Indian Media In a muddle

Image result for newspaper
Without creibility, just a pile of waste paper (Raddi)?

A ‘NATIONAL’ INDIAN DAILY (no, I don’t mean notional, though  a 80-year-old typing on phone can make such mistakes) has shed copious tear, both in print and digital versions, over a ‘dancer’, known for vulgar record dances, not being allowed to dance in the plane on an international flight.

The same newspapers makes it a point to report every time Taimur Ali Khan Pataudi’s diaper is changed or he cried. The flirtations of film stars and idiotic speeches of morons passing off as leaders of political parties get most space in the print media or time on TV channels. We heard of Malala, the Pakistani girl shot by Taliban for seeking education  for girls or the man who shared the Noel Prize with her, Kailash Satyarthi only after she was shot or he got the prize.

All that they did earlier was pushed out of news space by frivolities which do not “inform, educate or entertain” – the primary purpose of journalism .- Titillation or pandering to baser human cravings are things that boost up newspaper circulations or TV viewership ‘ratings’.

Unfortunately people at large are interested in glamour and reel heroes in place of real ones.  And that is the main argument advanced by media for the new trend of sensationalization they indulge in. It is disgusting!

Recently I heard a discourse in which, departing from his usual religious issues, the speaker spoke of the respect that should be paid to the national flag, as Independence Day of India (August 15) was around the corner. He narrated the story of an Army officer who got a telegram that a son was born to him and was granted leave to visit home by his commanding officer. Just then a report of terrorist activity near the borders came. The CO told him to select some efficient and committed soldiers to be rushed to the spot.

The officer told his CO, “I can see my wife and son some other time, but I cannot see the national flag falling now.” He cancelled his leave, rushed to the troubled area, bravely fought the terrorists and shot them down. Just when he rose from his bunker, thinking all of them were down, one dying terrorist showered bullets on him. The officer died fighting for the country, without seeing his newborn son or  the wife he married just the previous year.

“No Indian news channel or newspaper thought the news worth splashing. Not a word was heard or read about the brave act. The world came to know about it from a BBC bulletin,” the  immensely popular speaker said.

This seems to be a world trend. Recently, an extremely popular American talk-show, EllenTube, had the host Ellen telling the audience that she would begin the day with good news. She picked up a daily newspaper, searched for good news in most pages and threw the daily down in disgust. All news items were about some evil even or the other.

Newspapers everywhere are facing existential crisis. Many are facing closure. Great ones like The Gaurdian have gone online and are appealing for public donations. Journalism in all media has lost its credibility. Social media news id quicker and more effective, but being un-regulated, gives scope to fake news.

In India newspapers like those run by Lokmanya Tilak, Agarkar, Prakasam or Motilal Nehru were a part of the freedom struggle. They were run with a purpose. I remember Mahatma Gandhi’s ‘Harijan‘ had a column titled “Weekly War News”, on Satyagraha in different part of the country.

The media’s argument “that is what the people want” to justify  sensationalization and running after TRP (ratings) is the same as that used by bad film makers. It has been proved beyond doubt that if good films are made, people do see them. Only when some indulge in titillation and a few are creative does people’s taste degenerate. The fall in tastes and morality is a reflection of the failure of leadership in all fields.

Real leaders lead, not just follow popular trends.

Purohit’s Patronising Pat – A Non-Issue Blown Up

Purohit and 'Prof. Nirmala

Tamil Nadu Governor Purohit who owns ‘The Hitavada’ daily and ‘Prof.’ Nirmala Devi

IS  A STRANGE EXPERIENCE to see someone you know personally being trolled and an incident involving him/her being blown out of proportion.

The Governor of Tamil Nadu, Banwarilal Purohit, finds himself (to put it in the words      of  a newspaper) in “yet another” controversy (as if he has been the perpetrator of many scams) when he patted the cheek of a woman reporter after she asked a question  as his

The apology
The letter of apology  (courtesy Dainik Bhaskar

press conference ended and he was leaving.  The  “controversy” about which many reporters “sought clarification” was a remark by  Nirmala Devi, the assistant professor of a college whose voice clipping asking college girls to please university officials sexually to get better marks went viral. She had said she was once present on a dais from which the Governor, Banwarilal Purohit, spoke. Many questions were asked implying, suggesting, or questioning,  the governor’s involvement  in some  racket with the professor. Nirmala  has been  arrested  on charges of luring four  girl students to extend sexual favours to university officials. 

