FOCUS
SOCIAL ISSUES & MEDIA CONCERNS
The other day in Mangalore, we had the pleasure or do we say, displeasure or plainly, an occasion to meet a senior journalist, or at least that is what he claimed non-challently. He had whole lot of complaints against everything Indian. He even said, that Pakistan had motorways and that both Pakistan and Bangladesh are above that of India in Human Development Index (HDI) compiled by United Nations Development Programme. He also told about the problems that he is having with the ‘state BJP and RSS’, but wasn’t clear how and why. Since he had whole lot of complaints, we didn’t bother to know why and how of the Sangh Parivar’s alleged pin pricks. But he appeared very emphatic that secularism in the country is in danger and that Christians are under continuous attack.
Of course, just the other day, to be specific on 4th Nov., print media carried a news item that some miscreants had attacked the St. Alphonsa church in Mangalore. As usual Sangh Pariwar outfits were the whipping boys. And according to a section of the media, the fellow, one Shibu was allegedly involved in this attack. Mind you, only one person was found without his clothes on, but his inside ‘chaddi’, the brief, was of ‘saffron’ colour, informed the print media. Fortunately police did not corroborate that this Shibu’s underwear was of saffron colour. But then it has always been the practice of print media to condemn saffron brigade for all wrong doings on churches and masjids, without batting an eye lid. While I have no way of refuting their accusation, what needs to be highlighted here is, that there was only one person, and reportedly his family had become Christians some 20 years ago. But media didn’t ask, if this Shibhu is a Christian or a Hindu? It was not a group activity. Could it be that, if he has not become a Christian, are there any reasons for this or is he upset that he is different from his people or vice versa. Some in the media even speculated about his being found with no clothes on. These are questions needing appropriate answers. He is a Malayaali settled in Mangalore. Most importantly why was he without any clothes on and that too behind the alter? Media didn’t ask these questions in their haste to fix Sangh Pariwar. Of course this is not to give a clean chit to these Sangh Pariwar outfits. Surely it has its own share of mischief makers. But our media is in great hurry to write the obituary of saffron brigade, just like this senior journalist. He was very upset when we retorted that those reports are distorted. He appeared very upset and said ‘you sound like an ultra RSS’. ‘We have nothing to do with RSS, but the mainstream media is not evenhanded, more often they do not go after the truth. They go after what sells, and sensation is what sells’, we had to interrupt, since he was very vituperative. Of course I am very junior in the profession and did not have his ‘high’ standing, but I had to remind him how biased is the media and how media men do not give a damn to it. I took him straight back in time, 1998 to be precise, to Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh, where reportedly some nuns were physically assaulted (some how I am not comfortable to use the four letters word myself). The first report appeared that men of Sangh Pariwar ‘as usual’ are the perpetrators of the crime and the whole media went 'hammer & tong' to tell the world that India is a bad place for these vulnerable female nuns. Of course, international media, no less sensational, including Amnesty International went ballistic. India was roundly damned, and believe it or not, even Pakistan termed Indians as ‘barbarians’. But what Indian media and by extension international media did not tell the world was the findings of a group of Legislative members from the southern Indian state of Kerala. George Fernandes, one of the tallest of Indians, in the socio-political domain, has lambasted the media for its selective amnesia and dumbness for not publishing the truth of this entire episode, post Kerala politicians’ visit to Jhabua. Mr Fernandes informed that the report of the Kerala team had mentioned about the men of tribal Christians group having committed this heinous crime and the Indian media strangely did not feel bad about the earlier report of lies and whole lies and kept its mouth shut on this report. Strangely our senior journo had nothing to say when I said that George Fernandes is not corrupt and Tehelka had bluffed and couldn’t prove anything against him. But he soon disposed us off not wanting to continue, since he confronted unusual resistance to his many entrenched views, including that of Reservations.
According to his own version, this gentleman is a journalist with over 50 years of being one, and he had conveyed in this brief interaction, which way the wind is blowing. Does this indicate a journalistic mind set, refusing to correct itself?
On returning to office, the first thing we did was to log UNDP rankings in HDI. We knew it very well that although India is poorly placed among low HDI group, we are better than both Pakistan and Bangladesh. That is what we found. In the latest report, India ranked 134 with Pakistan @ 145 followed immediately by Bangladesh. The senior journalist had simply bluffed as most people, who talk to the gallery, indulge. People like these think poorly of their audience. Can we call this arrogance of apparent success?
