chanakya, who died in 283 BC, recommended spying. Thus, why should one discuss spying today?

    3) Foreign media are out to discredit us. This is the usual excuse from media houses which have demonstrated almost no signs of journalism since the Modi government came to power in 2014.

     

    Some of these dismissals are often a sign of sour grapes – why wasn’t I part of this? – but regardless, this is how journalism works. Someone breaks a story one day, you follow up the next. Especially a story as big as this:

    https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/several-delhi-based-diplomats-staff-of-international-ngos-on-pegasus-list/article35413018.ece

     

    Despite the fog around surveillance and the idea of national security, surveillance of the sort exposed by the Pegasus Project is illegal in India:

    https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/what-are-the-surveillance-laws-in-india/article29993602.ece

     

    This analysis by the Internet Freedom Foundation on the Pegasus Projects explains the dangers of privacy invasion.

    https://internetfreedom.in/iffs-statement-on-hacking-revelations-made-by-the-pegasus-project/

     

    The analysis mentions ANI, the BJP’s favoured news agency which interestingly had the BJP government’s response to the Pegasus Project hours before the story broke on Sunday night.

     

    I have been schooled on social media that this time-discrepancy is not relevant because it is accepted practice for newsrooms to ask for responses to things before they happen, and then carry these responses without question. In my limited understanding of how journalism works, I would say the opposite is true. You get a response to the question which you ask, and you question every answer you get from authority as rigorously as possible. Any amount of press releases may be sent to you at any time. There is no rule that says you have to believe all or any of them.

     

    Anyone who accepts a government response unquestioningly is a government stooge and should shift to a government PR department.

     

    Media organisations have come together and issued statements. But we need more. We need to be part of any legal battle that any of the 40 targeted journalists may want to fight. The right to privacy cannot be sold because a few amongst us have neither courage nor conscience.

    https://thewire.in/media/pegasus-project-press-bodies-condemn-spyware-attacks-against-journalists-demand-probe

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She writes on MxMIndia every Tuesday and Friday. Her views here are personal

     

  • The Big Tent Activate Summit yesterday hosted discussions on the impact of technology and internet in India

    Industry, guardians & gurus discuss Net impact @ Google summit

     

    By Ananya Saha

     

    It is not every day that one witnesses a high-power conference like this; in fact it was being held in India for the very first time. The one-day Big Tent Activate Summit, organized by Google in association with The Guardian and MediaGuru saw Indian and international thought leaders focussed on issues relating to the Internet and its impact on economy, politics, culture and society in India.

     

    Kapil Sibal: Committed to Freedom of Expression

    While delivering the keynote address at the Google Big Tent Activate Summit, Kapil Sibal, Union Minister for Communications and IT made it a point to highlight that the government is committed to the cause of freedom of expression. “There should be no doubt that we are wedded to the freedom of expression,” he said. He underlined that the Internet is the most important and transformative forum as there are no borders on the net, he stated, “we must move slowly but surely towards making internet the equinet.”

    He underlined the three important points for making the internet a truly empowering, transformational and inclusive force. He said that from the point of view of the State, “we must have an enabling framework – rules and regulations must not come in the way of the growth of the net. Secondly, networks in terms of fibre-optics and also wireless must be developed to facilitate access to the net. Thirdly, affordable access devices are needed for a true inclusive transformational internet revolution.” Mr Sibal also said that it will be truly transformative, if through the internet, “we can reach people in their traditional languages.”

     

    Haves and Have-nots

    Deep Kalra, Founder & CEO, MakeMyTrip.com spoke about how according to a recent study “SME’s who invested in internet presence have grown by 10% and those who did not, have not grown by that much.” Giving the example of China-based e-Commerce giant Alibaba, he said that a single website has helped the entire economy by hand-holding the SMEs. Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau, Director, Economist Intelligence Unit, reasoned, “Why don’t we have Indian Google or Indian Apple? Apart from talent probably, it is also about regulation. In our research, we have found that within Asia there are many challenges facing the SME and thus, global frontier is not a focus for them. They do not know what regulations are applicable to their internet presence, there of lack of clarity about content and third-party content services and policing of content.”

     

    Even as India witnesses increasing internet penetration, Anu Madgavkar, Senior Fellow, McKinsey Global Institute stated, “The urban and rural penetration ratio stand at 20:2 percent. Rural ecosystem will flourish provided there is equality.”

