The full text of the press release issued by the Foundation for Media Professionals (FMP) of the address made by Prabhash Joshi at a seminar held in New Delhi on Wednesday, October 28, 2009, on the blurring of the line between editorial and advertisements in the Indian media. Joshi, a former editor of the Hindi daily Jansatta, passed away last week, nine days after the address.
The Great Wall between India and China is not made of bricks and mortar; it is made of freedom and liberty. Any debate, any discussion, anywhere, on the superpowers-to-be is sealed, signed and delivered by the roaring presence of those essential ingredients in plentiful on our soil, and the utter lack of it in our great neighbour.
China notoriously detests dissent—and democracy.
It bars foreign media from freely moving inside its boundaries; Tibet is off-limits to them as is Tiananmen Square. BBC was famously taken off Rupert Murdoch’s Star Network at the behest of the comrades. Google and Yahoo effortlessly dance to the tunes of the Chinese dictators. Chinese citizens routinely can’t log into YouTube, Facebook and other media. And so on.
But has difference between “us” and “them” been erased by the Congress-led UPA government?
In barring foreign journalists from going to Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh to report the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama’s week-long visit to the northeastern State which China off and on claims as its own, has the Manmohan Singh government thumbed its nose at India’s great democratic traditions?
Has India missed a trick in showing its inviolable sovereignty before a global audience? In behaving much like China would, has the Congress-led regime obliterated the difference between democracy and dictatorship? Or was the government right given the war-mongering that has recently been on display?
The Indian government’s “Operation Green Hunt” to track down Maoists—described by prime minister Manmohan Singh as the “gravest internal threat facing India”—is the flavour of the season in newspapers, magazines, and on TV stations.
In reporting from the ground; publishing long essays; interviewing key players in studios; debating the whys and the wherefores of various aspects of the promised assault; throwing light on the situation in the tribal belt, the media, it would appear, is doing its job.
Is it, or is it just “manufacturing consent for war”?
“It has been assumed that the Maoist movement is not a mass movement; it’s only a bunch of ‘outsiders’ imposing themselves upon hapless tribes. The absurdity of the ‘outsider’ clause becomes obvious if one spares a moment’s thought to the way in which they function. The nature and width of their activities could not have been made possible without mass support. This is not the place to substantiate this assertion. What one needs to recognize at the primary level is that this is an open question and needs to be treated as such.
“If it is an open question with many opinions, the least the media can do is give space to these opinions, and accept the complex nature of the issue. It might be pointed out that the debate shows on news-channels do bring in people of different opinions. However, a closer look at the dynamics of these shows will demonstrate how easily the biases of the mainstream hijack the entire debate.
“The newer, uncommon opinion cannot be expressed in the 10 seconds given to the participants, unlike the hegemonic narrative that we are all so familiar with. This inability to say everything in the imposed time limit is read as the lack of substance in these new voices, and a consensus on the issue is ‘created’.”
“Arnab Goswami [of Times Now] is a good example. He seems to have found answers to all questions posed by him on his show. Furthermore, his show is an exercise in forcing his moment of epiphany upon others. ‘Mr Varavara Rao, is Kobad Gandhy an ideologue or a terrorist, ideologue or terrorist, yes or no?’ We need to move beyond these multiple choice questions – reality is more layered than the media’s projection of it. We can all do with some thinking, including our editor-in-chief. Arnabism is actually symbolic of the lack of depth, and the fear of depths that haunts the journalism of big news houses.
“Maoist violence is highlighted again and again, often with cheap melodrama (showing the lack of humanity implicit in this form of reporting) as if it exists in a vacuum. Such portrayal denudes an act of its nature as an utterance, which responds to a situation (possibly another violent act on the state’s part) and is informed by necessities of a spatio-temporal/socio-political position.
“In the same way the struggles for self-determination are defined only in terms of their separatist or fundamentalist tendencies’, (one could go out on a limb and suggest that the refusal to understand or explain Islamic violence, as something more than madness or blood-thirstiness is a sign of the same problem). Just touching the surface, there too a very small section of the surface, the mainstream media presents it to its consumers (for that is what passive reception is) as the entire reality, the sole and complete truth.