"Many people, have started saying that the media have become irresponsible and wayward and need to be reined in" was the part of an article "Media and issues of responsibility", purported to be an edited text of a speech by former Supreme Court Justice Markandey Katju, who is also the new chairman of the Press Council of India.
The precedence of having a Supreme Court retired justice as the Chairman of Press Council of India may be a good idea for its own sake. But the press and media fraternity are apparently very upset with the no holds barred sweeping observations by the new PCI chairman.
According to Justice Katju, "The Indian media display certain defects. These should ideally be addressed and corrected in a democratic manner. But if the media prove incorrigible, harsh measures may be called for". The fact of the matter is, media does display certain defects and the so-called self correction has failed. When the democratic opportunity to correct itself did not bear fruit and media has ‘proved incorrigible’ as Justice Katju termed it, ‘harsh measures’ as he sees it, may have become imperative.
One of the basic purpose of the media is to provide truthful and objective information to the general public, for them to be of help to form a rational opinion, of things happened and reported, or on issues of relevance to people at large, which is the precondition of any democratic way of life. But, asks Justice Katju "Are the Indian media performing this role properly?" According to him there are some serious defects. Distortion or twisting of facts are routinely carried out without batting an eye lid, only to make it sensational.
Justice Katju gives an example and I quote "Supreme Court judges have to disclose their assets and liabilities. Against the liabilities column, Justice Gyan Sudha Mishra had written ‘two daughters to be married’. Strictly speaking it was not necessary to mention this because liabilities mean legal liabilities, for example housing loan, car loan etc. Justice Mishra’s intention was obviously to say that she would have to spend on her daughters' future marriages. Justice Mishra never said, nor intended to say, that her daughters were liabilities".
"And a leading English news paper published on its front page a photograph of Justice Mishra with the caption ‘Supreme Court judge says that her daughters are liabilities’. This was a distorted and fallacious item of news published with the obvious intention of creating sensation" unquote.
Justice Katju was only making some obvious inference on the state of our print media. There are far too many instances of distortion especially when it comes to reporting on attacks on places of worship. Most papers give an impression of promoting a certain kind of divide in the society with truth being the victim. Even-handedness was never their virtue. They pander to a section of the society. They hype some news and underplay some others, without being fair. More often than not, all bomb blasts, have made the media point to a particular section of society, based on their input without waiting for confirmation. This approach have always helped the divide to widen. This is certainly a negative development.
Justice Katju talks about the ‘Paid News’ menace. According to him, ‘in 2009 elections, it was a scandal’. While it is the truth, that during election time, print media is used on a big scale by deploying political friends organizing meetings where candidates are generously spoken about to influence gullible voters with full print media coverage for a price. But the larger truth is, it is not just election related news which are paid for, to cater to a larger reading crowd, but even social events which are generally covered by the reporters on the beat, are having a price tag these days. At least one specific event where I was privy to this happening can be recounted for the benefit of readers. It was the yearly festival of a temple in a Mangalore suburb. It was managed by a retired High School teacher, whom we were enlisting as one of our reader for free. As a policy we give all retired teachers/lecturers, who liked to read, our monthly, free of cost. But this gentleman was insisting that he wants to pay and on our part, we insisted that this is our way of saying ‘thank you for your life long service as a teacher'. Then the phone rings. Other side enquired ‘if the earlier night’s coverage of the events in the temple was good’. The teacher administrator answered affirmatively. Then starts the payment talk, and haggling follows – too much - too less – kind of stuff and settles for an amount. The administrator opens up, on the tele talk, to us saying "I want to pay you and you wouldn’t take, but here they have to cover the event for free, but demand money". It is obvious this money or similar deals are not official, at the lower level this booty is distributed. Some big time moneyed businessmen – social workers, with an agenda to remain in public domain, cultivate reporters by up-front payments and by partying & gifts, so that all events where they are involved, are prominently covered. These are private arrangements with working journalists and the owner of the paper does not become richer. Of course, as is the case with all issues, here too there are some very principled and value based journalists. Unfortunately their number is slowly dwindling. But the rot has set in, like it or not.
