TIME Strikes, TimesNow Bites

Many will remember that grand ‘pre-screening’ scheme of Kapil Sibal to silence major Internet operators. What you should also recall is that it wasn’t some Indian media outlet that broke the story, it was the New York Times. In much a similar manner the Indian media, and the Congress have  been rattled by certain media events. The disgustful conduct of the Congress over Salman Rushdie during the Jaipur Literature Festival to appease muslims received a resounding slap from the voters of UP. As if that wasn’t enough Rushdie came to India over the weekend for the India Today Conclave and had the choicest words for them. “All the years of kneeling before mullahs didn’t work, Rahul” said Rushdie figuratively spanking Rahul Gandhi and the Congress. It’s a slap for our media too. They didn’t stand up when it counted the most against a communal Congress. Well, just as NYT had exposed the sinister plans of Sibal two other articles the last week rattled the servantile Indian media; one from TIME magazine and the other from the reputed think tank of Brookings Institute. Increasingly, any misdeed of the Congress or UPA now seem to be coming out only through foreign publications while our own media mafia seem hell-bent on covering up for them.

It wasn’t just any other article. It was about Narendra Modi! TIME featured Modi as a cover story and Brookings wrote a sort of two-page essay on him. Both were almost identical in their story – Modi, the most loved and loathed politician in India, an effective administrator and asked the question if he can lead India. That’s it. And suddenly the Skype fell on Teesta Setalvad, Vinod Sharma, Mukul Sinha, Shaktisinh Gohil (Gujarat Congress), Sagarika Ghose, Rajdeep Sardesai and, of course, Arnab Goswami.

A few weeks ago during the 10th anniversary of Godhra it already appeared our media had nothing to really say and was suffering from Modi-fatigue. The lies and untruths about Modi were no more being bought by people. It was clearly ‘Game over for Indian media’ and as with the Sibal censorship plan it is now the foreign media that is reporting on Indian issues with a lot more balance. The same TIME is often lampooned in the US for its bad reporting on US but their world editions do report fairly on other countries. You can expect a similar behaviour from Indian journals where you will find them being more objective about Syria or Egypt but absolutely biased and untruthful when it comes to India. This is obviously because in India our media is driven by their own political agenda of serving the Congress. TIME and Brookings do not have such a compulsion.

Teesta Setalvad (who else?) naturally responded by stating it was a PR exercise by Modi. She brandished Frontline and Outlook magazines, with cover stories about Modi and Gujarat riots, as proof of TIME not being reliable. Oh yeah! Frontline and Outlook are fountainhead of honesty and fair journalism, in her dreams. The Gujarat Congress responded with: “Even Laden and Saddam Hussein were featured on TIME cover”. They forgot Gandhi and Nehru were also on TIME cover so Shaktisinh Gohil and Arjun Modhvadia, Gujarat Congress leaders, may now need to ponder if Gandhi-Nehru are also in the same league as Laden and Saddam. Sagarika Ghose of CNN-IBN, the journalistic-bimbo, even suggested TIME may not help Modi escape his “Image trap”. Haha! If the articles in TIME and Brookings were worthless why were these people so worked up and agitated? ‘Pulitzer winner’ Shobhaa De (Yes her name has two As) even asked “Who reads TIME magazine anymore… drop all the fuss about Narendra Modi, who cares”? LOL! Yes, she doesn’t care that’s why she had to tweet her wisdom over the issue.

The best, of course, was saved for by TimeNow. Nobody does it better than Arnab the Armpit. His pompous suggestion: “India is too big to be determined by opinions in TIME or Brookings”. Nobody said TIME or Brookings were in any way the opinions of India but you can trust Arnab to see imaginary devils. And he brought the Congress spokesperson, Vinod Sharma of Hindustan Times (Yes the same guy with the DGP Rathore smirk), to set the record straight. I don’t think TIME or Brookings may influence many opinions but they surely managed to rattle Vinod Sharma into a Raging Bull, who wasn’t willing to let anyone else speak. What’s Vinod’s argument? That he would have accepted an article favouring Narendra Modi in ‘The Economist’ rather than TIME. After his fretting, fuming and kicking and screaming for a few minutes Vinod Sharma had to be chastised by India’s Bahu, Smriti Irani. After being badgered and interrupted frequently, she had a good estimate of how Agent Vinod might be treating his staffers and had to remind him: “I am not one of your staff writers that you can snuff out… let me finish”. From being a great alternative to Congress channels like NDTV and CNN-IBN Arnab has reduced TimesNow to a mere doormat of the party. Worse still, like the other two cousins TimesNow too has started quoting tweets in support of their nonsense.

I could hardly believe on being told by friends on Twitter that TimesNow quoted a tweet of mine during the hearings against TIME and Brookings. I really have to wonder if TimesNow has sunk that low to be quoting MediaCrooks, an account that regularly lampoons our media. So it was indeed a surprise on learning they quoted me as under:

@Mediacrooks: “India is too big to be determined by a TIME or Brookings article..” 

I should be so lucky and thrilled that a news channel should be so fair and balanced to quote one of its most consistent critics. Ah well, some clerk at TimesNow forgot to read the name and the account handle. Enthusiasm! The actual tweet read as under:

@Mediacrooks: “Arnab, If India is too big to be determined by a TIME or Brookings article why are you debating it? Who r u fooling? @thenewshour @timesnow”

This is not the first time a news channel has misquoted and misused a tweet to appear as if it supports the channels theory. That’s the lesser problem. But it is this same twisted manner in which news reports are made or stories are spun in the media that should be of concern to any viewer or reader. It is the consistent lies that the India media has perpetrated that make articles by TIME and Brookings not so much about Narendra Modi but about exposing the lies of our media. That’s why it hurts them.

All the carefully crafted lies and untruths about Narendra Modi and Gujarat were already coming undone in bits and pieces. But they are now coming undone in torrents. The media mafia’s turf is under constant threat by the likes of Rushdie, TIME, Brookings and more will come up from abroad. TimesNow is not the only one using lies to peddle their debates. It’s a disease across the Indian media. TIME has struck, one can only hope our media hears the bell tolling. 

Update: Here's a screen shot of TimesNow manipulating my tweet.Thanks to @DilipSanchora who sent this in: