Transparency! It’s something that the news media demands from everyone;
particularly public officials, businesses and other institutions. This
particular news item, although not from India, makes fascinating reading. In
response to the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rulings that require
TV stations to keep a log and publicly declare political ads received by them
there have been strong objections. And guess who’s objecting? The TV channels
and the media themselves! “Meet the Media Companies Lobbying Against Transparency” would not be very
different if the article were to be written for the Indian media. It is the
news media that of late has been guilty of sacrificing transparency, especially
when it comes to reporting about Gujarat. Naturally, given that Narendra Modi
is the CM, a good number of agenda-driven journalists try their best to drive a
stake through the Gujarat story. On May 2 we had another such extraordinary
deception, this time on the economics and the growth story of Gujarat.
It’s not even a month since the social media put an end to the career
of Abhishek Singhvi when the MSM
chose to hide behind legalese. This time it was the turn of journalists who
were bent on twisting Gujarat’s economic growth story to be dealt a severe blow
by keen observers on the net. So let me quickly run a summary of the story from
Kartikeya Tanna who wrote this in Firstpost (Excerpts):
Yesterday the nation woke up to several articles belittling the Gujarat
growth story. Relying primarily on the Business Standard op-ed by AK
Bhattacharya placing Gujarat’s average growth rate between 2003-04 and 2011-12
at 6.3%, Rediff published a state-wide comparison by the same author quoting
similar data, while Soutik Biswas in a
BBC Asia cynical op-ed popped the question whether, in view of this revelation,
the Gujarat story was a “myth” and Modi a “spinmeister”…. though the 6.3% rate
“puzzled” Bhattacharya, he did not quite bother to double-check. Worse, both
columnists ended up making several conclusions and raising severe doubts on how
and why Gujarat lagged behind. This led many intellectuals and commentators to
gloat over how Bhattacharya had “punctured” Gujarat’s growth claims. Modi was
accused of “peddling” the Gujarat myth. Many independent online forums picked
up these articles and continue to host them. And, all of that was based on a
serious error of fact. Fact, not inference.
Then as has happened often in the recent past, all hell broke loose on
Twitter. Vijay (@centerofright) busted this grossly incorrect assertion by
pointing out the data available on the Planning Commission’s website. It so
turns out that the 6.3% figure peddled around by many was, in fact, the growth
rate of Jharkhand. Gujarat’s average growth rate over the past eight years has
been 10.08%. Repeated efforts by Twitterati to point this out to Business
Standard, Rediff and BBC Asia resulted in corrected versions of the articles
being put up on the websites. Bhattacharya substantially modified the analysis
from statements like “the performance of Gujarat in this period is a puzzle”
and “how does one explain Gujarat” to “Gujarat’s story is well-known and shows
what sustained growth-oriented policies can do to a state’s economic fortunes”.
Biswas had a bigger problem. Having chosen a rather direct title in undermining
Gujarat’s growth, he had to change the title from “Is Gujarat’s red-hot economy a myth?” to “Gujarat IS a red-hot economy”
stating how he “had also wondered whether there was something amiss with
the data on Gujarat in the Business Standard article”.
The screen shots and the original articles and the revised ones can be viewed here, detailed by
@centerofright (Vijay). The idea that the Gujarat story is a myth or mystery
because its growth is 6% (even if a false number) and that other states like
Maharashtra, Harayana etc. had higher growth is first and foremost mere
academics. Numbers never tell the whole story but economics writers do make
sense out of them. In this case though, they made nonsense out of numbers.
Tanna has been kind to the writers and probably treats the blunders as ‘honest
mistakes’. I don’t see any honest mistake. When quoting numbers it is not only
the job of the journalist but also that of the editor of a journal to
double-check facts. The double-digit growth story of Gujarat has been around
long enough to ring alarm bells for these journos when they came up with 6%. And
to be deliberately peddling a story with wrong numbers can only be ‘motivated’. AK Bhattacharya didn’t write
his piece in Filmfare or Cosmopolitan, he wrote his piece in a business journal.
These guys are supposed to keep a watch on numbers even in their sleep. What
about Soutik Biswas of the BBC? He
comes out as an absolute dunderhead.
 |
| Economic stories ARE often deceptive |
It’s a cardinal sin in statistics to use second-hand information as
the foundation of your entire thesis. This is what Soutik Biswas is guilty
of. But hey, this was probably second-hand information that was handy for him
to rubbish Gujarat and Narendra Modi. He is the economics version of Teesta
Setalvad or Shabnam Hashmi or even Sanjiv Bhatt. The fact that Biswas had no
intention but to simply paint Modi as hiding behind fake numbers is evident
from the title of his bullshit itself: “Is
Gujarat’s red-hot economy a myth?”. Usually, titles with a question mark
are used by journalists who don’t care about facts. The second-hand liar, on
being pointed out facts, quickly goes on to change the title to the exact
opposite of his original one: “Gujarat
IS a red-hot economy”.
Regardless of these foolish articles and foolish journalists there’s
another angle to the story which most of these willful deceivers miss. It’s
called ‘Experience’. Be it a
restaurant, a rail company or an airline, people’s association with these is
not driven merely by numbers. It’s the experience they go through that decides
their opinions and relationships. Any marketer would tell you that customers
buy and involve in enduring relationships because of this ‘experience’. I guess
neither Bhattacharya nor Biswas understand that ordinary people don’t form
opinions based on numbers, not even accurate ones. Kiran Shaw, the renowned businesswoman from Bangalore recently
tweeted (May 3): “After putting up with
B'lore's awful roads, its a pleasure to drive on Ahmedabad's roads. Wish Ktka's
BJP Govt cd learn from Modi's BJP Govt”. That’s an ‘experience’ which mere
numbers won’t tell you.
Fact remains, except for motivated liars, most people who visit Gujarat
go through a very different experience than in many other parts of India. The
govt is not in your face every day in Gujarat. Tribals are not in turmoil.
Average Gujarati families live in decent homes with decent incomes. Your
newspapers don’t headline the daily murders and crimes as routine. The girl
child has more programmes than the rest. Your daughter, your wife or sister or
mother is not under constant threat from goons on the streets. Immigrants from
other states are not treated as unwanted intruders. Farmers are not killing
themselves leaving dying declarations blaming some govt. Can it get better?
Sure, Gujarat has many faults and problems of its own but hatred spewed by the
media, either by fake stories or hate by numbers, is of their own imagination.
The other fact also is that the lies on other fronts have failed. The NDTVs, the CNN-IBNs, the Teestas and Bhatts have failed with their game of
untruths and hate. All the fictitious cases haven’t found any merit so far in
courts. What’s left to puncture? Maybe the Gujarat growth story is the last
resort of the scoundrels. Of course, these stories aren't the first. You've had social scientologists like Dipankar Gupta or eminent distortians like Ramchandra Guha peddling such in the past. It’s an election year in Gujarat. But unlike the 2002
riots period and after there is a watchdog over the MSM. Social media doesn’t allow
peddling of lies anymore.
I started with a note on ‘transparency’ aversion of
the media. On a different note here’s a report that further sounds a warning to
MSM: “CNN Loses Half Its Viewers: Corporate Media Downhill Plunge Continues As Alternative Media Explodes”.
India’s net users are set to grow from the current 10 million to 200 million by
2014. So if the Indian MSM doesn’t get its act right soon and stop spreading
lies or suppressing truth they will end up the second choice for news and
facts. We’ve had a taste of social lies in the past by the Modi and Gujarat
haters and now we have economics of deception. These won’t pass anymore.