And comes another piece of disquiet of high-strung media men. Prof R. Vaidyanathan, of IIM, Bangalore writes "Media Credibility. What is that?" and we quote "There are two recent events pertaining to media which have created some storm in their tea….. sorry, whisky glasses. One is the report on paid news, at last released by the Press Council and generally ignored by the Main Stream Media, both print and electronic. The other is the envelopes distributed among journalists in Satna, to cover Advani’s rally against corruption. There was consternation among some reporters. I do not know if the consternation was for the meagre amount of Rs. 500/- in the said envelopes!" unquote. So, the cat-is-out. Even to cover anti-corruption rally you have to corrupt the 4th estate with a bribe!
Among the 4 defects that Justice Katju spoke of, the ‘Non issues as real issues’ take the cake. In fact this is where mainstream media, whether print or electronic, have comprehensively failed. We reproduce the entire part of what he said on this count. We quote "Media often portray non-issues as real issues, while the real issues are sidelined. The real issues in India are economic, that is, the terrible economic conditions in which 80 per cent of our people are living, the poverty, unemployment, lack of housing and medical care and so on. Instead of addressing these real issues, the media often try to divert the attention of people to non-issues. Such as, that the wife of a film actor has become pregnant, whether she will give birth to a single child or to twins, and so on. Are these the real issues facing the nation?"
"At a Lakme India Fashion Week event, there were 512 accredited journalists covering the event in which models were displaying cotton garments while the men and women who grew that cotton were killing themselves at a distance of an hour’s flight from Nagpur, in the Vidharbha region. Nobody told that story, except one or two journalists, locally."
"Is this a responsible way for the Indian media to function? Should the media turn a Nelson’s eye to the harsh economic realities facing over 75 per cent of our people, and concentrate on some ‘Potemkin villages’ where all is glamour and show biz? Are not the Indian media behaving much like Queen Marie Antoinette, who said that if the people had no bread, they should eat cake?"
"No doubt, sometimes the media mention farmers’ suicides, the rise in the price of essential commodities, and so on, but such coverage is at most 5 per cent to 10 per cent of the total. The bulk of the coverage goes to showing the life of film stars, pop music, fashion parades, cricket and astrology." unquote.
Thus what Justice Katju accuses the media, whether print or electronic, is very real and there is no exaggeration at all. Of course, there are always black sheeps who would not take kindly to any harsh statements of truth. Hence the umbrage, a local daily from New Delhi took, was not surprising, and Justice Katju reportedly gave a fitting repartee, while accepting that ‘not entire media is mischievous’. The newspaper had written "The PCI chairman ought to know that he is dealing with a respected profession, not a bunch of delinquents", and Justice Katju had retorted "Do you not think you should let the public decide whether you are a respected profession or not, instead of putting the badge on yourselves". It is indeed very true, that a majority of scribes think themselves as superior human beings. And believe it no, comes the news that the Indian Broadcast Editors’ Association issued 10 guidelines on how the birth of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s first child should be covered by TV channels. Isn’t this some earth shattering news!! Isn’t media barking up the wrong tree? This is how our TV channels have programes of Amitabh Bachchan’s birthday on 11th Oct., when the greatest Indian after Mahatma Gandhi too was born on the same day. And most Indians do not even know. Courtesy the media, this is the historical perspective we live in. Jayaprakash Narayan (JP) was born on Oct. 11, 1902.
Stories of media going berserk are dime a dozen, all across the country with regional and vernacular language papers taking the cake where sensation mongering is the principal policy of circulation, and titillation hungry readers, lap it up.
So what responsibility are we talking about? In fact a senior journo from Chennai even called the new PCI chairman Justice Katju as of ‘poor intellectual level’. That was the opening remark in the article ‘Musings on the media in the dock’ in The Hindu. That was like telling one’s father that ‘I am an Oxon from Oxford and you are only an ox’. That was indeed in poor taste. That is the kind of freedom our journos are looking for.
Yes, the democratic way of conflict resolution should be the in thing. But the above comment on PCI chairman is a bad beginning. You don’t start with a pre conditioned mind. The fact is Indian media is not in good health. While palliative care is a necessary precondition, antibiotics should be an essential concomitant. Hope there is no impasse and both approach the issue with maturity and open mind.
