Thank You..

It’s over two and a half years since this blog started. It is with a sense of happiness and satisfaction that I note this blog crossed One Million views on October 16.2012. For a small blog in some corner of the world I consider it a decent accomplishment. I would consider it an even greater accomplishment if it manages to push many more to write. I have, of course, been inspired by many wonderful writers on the net; writers whose names would make a very long list. They aren’t from the regular media. All of them had something in common which I learned: They weren’t just bold, but in writing, they were never afraid of being wrong, they took the opportunity to say what they believed or assessed to be right. In this post I will share a few personal notes.

Like many, I have observed news media for a long time, national and some international. It was a thrill to see TV news channels adopt a strong adversarial role with the govt in the late 90s. It was only in 1999 during the Kandahar episode that I felt something wasn’t really right. Then, it was in 2002 during and after the Gujarat riots that I sensed the channels had gone far beyond reporting. They were actually concocting lies and fake stories. Naturally, most of it was quite shocking and disturbing. Program after program reported over 2000 deaths, 3000 deaths, mass rapes, foetuses ripped apart with no authentic evidence for anything. By 2004 it was pretty much clear that these news channels were not in the news business but in politics. Some NGOs joined hands with the media too. People we thought were social activists were actually “paid political hacktivists”.

I had a TV in a small office from where my partner and I operated an online business. I was mostly alone in the office and hardly watched but had the sound on to catch any sensible news. Then we got to watch the Cash4Votes in 2008 and that too brought outrage but passed. That year the US presidential election was also interesting with the possibility of a black man becoming a president for the first time. So that got a lot of attention. It was soon after that election, on November 26, that late at night I caught some report on terrorist attacks in Mumbai. This went on and on and I watched till 4am next morning before quitting. At home next morning I thought it would all be over but when I got back to office I saw things had gotten worse. On the evening of November 27 I tried calling a TV channel at least 3 times to complain about their terrible coverage of the attacks but couldn’t get through. In the following months I watched the Chetanya Kunte–Barkha Dutt episode over “shoddy journalism” on the net and that was disgusting to say the least. It was evident that media celebs had a clear contempt for social media and bloggers.

In March 2009 I registered the website MediaCrooks.Com but still didn’t write for a long time. At first we wanted to focus on the ‘financial’ channels but then the stock markets had already crashed since October 2008 and there wasn’t much to write. There were many blogs and sites that wrote about politics, religion, history, ideology etc; most of them great ones. Thus the thought of writing about news channels and only about news channels, be it print or electronic. I had no idea what to write other than what would read like complaint letters to a newspaper. The other idea was to write “reviews” of programs but that would have sounded like movie critics. The first post was made on February 2010 and for about 9 months there was hardly any readership for the site. I recall the readership count till November 2010 was around 400 or thereabouts.

It was then on November 18, 2010 that Radiagate broke and when Open magazine crashed, this site carried all the tapes in a single file without interruption. Since then there has been steady increase in readership. MediaCrooks is intended to be a critique of media without meaning to be merely a serious academic exercise. Without sacrificing accuracy and facts it was always and still is meant to be fun-reading.

Among many stories that inspire, one is definitely the story of Bob Woodward (Of Watergate). People may or may not know but Woodward was sent to cover the hearing of the Watergate burglary not because he was a great journalist but because he was an average journalist. His supervising editor even referred to him as a “Schmuck” who could have been fired. Even his newspaper, Washington Post, had initially considered Watergate just an ordinary burglary which is why they sent a ‘schmuck’. The rest is history. Their meticulous research and inquiries should have inspired many of our real journalists. They didn’t use call-girls, prostitutes and spy-cameras for “sting” operations or entrapment. Does it sound a lot like our very own J. Gopikrishnan of 2G fame? I also rely on the P&G principle: “Facts count, Opinions don’t. What is right is more important than who is”. Even in medical situations an opinion is usually a ‘considered assessment’.