     

    The very Social media

    It is a fact that many big ticket announcements, and now even political statements, are made on social media platforms. Stephanie Cutter, Political Consultant, who was also the Deputy Campaign Manager for Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, spoke about how investing in social media helped them to communicate outside of the media filter, helped them to generate donations and organise online with offline actions. While saying that he is not a big fan of Section 66A, Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for HRD stated that social media is usually used to create brand identity for the person. Even as Ms Cutter said that all US politicians are on social media, Omar Abdullah, Chief Minister, Jammu and Kashmir said, “Social media is now taken more seriously. And hence, I have to be more careful. I am reluctant on social media because it is now taken as statement of record.” Mr Tharoor concurred.

     

    On the question of media restriction in volatile J&K, Mr Abdullah said, “What we say on social media is picked by traditional media. People ask me that what they say on social media is deleted or blocked, and what I say is not. What I need them to know is that what I say on social media will not get people killed.”

     

    Narendra Modi, Chief Minister,Gujarat, joined in the Big Tent summit via Google Hangout. He said, “The internet has therefore truly empowered the citizen. It has forced the politician to perform, not just promise.” He focussed on how the internet has been a gamechanger in the realm of information-based decision making and has transformed the policy making process. He concluded, “Technology in itself is neither good nor bad. That depends on how it is harnessed. While technology in politics plays a crucial role, it would do us great good to stay away from letting politics into technology.”

     

    Google’s play

    Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman, Google shared a fireside with Alan Rusbridger, Editor, The Guardian at the summit. Mr Schmidt began by saying that there are 600 million mobile phone users in India, 130 million Internet users and only about 20 million broadband users. “India is under-penetrated. Many of the next five billion users of internet will come from India, of course in many more languages.” Talking of non-English users, he said, “You want entrepreneurs to take risk but definitely not go to jail for it in India. Fearing the outcome, many Indians might not join the Internet.” He said that interconnectivity might help the telcos and intermediaries like Google to help the entrepreneurs. Talking about privacy issues on internet, he said, “We need to fight for our privacy. As technology becomes pervasive in Indian society, privacy issues need to be considered.”

     

    On Mr Rusbridger comment that Google is talking about privacy, Mr Schmidt said, “If Google was not even present, the privacy issues would still be there. There is no delete button on the internet. But of I would still say that the despite the negative like privacy issues, value of internet is profoundly positive.” Talking about how mobile can adapt to a profitable business model, Mr Schmidt said, “Mobileads need to be more valuable since it is more personal. Mobilegives more info where the consumer is, what is the consumer doing unlike other screens.” In the end, being asked about India and China, he said, “In short span, China gets all the attention, but the math favours India.”

     

    View from the industry

    Jeff Jarvis, Professor, CUNY Graduate School of Journalism; Raghav Bahl, Managing Director, Network18; Siddharth Varadarajan, Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu and Sanjay Salil, Managing Director, MediaGuru discussed how traditional media is adapting to online media and if online is proving to be a challenge to traditional media.

     

    Mr Jarvis said, “It is of course challenging to cannibalise yourself to new media.” Mr Varadarajan said that while print media in India is dependent on advertisements to get revenues, online media cannot yet capitalise of ads for revenues and neither would the readers pay more for online version of news. Mr Bahl said that while India did leapfrog the disruption, “as internet infrastructure catches on, the transition is going to be very fast,” even while adding later that India been a subject of bad regulation, especially internet.

     

    The panellists agreed that news has become platform-agnostic as Mr Jarvis argued “we should be seen as a service industry.”

     

    As Mr Bahl said that TV has made an easier migration to internet, compared to print media, Mr Varadarajan said, “Even today, when there is a breaking news situation, one turns to TV since it is centrally-curated product.” However, he insisted that The Hindu is getting ready for internet, “We ask our journalists to file two reports: one for print and one for internet. The only challenge is how to integrate different forms of narration: reading, listening and watching. No one has industrialised or scaled it.”

     

    Photograph: video grab from an NDTV.com webcast of the Q&A that Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger had with Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman, Google

     

  • Alan Rusbridger, Editor-in-chief of the British daily 'The Guardian', will give a presentation at the Press Club, Mumbai, on The Future of Journalism in a Digital Age, on March 19 at 5.15pm

    Guardian Editor Alan Rusbridger in Mumbai next week

    By A Correspondent

     

    Alan Rusbridger, Editor-in-chief of the British daily ‘The Guardian’, will give a presentation at the Press Club, Mumbai, on The Future of Journalism in a Digital Age, on March 19 at 5.15pm.

     

    The presentation will cover a wide gamut of issues from the changes wrought by technology to concerns about regulation and ethical standards in journalism.

     

    It will be followed by a Q & A session. Seating will be on a first-come-first-served basis, and reporters and local editors may cover the event.