The other day in Mangalore, we had the pleasure or do we say, displeasure or plainly, an occasion to meet a senior journalist, or at least that is what he claimed non-challently. He had whole lot of complaints against everything Indian. He even said, that Pakistan had motorways and that both Pakistan and Bangladesh are above that of India in Human Development Index (HDI) compiled by United Nations Development Programme. He also told about the problems that he is having with the ‘state BJP and RSS’, but wasn’t clear how and why. Since he had whole lot of complaints, we didn’t bother to know why and how of the Sangh Parivar’s alleged pin pricks. But he appeared very emphatic that secularism in the country is in danger and that Christians are under continuous attack.
Of course, just the other day, to be specific on 4th Nov., print media carried a news item that some miscreants had attacked the St. Alphonsa church in Mangalore. As usual Sangh Pariwar outfits were the whipping boys. And according to a section of the media, the fellow, one Shibu was allegedly involved in this attack. Mind you, only one person was found without his clothes on, but his inside ‘chaddi’, the brief, was of ‘saffron’ colour, informed the print media. Fortunately police did not corroborate that this Shibu’s underwear was of saffron colour. But then it has always been the practice of print media to condemn saffron brigade for all wrong doings on churches and masjids, without batting an eye lid. While I have no way of refuting their accusation, what needs to be highlighted here is, that there was only one person, and reportedly his family had become Christians some 20 years ago. But media didn’t ask, if this Shibhu is a Christian or a Hindu? It was not a group activity. Could it be that, if he has not become a Christian, are there any reasons for this or is he upset that he is different from his people or vice versa. Some in the media even speculated about his being found with no clothes on. These are questions needing appropriate answers. He is a Malayaali settled in Mangalore. Most importantly why was he without any clothes on and that too behind the alter? Media didn’t ask these questions in their haste to fix Sangh Pariwar. Of course this is not to give a clean chit to these Sangh Pariwar outfits. Surely it has its own share of mischief makers. But our media is in great hurry to write the obituary of saffron brigade, just like this senior journalist. He was very upset when we retorted that those reports are distorted. He appeared very upset and said ‘you sound like an ultra RSS’. ‘We have nothing to do with RSS, but the mainstream media is not evenhanded, more often they do not go after the truth. They go after what sells, and sensation is what sells’, we had to interrupt, since he was very vituperative. Of course I am very junior in the profession and did not have his ‘high’ standing, but I had to remind him how biased is the media and how media men do not give a damn to it. I took him straight back in time, 1998 to be precise, to Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh, where reportedly some nuns were physically assaulted (some how I am not comfortable to use the four letters word myself). The first report appeared that men of Sangh Pariwar ‘as usual’ are the perpetrators of the crime and the whole media went 'hammer & tong' to tell the world that India is a bad place for these vulnerable female nuns. Of course, international media, no less sensational, including Amnesty International went ballistic. India was roundly damned, and believe it or not, even Pakistan termed Indians as ‘barbarians’. But what Indian media and by extension international media did not tell the world was the findings of a group of Legislative members from the southern Indian state of Kerala. George Fernandes, one of the tallest of Indians, in the socio-political domain, has lambasted the media for its selective amnesia and dumbness for not publishing the truth of this entire episode, post Kerala politicians’ visit to Jhabua. Mr Fernandes informed that the report of the Kerala team had mentioned about the men of tribal Christians group having committed this heinous crime and the Indian media strangely did not feel bad about the earlier report of lies and whole lies and kept its mouth shut on this report. Strangely our senior journo had nothing to say when I said that George Fernandes is not corrupt and Tehelka had bluffed and couldn’t prove anything against him. But he soon disposed us off not wanting to continue, since he confronted unusual resistance to his many entrenched views, including that of Reservations.
According to his own version, this gentleman is a journalist with over 50 years of being one, and he had conveyed in this brief interaction, which way the wind is blowing. Does this indicate a journalistic mind set, refusing to correct itself?
On returning to office, the first thing we did was to log UNDP rankings in HDI. We knew it very well that although India is poorly placed among low HDI group, we are better than both Pakistan and Bangladesh. That is what we found. In the latest report, India ranked 134 with Pakistan @ 145 followed immediately by Bangladesh. The senior journalist had simply bluffed as most people, who talk to the gallery, indulge. People like these think poorly of their audience. Can we call this arrogance of apparent success?