In the current context the media will have us believe that corruption fighters like Anna Hazare or Arvind Kejriwal have come up because politicians have become unaccountable or have decimated our institutions. Only partly true. This is an outrageous half-truth that is being spread. Their spurious argument is that these activists have taken the place of the Opposition in a democracy. This is as far from the truth as Russian is from Tamil. These activists have come up because our media has failed. Our media has stopped being a watchdog. Whatever IndiaToday unearthed about Khurshid may have been possible with all other scams too. Our media failed. Whatever other scams were unearthed by CAG could have been done by the media too. How many times have media used RTI to expose govt misdeeds? Why should a country even need specialist “RTI activists” as they call them? If a small journal like The Pioneer and J. Gopikrishnan could expose the 2G scam what does it say about other news media with greater muscle and influence?

Far from exposing, many in the news media have, in fact, been operating as defence lawyers for the criminals in the govt and politics. With most media celebs swarming around NCR like insects attracted to the honeypot, they fail to acknowledge most crimes have happened right under their own noses. Much of the news media is also now a “political party” that is part of the crime. The anti-corruption activists have replaced not politicians or Oppositions but the news media which is too busy with Bollywood, Saas-Bahu stories, silly Cricketainment and Tamasha in general. At a time like this investigative journalism should have peaked but in India it’s practically dead. That is why I consider a corrupt media the first and biggest threat to our democracy more than politicians.

Many posts on MediaCrooks have been based on readers’ comments. Many have come through emails that I receive. Where possible they have been acknowledged. There are many individuals who have recommended the blog through Twitter, Facebook, SocialMedia forum and even in private circles. Many SM sites have reproduced posts from here. There are professional online news sites that have used content from here. Even IAC has prominently featured some posts on their site. I would love to thank every individual and entity that helped to spread the blog and its message. Naming each of them would make a very long list and run into many posts long.

I would just like to thank all of you for reading and for supporting this site. It is more than I ever expected. I also hope many more such sites come up and many more write about issues that concern all of us in general.

 

Stenographers & Stray Dogs

Whenever a political turn or event happens who do our reporters run to most? You guessed it – Digvijaya Singh. And what does he offer them? Nothing but filthy utterances against others and mindless statements that aren’t even fact-checked. His own party is on record stating that his statements are not “authorised”. Yet, DS with no political position or responsibility and clearly over-the-hill, is the Guru for most TV editors. The reporters seek his comments like Stenographers and faithfully relay it. By evening, on many occasions, based on his silly utterances, you will find DS doing a full-fledged interview with Barkha Dutt, Rajdeep Sardesai or Rahul Kanwal. It’s a well-planned and organised routine. Did I just say ‘stenographers’? My apologies, someone else has a different take about stenographers. We will get to that.

Let’s call this paragraph Chapter- C for reference: Can you figure out who this guy is? “He was overjoyed… He did his mandatory piece to the camera and rushed to office. Once his script was done, he waited for a call from his Editor. No call came. For hours, video editors sat with the material. He was not allowed inside the editing bay. "I sat in a corner of the office like an outcast though I was the key person in the investigation," he recalls. And then, all hell broke loose. All he could hear was two words as an explanation for the volte-face: ‘inconclusive evidence’. The editor, who had not talked to him so far, asked if he needed police protection. For what, he asked? "I felt like a stray dog," he says and then resigned from the channel and took a bus home”. Sounds like an errand boy, doesn’t he? But he’s a reporter. His channel made him feel like a stray dog as he says. The man could well hold the key to one of the most infamous episodes in India’s political and media history but his story was shut out because his channel and his boss wanted to suppress the story.