     

    Mr Rusbridger, known for his fierce independence and his liberal views, has been the editor of The Guardian since 1995, having joined it as a reporter in 1979. He recently wrote the book ‘Play It Again’ about how he took a year off from news to rediscover himself as a pianist.

     

    The Guardian, known until 1959 as The Manchester Guardian (founded in 1821), has grown from a 19th-century local paper to a national paper with a wide web presence. It has a certified average daily circulation of over 200,000. The paper currently identifies with social liberalism.

     

  • In Freaking News, Ranjona Banerji reviews the fare in the morning papers and the nightly news. And sometimes the afternooners, the newsmags and all that's on the Web

    Ranjona Banerji: Media forgets more than it remembers

    Ranjona Banerji

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Most Indian newspapers stayed up late to bring readers the results of the Euro semi-final between Germany and Italy. The Times of India also managed to check up the Wimbledon scores and had a front page snippet on Rafael Nadal’s shocker of a second round exit. This is unusual because TOI usually does much less for tennis than other newspapers.

     

    (But CNN tennis reporter, I have a question for you: Is Rafael Nadal’s second round exit bigger than Pete Sampras’s fourth round exit in 2001, since you said that Nadal’s upset was the biggest in tennis history and no one could remember another? Nadal has two Wimbledon titles, Sampras at the time had seven Wimbledon titles – a record he holds with William Renshaw – and would never win another. The man Sampras lost to: Roger Federer. It was only 11 years ago, a little history is not a bad thing for a sports reporter. Or even, a good memory!)

     

    * * *

     

    The Houston Chronicle has fired a reporter for working as an exotic dancer (sometimes known as stripper) as a second job. The woman was exposed by a rival publication. Snitching on your competitors is a trend in Western journalism which is yet to reach India and one wonders whether that is not a good thing. The Guardian’s exposes of phone-hacking and other dubious practices by rival newspapers, especially those owned by Rupert Murdoch, perhaps fall in the realm of both public service and dogged investigative journalism. (The Hindu comes the closest in India, as it occasionally pulls up lesser media houses for journalistic and marketing transgressions.) But “investigating” fellow journalists of media houses and their personal lives to inform readers? Am not sure what category of journalism this falls into.

     

    * * *

     

    A minor storm in Indian journalism has been over the death of a photographer who worked with Tehelka, was sent into the hinterland to do a story on Naxals, got malaria there and died. The newspaper is at fault for apparently not factoring malaria into the threat element of this assignment.

     

    Newspapers in India are notorious for not being bothered about the dangers of newsgathering – mainly because most newspapers have dispensed with most kinds of dangerous reporting. (I could I suppose say the same thing about TV, in that they hardly started.) Gone are the days when even gossip columnists – like Devyani Chaubal being slapped by Dharmendra – faced physical dangers while working. I am being facetious I know but bullet-proof vests are hardly part of a reporter’s must-haves in India. There should be no room for callousness. But I am still unconvinced what Tehelka could have done about a mosquito. If they did not help the photographer or his family later, then there is cause for criticism.

     

    Still, it would not hurt media houses to take a closer look at employee welfare (this does not mean a box of mithai at Diwali) and on-the-job dangers.

     

    * * *

    Interesting that the anniversary of the Emergency came and went with little media attention. Are we moving on or did we just, like, forget?

     

    * * *

     

    The case of Abu Jundal or Jindal or Zaby or whatever his name is – the Lashkar handler of the 26/11 attacks sent to India by Saudi Arabia – is exciting but it is still in its early stages. Rather than focus their hysterics only on Pakistan, the Indian television media might like to look at it as a story first and probe all angles rather than jump into jingoistic propaganda.

     

    * * *

     

    The Indian media – particularly TV – got itself into a bit of a bind over Pakistan’s flip-flop over the release of Sarabjit Singh. Sarabjit is a celebrity prisoner whose family has ceaselessly campaigned for his release. Pakistan announced Sarabjit’s name and then changed it the next day to Surjeet Singh. Now the dilemma: should the media show happiness for Surjeet, rage against the machine for Sarabjit, damn Pakistan or blame Pakistan? Is one Indian equal to another or are famous Indians more equal? It is not known how hard Surjeet Singh’s family worked the media to get him released, so perhaps there’s an answer. Also Surjeet Singh walked across the Wagah border and claimed he was a RAW agent, a tag Sarabjit and his family have consistently denied!

     

    * * *

     

    Congratulations to Mid-Day on its 33rd anniversary and a whopping anniversary issue of 200 pages which I haven’t had the time to read yet. Might take me all week!.