“It needs to be understood, and this cannot be stated any other way, that the media is responsible for manufacturing consent for war. It has taken the State’s call for war forward by eliminating dissenting voices within. In addition to several other things, the majoritarian nature of the media poses serious questions about any semblance of internal democracy. We have to make a choice between pushing for greater democracy within and allowing ourselves to get subsumed in the state’s narrative. If we choose the latter then we need to question the idea of journalism being ‘free and fair’ and see it as an instrument in the hands of a few who hold power and seek to keep it in their hands.”
Two young journalists, Teresa Rehman (left) of Tehelka and Bahar Dutt of CNN-IBN, are among five winners of the Sanskriti Awards for 2009.
Now in its 30th year, the Sanskriti Awards are given to young talents between 25 and 35 years of age, and will be presented in New Delhi on Novemebr 20, according to a press release. Each award carries Rs 50,000 in cash and a citation.
# An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Teresa Rehman is Tehelka’s principal correspondent in the Northeast. Her photo-story on an alleged fake encounter in Manipur in June 2009, won global acclaim and was picked up by newspapers and magazines worldwide.
# Bahar Dutt, a trained wildlife conservationist, has worked for the last ten years on key wildlife issues in India and abroad. She played a key role in working with and rehabilitating the Bahelias, a community of snake charmers in Rajasthan and Haryana.
Biting the hand that feeds the oxygen of publicity is a bloodsport among celebrities.
Kabir Bedi, who found his niche in the American TV series Sandokan and later starred in the James Bond film Octopussy, thankfully bucks the trend, in an interview in The Pioneer, Delhi:
Question: Being an ardent follower of news, how do you view media in today’s times?
Kabir Bedi: Media is the fourth pillar of our society. I have great respect for journalists. I myself want to become a journalist but as destiny would have it, I got busy with films, theatre and television and never had time for journalism. In fact, I believe that the content disseminated through print and electronic media in India is far better than what is shown on foreign channels. I am appreciative of the work they do and the important role they play in society.
Photograph: Kabir Bedi as the black corsair in Sergio Solima’s Il corsaro nero (courtesy rohpress)
“We hear that that grand old titan [of Indian steel], Russi Mody, is selling his two-storied bungalow on Calcutta’s tony Belvedere Road. Apparently he has a lifetime interest in the property, and it will change hands only after he passes on.
“One of our avian friends tells us that the Roys of NDTV are close to finalising a deal, for around Rs 27 crore.
“Prannoy Roy doesn’t have much of a connection with the City aside from his Bengaliness, but Radhika Roy grew up there. Perhaps that will be their retirement home? Not that we’re expecting them to be putting up their feet anytime soon. After all Mr. Mody, despite the legendary 16-egg breakfasts, is in robust health. Prannoyda, we’re sure you’ll join us in wishing you a long wait!”
For the record, Forbes India is published by Raghav Bahl’s Network 18 which competes with NDTV’s news, business and lifestyle channels.
Via Twitter, CNN-IBN editor-in-chief Rajdeep Sardesai, names the “most outstanding election analysts across channels” on counting day, October 22. His verdict: Kumar Ketkar, editor of the Marathi daily Loksatta, and Palagummi Sainath, rural affairs editor of The Hindu, both of whom were on CNN-IBN.
“Wiser than all Delhi editors put together,” says Sardesai, whose own election show had the usual sprinkling of said “Delhi editors”, who also appeared on CNN-IBN.
The names of the key engineers who demolished the great wall in Indian journalism—the proprietors, the publishers, the brand managers, the spineless editors and journalists who refused to stand up to the advertiesrs and space sellers—are missing from the gabfest of the Foundation for Media Professionals.
The full text of the press release issued by the Foundation for Media Professionals (FMP) of the address made by Prabhash Joshi at a seminar held in New Delhi on Wednesday, October 28, 2009, on the blurring of the line between editorial and advertisements in the Indian media. Joshi, a former editor of the Hindi daily Jansatta, passed away last week, nine days after the address.