Having worked for 15 years as a news agency head in a city where Purohit brought out an English daily and ran Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan   schools with several branches (where a majority of  teachers are  women) and knowing several journalists, including women, who worked in his newspaper, I had never heard of his behaving inappropriately with women or having any ‘affairs’.

Such matters, even when not published or exposed, cannot be hidden. There are always whispers about them – and there were none about Purohit.   A businessman, he had taken over the newspaper from a politician who was notorious not only as a “hero” of the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi but also for making advances  to a film actress, among other things.

Patronising pat
 The InShorts item

The Press, which had no guts to oppose the Congress minister then, was trying to make out as if  Purohit had some link to the woman professor simply because, as the Chancellor of all universities in his State, he happened to address a meeting from a stage on which she was also seated. As soon as the clip about her “advice” to the college girls went viral he had, as Chancellor of the university, he ordered a probe.

Touching someone “without permission” is, of course, not at all proper. The Chennai Press Club found his action an “outrageous” and “unbecoming conduct,” which was “neither exemplary nor condonable”.

An apology was demanded and  it was sent, signed by Purohit himself, by the Raj Bhavan immediately to the woman journalist who made a big issue of it on the social media, narrating how  she felt violated and washed her face many many times after the incident. She also sent a protest mail, though she too felt his action was ‘grandfatherly’.

He mailed back, “I considered that question to be a good one. Therefore, as an act of appreciation for the question…I gave a pat on your cheek considering you to be like my granddaughter.”  In his letter of apology, the Governor said he was in the print media for 40 years and that the “pat on cheek” was done with affection  to express his appreciation for her question, which came too late to be answered.

“I do understand from your mail that you feel hurt about the incident. I wish to express my regret and my apologies to assuage your sentiments that have been hurt,” Purohit added.

It is true that women in India do not like to be touched – even handshakes are normally replaced by the joining of hands in ‘Namaste’. Purhohit’s  act was patronizing and many do not like it.  I recall a former Chief Minister and an ex-Minister (incidentally both died in accidents) talking to me with  hands on my shoulders as if they were my friends,  –though I disagreed with both.  And they did not even know me well. Pats on the back were too many to be remembered.

But  then it was not considered inappropriate. Neither was a former President’s reply  (to a query by reporters why he always spoke exclusively to a particular woman reporter): “You wear saaris and come, I will tell you.” It was meant to be a joke and taken so.

Being patronizing is disliked. It may probably be an issue of cultural gap; Banwarilal Purohit  comes from Maharashtra  where the segregation of the sexes is not as severe as in the South. His association with a saffron party may be another (and perhaps the main) reason.  It could also be a hangover from the days when very few women were in the media, while they perhaps outnumber men now.

Whatever it is, his intentions cannot be doubted to blow a non-issue blown out of proportions by a Press with priorities mixed up.

Let’s Have More of Corruption

You-Can-Stop-Corrpution
Image Credit: Bolte Raho (even the spelling is corrupted!)

A FRIEND SENT ME YESTERDAY A FILM CLIP which, according to him, was the shortest film ever made in the world to have won an award.

It showed an official sitting in his drawing room with a pile of files, as his little daughter played around the room. As each file is opened he finds a currency note and signs the paper.  He throws on the floor any file that does not have a note. His daughter picks up the file but he puts it aside. She sees that he signs only the files which have money.

The little girl then puts before him her school  ‘Report Card’ and gets scolded for poor marks in some subjects. He refuses to sign the card and puts it aside.

A few minutes later she returns with the card. When he opens it he finds a few coins from her pocket money inside the card. That opens his eyes; even his child knows that he is corrupt and signs only when he is bribed.

Next to the ‘love’ theme with the hero and heroine dancing around trees singing duets, Indian films focus on social evils like corruption, dowry system and caste

Scamocracy
A  decade of  ‘Scamocracy’

discrimination. Millions see the films and even shed tears for those wronged by the evils.

 

And yet the social evils not only continue but thrive. During the last government in India a new scandal got exposed every day. Some of that regime’s scandals are still being exposed. A cartoonist once showed a newspaper vendor shouting that day’s sensational headline: “NO SCANDAL TODAY’!

No amount of sloganeering and condemnation in films and editorials  have reduced the evils. They are accepted by the society as normal. As I mentioned in another post, no parent would refuse a match for his daughter (in India’s arranged marriage system) because the boy’s father made money by corrupt means.