"Many people, have started saying that the media have become irresponsible and wayward and need to be reined in" was the part of an article "Media and issues of responsibility", purported to be an edited text of a speech by former Supreme Court Justice Markandey Katju, who is also the new chairman of the Press Council of India.
The precedence of having a Supreme Court retired justice as the Chairman of Press Council of India may be a good idea for its own sake. But the press and media fraternity are apparently very upset with the no holds barred sweeping observations by the new PCI chairman.
According to Justice Katju, "The Indian media display certain defects. These should ideally be addressed and corrected in a democratic manner. But if the media prove incorrigible, harsh measures may be called for". The fact of the matter is, media does display certain defects and the so-called self correction has failed. When the democratic opportunity to correct itself did not bear fruit and media has ‘proved incorrigible’ as Justice Katju termed it, ‘harsh measures’ as he sees it, may have become imperative.
One of the basic purpose of the media is to provide truthful and objective information to the general public, for them to be of help to form a rational opinion, of things happened and reported, or on issues of relevance to people at large, which is the precondition of any democratic way of life. But, asks Justice Katju "Are the Indian media performing this role properly?" According to him there are some serious defects. Distortion or twisting of facts are routinely carried out without batting an eye lid, only to make it sensational.
Justice Katju gives an example and I quote "Supreme Court judges have to disclose their assets and liabilities. Against the liabilities column, Justice Gyan Sudha Mishra had written ‘two daughters to be married’. Strictly speaking it was not necessary to mention this because liabilities mean legal liabilities, for example housing loan, car loan etc. Justice Mishra’s intention was obviously to say that she would have to spend on her daughters' future marriages. Justice Mishra never said, nor intended to say, that her daughters were liabilities".
"And a leading English news paper published on its front page a photograph of Justice Mishra with the caption ‘Supreme Court judge says that her daughters are liabilities’. This was a distorted and fallacious item of news published with the obvious intention of creating sensation" unquote.
Justice Katju was only making some obvious inference on the state of our print media. There are far too many instances of distortion especially when it comes to reporting on attacks on places of worship. Most papers give an impression of promoting a certain kind of divide in the society with truth being the victim. Even-handedness was never their virtue. They pander to a section of the society. They hype some news and underplay some others, without being fair. More often than not, all bomb blasts, have made the media point to a particular section of society, based on their input without waiting for confirmation. This approach have always helped the divide to widen. This is certainly a negative development.
Justice Katju talks about the ‘Paid News’ menace. According to him, ‘in 2009 elections, it was a scandal’. While it is the truth, that during election time, print media is used on a big scale by deploying political friends organizing meetings where candidates are generously spoken about to influence gullible voters with full print media coverage for a price. But the larger truth is, it is not just election related news which are paid for, to cater to a larger reading crowd, but even social events which are generally covered by the reporters on the beat, are having a price tag these days. At least one specific event where I was privy to this happening can be recounted for the benefit of readers. It was the yearly festival of a temple in a Mangalore suburb. It was managed by a retired High School teacher, whom we were enlisting as one of our reader for free. As a policy we give all retired teachers/lecturers, who liked to read, our monthly, free of cost. But this gentleman was insisting that he wants to pay and on our part, we insisted that this is our way of saying ‘thank you for your life long service as a teacher'. Then the phone rings. Other side enquired ‘if the earlier night’s coverage of the events in the temple was good’. The teacher administrator answered affirmatively. Then starts the payment talk, and haggling follows – too much - too less – kind of stuff and settles for an amount. The administrator opens up, on the tele talk, to us saying "I want to pay you and you wouldn’t take, but here they have to cover the event for free, but demand money". It is obvious this money or similar deals are not official, at the lower level this booty is distributed. Some big time moneyed businessmen – social workers, with an agenda to remain in public domain, cultivate reporters by up-front payments and by partying & gifts, so that all events where they are involved, are prominently covered. These are private arrangements with working journalists and the owner of the paper does not become richer. Of course, as is the case with all issues, here too there are some very principled and value based journalists. Unfortunately their number is slowly dwindling. But the rot has set in, like it or not.
