Arundhati Roy on communalism and the media

The Karnataka Komu Sauharda Vedike (Karnataka Forum for Communal Harmony) organised a two-day workshop on “Communalism and the Media” in Mangalore on May 18 and 19, and the the star of the show on the concluding day was the Booker Prize winning author and activist Arundhati Roy. This is the full video of her presentation.

In particular, on the media, Arundhati says it is time we knew a bit more of how our media organisations are funded and who calls the shots. Who funds the Indian Express, for example? What kind of a stranglehold do advertisers have in an era when 90 per cent of a publication’s revenue comes from advertising?

Arundhati was especially scathing of the role of the media in the December 13 Parliament attack case, in which Mohammed Afzal Guru was convicted. The courts, she said, had clearly said that there was no evidence to link Afzal Guru, but it was sentencing him to set an example, a point which the media ignored.

She also came down heavily on a Hindustan Times reporter called Neeta Sharma, accusing her of being a handmaiden in the hands of the police. That same reporter, she said, had now joined NDTV, a channel general considered to be balanced and responsible, and where she was peddling the same “lies”, putting police videos of “confessions”.