Meet Amber Lyon, she has a similar story. She’s not a journalist covering India and the story may not have a direct relevance but her channel, CNN, does have a stake in India. Let me just quote the story (edited excerpts) from LibertyBlitzkrieg:

The Amber Lyon story is just the latest in a series of articles that expose the total Joseph Goebbels like censorship rampant in mainstream media today… This is precisely why alternative media sites are taking off.  They provide the only outlets left for genuine journalism… Back in March 2011, CNN sent a four person team to Bahrain to cover the Arab Spring.  Once there, the crew was the subject of extreme intimidation amongst other things, but they were able to record some fantastic footage.  As Glenn Greenwald of the UK’s Guardian writes in his blockbuster:

In the segment, Lyon interviewed activists as they explicitly described their torture at the hands of government forces, while family members recounted their relatives’ abrupt disappearances…She spoke with government officials justifying the imprisonment of activists. And the segment featured harrowing video footage of regime forces shooting unarmed demonstrators, along with the mass arrests of peaceful protesters.… Despite these accolades, and despite the dangers their own journalists and their sources endured to produce it, CNN International (CNNi) never broadcast the documentary. Even in the face of numerous inquiries and complaints from their own employees inside CNN, it continued to refuse to broadcast the program or even provide any explanation for the decision. To date, this documentary has never aired on CNNi…. In March 2012, Lyon was laid off from CNN as part of an unrelated move by the network to outsource its investigative documentaries. “At this point,” Lyon said, “I look at those payments as dirty money to stay silent. I got into journalism to expose, not help conceal, wrongdoing, and I’m not willing to keep quiet about this any longer, even if it means I’ll lose those payments.”

The ‘dirty money’ Lyon is referring to is the ‘severance package’ she got from CNN for getting rid of her. And just like the reporter in Chapter-C she too must have felt like a stray dog. Naturally, most editors have turned their ground reporters into stenographers who take a dictation and transmit the sound-bites. Reporting that is fine but there is no follow up from the studio staff or anchors to “verify the correctness and accuracy” of those sound-bites. Anything that is sympathetic to the ruling party passes without any challenge. But hey, that’s an insult to even stenographers as Glenn Greenwald brilliantly explains in his article "Inept Stenographers":

Journalists' excuses for their bad behavior -- it's necessary to get quotes -- are both fictitious and irrelevant…. A common criticism of establishment journalists entails comparing them to stenographers, on the ground that most of them do little more than mindlessly write down and uncritically repeat what government officials say. But stenography is a noble and important profession: they’re the court-licensed officers who, with astonishing speed and accuracy, transcribe the statements of all witnesses, lawyers and judges in judicial proceedings. If establishment journalists were to replicate actual stenography, it would be an improvement on most of the work they produce….  “And that explains why establishment journalists provide this service to these political officials: because they serve them as spokespeople, not report on them adversarially”.

Think of the journalists who are embedded with a political party. You can easily identify them on TV. They even interpret body language of ministers or even Sonia Gandhi for you. You can also easily replace any party spokesperson with these journalists. They have become the spokespeople. I agree with Greenwald, Stenographers are far nobler. Crony media bosses treat some of their own as stray dogs as the reporter in Chapter-C feels. Then there are stray dogs elsewhere too. You will suddenly find them spinning strange theories. Sometimes it will be in support of the ‘cronies’ who can’t tolerate any criticism. Sometimes they will suddenly unleash a campaign for Priyanka Vadra as PM candidate. Oh do remember, at times like these they will refer to her as ‘Priyanka Gandhi’ for effects.  NYTimes itself admitted that MSM news is nothing but censored propaganda. If that can happen in a true ‘free speech’ society, imagine what it would be in India.

Gallup, the respected research company, published a poll on reliability of TV and newspapers in July 2012. They carried out a survey to find out confidence of Americans in the media. Not surprisingly, the confidence in TV news has fallen from 46% in the early 1990s to a low of 21% in 2012. Newspapers didn’t fare any better. From a peak of 51% around 1978 the confidence has fallen to 25% in 2012. This kind of decline would be true for India too except that there is no one measuring it. There is no one acting as watchdog over our MSM either. This gives them the license to run their propaganda and lies unhindered. Now that’s where opportunity lies for people to open up alternatives. Nope, not for more news but for the Truth.