Even our religious rituals – making an offering to God and asking for a favor in return – promote bribery. There is no social stigma attached to corruption. It may be illegal, but is not considered immoral or unethical.

It took an extreme step like imposition of Emergency with Press censorship and jailing of thousands dynasty rule to be ended. And it came back when its replacement was a weak, divided, coalition.

India threw out a corrupt government to elect the present NDA government. But it has not yet thrown out corruption itself. So extreme corruption which makes life difficult for millions may be required to make people fed up and finally throw out corruption.

Let corruption grow — to end it.

PS –The friend claimed the two-minute film was the shortest ever made to win an award (he called it an Oscar, unaware that there are no Oscars in India).  If I remember right around 1966 Promod Pati won an award for a 50-second documentary  (yes, less than a minute) titled “And Miles to Go“.

In it the camera spans down from a jet plane flying across the screen to an old woman and a child holding a slate (those days children used slates to learn writing). For a second you think the grandmother is teaching the little girl.  Then you realize it was the other way around. ‘And Miles to go’ were words from a Robert Frost poem, found scribbled on a paper on first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s desk after his death.

Yes. Half a century later, it is still miles to go for a corruption-free society.

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Sexist View of The ‘Daily Male’

The Daily Male
When women leaders meet, a  sexist journalist  sees only their  bodies  —  and leg show

ONCE GLORIFIED AS THE FOURTH ESTATE, the Press is facing a crisis of identity and a struggle for existence today. The electronic media with their greater impact, have changed the context, threaten newspapers’ existence and force the printed word to compete. with images.

The issue was brought into focus again when the Daily Mail, a popular British tabloid putting on the front page a report on the March 27 meeting between UK Prime Minister Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland, reducing it to a comparison of their bodies.
Continue reading Sexist View of The ‘Daily Male’

Growing Up In Information Age

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–Courtesy Prakash Hegde

WhatsApp has become so much a part of our lives that there is hardly an urban Indian who is not only on the app but also on one or several groups of the messaging service.

Some find WhatsApp a big nuisance with lengthy forwards and data-consuming videos  Continue reading Growing Up In Information Age

Great News, Is It True?

cellxphonesThe printed word, my profession for the last 58 years, has lost its credibility.  No one believes in newspapers anymore.

The first informant to the people in general, in most cases, is not a newspaper but the electronic media. Of them TV has fallen to the lure of TRPs, which earn them the moolah. Continue reading Great News, Is It True?

Are You Retired But Not Tired?

not-tiredWhen you are over 70  ( unstoppable or not), old age and death never cease to be on your horizon. Your eyes drift to the obituary column involuntarily. Some put up a cheery facade and hide those thoughts. Others like me plan a book like ‘THE OUTHOUSE ON THE FIRST FLOOR – Coming of (Old)Age in India‘ only to abandon it as no one takes it seriously.
imagesThe first confrontation a working person has with old age is retirement.

Retirement is traumatic. When 59 years, 11 months and 29 days old, you are an earning member doing your duties diligently. The very next day you are considered useless. From a contributor to the economy, you become a human parasite, a burden on the society and on your own family.  In the USA Continue reading Are You Retired But Not Tired?

When Scribes Turn Dalals

planA petition  was filed in the Supreme Court last  Tuesday  January 3,  by an eminent journalist, Hari Jaisingh, asking for the
constitution of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) for a court-monitored probe against some journalists who wrote in favour of the AgustaWestland VVIP helicopter deal of the earlier Congress government,sc-pil

Jaisingh  alleged that  journalists were paid Rs. 50 crores to support the scandalous deal in connection with which the former Indian Air Force chief, S. P. Tyagi and some others were arrested. The scandal was unearthed by foreign newspapers.

Aircraft purchase and journalists looks like an unlikely connection. Hari Jaisingh is not one of those so-called journalists editing sensational rags. He was editor of mainstream dailies including those of The Tribune group and author of several books Continue reading When Scribes Turn Dalals

Fight to Stop Perverts

crimes-against-women-in-indMass molestation of women on Bengaluru’s most important streets -MG Road and Brigade Road-during New Year revelry, is a week-old story. Even as the public outrage is still on, come reports of a 24-year-old woman molested in Baghpat (UP) by four men who also chopped off her ears for resisting rape  and of molestations heralding 2017 even in Delhi and many cities..

The Times group, especially its news channel Times Now  has started a campaign to  ‘Stop the Perverts’. Karnataka Home Minister G.Parameswara’s first reaction was that it was no Continue reading Fight to Stop Perverts