     

  • He also hinted at boycotting Cannes next year if a proper investigation was not undertaken by the organizers of Cannes for this year's jury decisions

    I’m not sure if DDB will participate in Cannes next year: Amir Kassaei

    By A Correspondent

     

    DDB Worldwide Chief Creative Officer Amir Kassaei has indicted some Cannes Lions 2012 jurors of bias. Mr Kassaei alleged that judges of certain global holdings had been ordered to vote for work from their respective groups. In a video interview to Campaign Brief, Mr Kassaei said that the integrity of Cannes was at stake and the authority as well as the value of the festival was being undermined. In the same interview, he also hinted at boycotting Cannes next year if a proper investigation was not undertaken by the organizers of Cannes for this year’s jury decisions.

     

    [youtube width=”400″ height=”225″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t27gPMSJND0[/youtube]

    Mr Kassaei said: “We (DDB) as the most awarded network in the history of Cannes will go into a very tough discussion about next year because we cannot accept that the people are willingly voting against the best work in the jury.”

     

    Mr Kassaei’s accusations follow claims by WPP’s Chief Executive Sir Martin Sorrell that Cannes judges could have been pressured into block voting, which has damaged his agencies chances of winning. Sir Martin Sorrell was quoted in The Guardian saying he had heard rumours of certain jury members being pressured into voting for selected entries and dismissing quality pieces of work from the judging process without due cause.

     

    The jury in question was chaired by Mainardo de Nardis, the Chief Executive of OMD Worldwide and Manning Gottleib OMD, Omnicom-owned media buying agency won the Grand Prix award for a Google Campaign.

     

    Reacting to Sir Martin Sorrell’s allegations that Omnicom somehow rigged the Media Lions award in favour of Manning Gottlieb OMD’s work for Google, Mr Kassaei said that WPP executives were ordered to discriminate against Omnicom agencies’ work in the jury voting: “I have since been notified by no fewer than 12 jury members that people from other holding companies this week are being briefed to kill Omnicom, especially BBDO, DDB and TBWA, this is a fact.”

     

    He added, “What differentiates Omnicom from WPP is the creativity and innovation. I would respect them if they did the better work. Just look at the objective facts, in the media category, WPP is doing better than Omnicom, so accusing us that we’re playing silly games is not right.”

     

    Furthermore, Mr Kassaei said: “The problem we have at the moment is that Cannes used to be the World Cup of advertising because of the qualification and the result of the juries, and at the moment I don’t have a feeling we are at the World Cup of advertising because a lot of people are playing politics instead of judging the best work of all.”

     

    In an interview to Afaqs on the judging of Media Lions, Dominic Proctor, President, WPP’s media holding company, Group M, said: “I’ve heard a lot of whisperings in bars and restaurants that there did seem to be some kind of strange voting…I heard rumours that certain blocs of votes were being encouraged. If that’s the case then it would be a worry because if Cannes wants to be taken seriously as a media and a creative platform, then we need to make sure that the process is not in any sense corrupted.”

     

  • Editor Alan Rusbridger announces Guardian to partner with MediaGuru to hold inaugural Activate Summit in India

    Guardian Media partners with Mediaguru

    By A Correspondent

     

    The Guardian, London has entered into a partnership with MediaGuru and is to hold one of its 2012 Activate Summits in India for the first time.

     
    The Guardian Activate events bring together many of the world’s brightest and most influential figures to debate how technology is driving positive social change on a global scale. The first Activate event took place in London in 2009 and the event expanded into the US market last year with the first Activate New York taking place in April 2011.

     

    Previous speakers have included Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, Arianna Huffington, editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, Craig’sList founder Craig Newmark and NYU professor Clay Shirky.

     

    The 2012 Guardian Activate summit in India is currently planned to take place in October in Delhi, and will be organised in partnership with MediaGuru, the media consulting, technology and entertainment company which has a presence in London, Singapore and all across India.

     

    The Guardian-MediaGuru partnership will see the Activate brand expanding into other territories, including Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore. It will also see an ambitious expansion of the Activate digital platform on guardian.co.uk, which will become an online content and networking hub for professionals working with technology to drive global change.
    Announcing the expansion, Alan Rusbridger said: “Technology is bringing the world closer together and at the Guardian we’re committed to encouraging debate between diverse, global audiences in line with our open and digital-first strategies. We’re thrilled to be bringing the Guardian Activate summit to new countries where technology is having a real impact, and look forward to joining and facilitating more fascinating conversations about the influence of web technologies in person, as well as online.”

     

    Sanjay Salil, Managing Director, MediaGuru, said: “By 2020, it is predicted that India will have 600 million internet users, making it the biggest open internet access market in the world. MediaGuru is proud to be bringing the Guardian Activate platform to India, where a gathering of technology, media, and social innovation leaders can help shape India’s technology and new media agenda.”