So what about the guy in Chapter-C? One has to wonder how much he was Censored. That "feel like a stray dog” is Sidhartha Gautam of CNN-IBN who quit immediately after the Cash4Votes sting that he was ordered to conduct. That Editor is none other than Rajdeep Sardesai. Why did Gautam quit? Was there a severance package like with Amber Lyon of CNN, IBN’s partner? Gautam, according to his new employers, gave a “rehearsed” testimony to the parliamentary committee on C4V. (IndiaToday August 5, 2011). The 2nd para that I called Chapter-C is also about Gautam from an India Today article of April 6, 2011. Stenographers are noble. Treating ground level reporters as stray dogs is the tactic for some editors to run their well-oiled propaganda machinery. With the ruling party in trouble again, another C4V is not too farfetched.

Infamous Five & The Freedom Of Screech

From: The Sunday Guardian

It is over a year since the post “India’s worst journalists” was made here but it continues to remain a popular one. Some of the names from that post have dropped off the journalistic depths they once occupied and aren’t as active lately – Vir Sanghvi, Suzy Roy, Prannoy Roy. However, where TV is concerned, there are five who have made sure nobody uproots them from their thrones in the dungeons of journalism. ‘Hello Arnab, you know me, now meet my lawyer please’! Isn’t that nice? Now what else would Arnab want for his Kangaroo court? That’s from my post in August 2011 titled “Sanjiv Bhatt In Arnab's Kangaroo Court”. Yes, on August 9, 2011 one had the rare spectacle of an accused coming to Arnab’s show with his lawyer. That’s when I nicknamed him ‘Justice Arnab’ on Twitter. He seems to wear that title well which has also found wide acceptance as can be seen from the image in this post. Although not much has changed in the list of India’s worst journalists,  it is for the first time that a regular web magazine The Sunday Guardian (Dec 18) has taken a humorous look at the comic five and their screeching contests. (I will quote Nandini Krishnan’s article “Give me a break from screeching anchors” in SG generously in this post). Krishnan has also coined an interesting term; FASS (Fellow Armchair Solution Specialist) which quite describes the TV lot. Of course, I don’t consider the worst five journalists anymore, they are celebs and collectively they are India’s worst media celebs. Hard to place them in any particular order so we’ll just go alphabetically.

1.   Arnab Goswami – He is undoubtedly the only one who has broken all barriers of sound. His penchant for throwing an unending number of questions, most of which don’t have any answer could have made him a better quiz master. At other times I picture him as a referee at a Baseball game who keeps screaming “strike one, strike two…” and the poor panellist is mostly ‘Out’. He remains the only one who still demands answers from everyone – from politicians, ordinary citizens and even from the nation collectively. His favourite game with panellists is one called “butt and rebut”! That’s a shift from the earlier version which he fondly called “Versus”. I have never quite understood what versus was supposed to mean unless it is ‘Arnab versus everyone else’. It is probable that Arnab is in a permanent contest with his former poor cousins from NDTV and has to out-do them in every which way. To his credit he is not as biased and predictable and with some refresher courses could still make it to a TV journalist from the celebrity he’s become.

2.   Barkha Dutt – The man of the moment or even man of the year, Dr. Subramanian Swamy, once described her.. “As for Barkha Dutt, she's been indiscreet and doing foolish things”. Well, she hasn’t exactly stopped doing those things. She is Phil Donahue, Larry King and Christiane Amanpour all rolled into one. And that’s a bad concoction! Two of those are now retired from their regular shows. It is unlikely the taint of Radiagate will escape her. And true to her arrogance she has neither apologised nor expressed any form of regret. From self-righteous anger to calling dissenters as ‘trolls’ if there is one celeb who prefers monopoly on the freedom of screech she has to be it. Lately she has added another aspect to her persona – she frequently smiles and guffaws on her shows. This is probably on the advice of some image improvement professional. And believe it or not, she is the only news celeb that has credit titles that has a “Barkha’s wardrobe by….”. That’s a unique first for an Indian news celeb. I have to wonder who the Sunday Guardian was referring to with this statement: “She sabotages all effort at surprise attacks by landing up in strategic locations during sensitive operations, and making sure everyone knows she has….Don't forget The Great Defence of Lobbying With a Lobbyist. I was doing a Mata Hari, people, come on! Anyway, Bollywood loves her enough to give all its reporters short hair."