And comes another piece of disquiet of high-strung media men. Prof R. Vaidyanathan, of IIM, Bangalore writes "Media Credibility. What is that?" and we quote "There are two recent events pertaining to media which have created some storm in their tea….. sorry, whisky glasses. One is the report on paid news, at last released by the Press Council and generally ignored by the Main Stream Media, both print and electronic. The other is the envelopes distributed among journalists in Satna, to cover Advani’s rally against corruption. There was consternation among some reporters. I do not know if the consternation was for the meagre amount of Rs. 500/- in the said envelopes!" unquote. So, the cat-is-out. Even to cover anti-corruption rally you have to corrupt the 4th estate with a bribe!
Among the 4 defects that Justice Katju spoke of, the ‘Non issues as real issues’ take the cake. In fact this is where mainstream media, whether print or electronic, have comprehensively failed. We reproduce the entire part of what he said on this count. We quote "Media often portray non-issues as real issues, while the real issues are sidelined. The real issues in India are economic, that is, the terrible economic conditions in which 80 per cent of our people are living, the poverty, unemployment, lack of housing and medical care and so on. Instead of addressing these real issues, the media often try to divert the attention of people to non-issues. Such as, that the wife of a film actor has become pregnant, whether she will give birth to a single child or to twins, and so on. Are these the real issues facing the nation?"
"At a Lakme India Fashion Week event, there were 512 accredited journalists covering the event in which models were displaying cotton garments while the men and women who grew that cotton were killing themselves at a distance of an hour’s flight from Nagpur, in the Vidharbha region. Nobody told that story, except one or two journalists, locally."
"Is this a responsible way for the Indian media to function? Should the media turn a Nelson’s eye to the harsh economic realities facing over 75 per cent of our people, and concentrate on some ‘Potemkin villages’ where all is glamour and show biz? Are not the Indian media behaving much like Queen Marie Antoinette, who said that if the people had no bread, they should eat cake?"
"No doubt, sometimes the media mention farmers’ suicides, the rise in the price of essential commodities, and so on, but such coverage is at most 5 per cent to 10 per cent of the total. The bulk of the coverage goes to showing the life of film stars, pop music, fashion parades, cricket and astrology." unquote.
Thus what Justice Katju accuses the media, whether print or electronic, is very real and there is no exaggeration at all. Of course, there are always black sheeps who would not take kindly to any harsh statements of truth. Hence the umbrage, a local daily from New Delhi took, was not surprising, and Justice Katju reportedly gave a fitting repartee, while accepting that ‘not entire media is mischievous’. The newspaper had written "The PCI chairman ought to know that he is dealing with a respected profession, not a bunch of delinquents", and Justice Katju had retorted "Do you not think you should let the public decide whether you are a respected profession or not, instead of putting the badge on yourselves". It is indeed very true, that a majority of scribes think themselves as superior human beings. And believe it no, comes the news that the Indian Broadcast Editors’ Association issued 10 guidelines on how the birth of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s first child should be covered by TV channels. Isn’t this some earth shattering news!! Isn’t media barking up the wrong tree? This is how our TV channels have programes of Amitabh Bachchan’s birthday on 11th Oct., when the greatest Indian after Mahatma Gandhi too was born on the same day. And most Indians do not even know. Courtesy the media, this is the historical perspective we live in. Jayaprakash Narayan (JP) was born on Oct. 11, 1902.
Stories of media going berserk are dime a dozen, all across the country with regional and vernacular language papers taking the cake where sensation mongering is the principal policy of circulation, and titillation hungry readers, lap it up.
So what responsibility are we talking about? In fact a senior journo from Chennai even called the new PCI chairman Justice Katju as of ‘poor intellectual level’. That was the opening remark in the article ‘Musings on the media in the dock’ in The Hindu. That was like telling one’s father that ‘I am an Oxon from Oxford and you are only an ox’. That was indeed in poor taste. That is the kind of freedom our journos are looking for.
Yes, the democratic way of conflict resolution should be the in thing. But the above comment on PCI chairman is a bad beginning. You don’t start with a pre conditioned mind. The fact is Indian media is not in good health. While palliative care is a necessary precondition, antibiotics should be an essential concomitant. Hope there is no impasse and both approach the issue with maturity and open mind.
J.Shriyan
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