3.   Karan Thapar – In an update to my post India’s worst journalists I had mentioned that maybe he has sobered a bit and conducts interviews with more professionalism.  His two recent interviews with Kapil Sibal and Arun Jaitley are ample evidences of his own motives. To Sibal he asks if the NYT, which exposed Sibal’s censorship plans, had any motives. With Arun Jaitley he directly accuses his party of obstructing parliament rather than asking a question. Gritting his teeth and growling like a wolf is back as his signature style of interviewing.  Well, he still remains the rich man’s Tim Sebastian. The Sunday Guardian is spot on with this comment: "But all of them together still wouldn't be half as annoying as our own Tim Sebastian. His show ought to be called 'Are You Sayin?', with the nasal twang. I think he uses some technique involving high-frequency vocal emanations to make his guests' hair stand on end when he interrupts. He's comfy as long as they cower and cry, but give him someone articulate like Jayalalithaa or Benazir... and he writes a long defence of the interview in the next day's paper."

4.   Rajdeep Sardesai – Along with NDTV,  Rajdeep’s channel can be credited with creating the most spurious awards by news channels. The Indian of the year award is his greatest journalistic achievement as Managing Editor of CNN-IBN. Two things make him famous – one is Old Monk and the other is his regular ‘good-night’ 'kiss' on Twitter. The only problem is he doesn’t stop at good night. And when he finds time for journalistic pursuits he spends most of it talking cricket or finding people who can trash Narendra Modi. Like Barkha’s Radiagate, Rajdeep will never escape the taint of Cash4Votes during his lifetime as a media celeb. He is also known for protecting India’s first family from any question or attacks and his greatest journalistic achievement for the year has to be going to Ramlila and having a picture taken with Anna Hazare. Rajdeep also has to be the most philosophic media celebs around. When he’s not busy talking to cricketers he dishes out sermons through his blog or through twitter. His journalistic epitaph has already been written with his own favourite phrase “Hammam mein sab nange hain”. And his happiness is complete when he finds someone like Sanjiv Bhatt to call Narendra Modi a “common criminal” on his channel which will be played over and over again. As the SG article states: “One pities his co-anchor. She's so soft-spoken and mellow, you can see her flinch every time he yells. You can also see her dabbing her cheek after a particularly emotional outburst. Beware the rain of spittle."

5.   Sagarika Ghose – I cannot confirm but can ask if the SG article was referring to her by this hilarious statement: “FASS shudders! Freedom of speech reminds him of a print journalist we've loathed ever since she wrote an article about Indian men and orgasms. After she moved to TV, her hair's got shorter and her diatribes longer," he mutters. See, she wants to be Oprah, I explain, Sadly, there aren't enough fat people who feel bad about themselves, enough closet gay people in the entertainment industry, or enough couples who want to discuss their crumbling marriages on TV in this country. So, all she can do is wear sleeveless society blouses and pastel saris and milk bereaved parents for tears”. The title I blessed Sagarika with – ‘Cacofonix’ still stands unchallenged. To that she has added an extra-ordinary accomplishment. Her debate on whether spiritual gurus should engage in politics is the most horrendous fraud perpetrated on viewers this year. On being exposed she then went on to claim that the Twitterati and others shouldn’t harass her because she was a woman. The post ‘Sack Sagarika’ explains why she should not have been on TV at all in the first place. She can still go back go to writing soft porn stuff while opportunities still abound.

The PCI chairman, Justice Katju, has been extremely critical of journalists for their lack of intellect and wide knowledge of topics. Subramanian Swamy describes them even better: “ I know from personal experience that journalists do a lot of hack jobs. If wanted, they character assassinate you at the behest of the ruling party. In my case, the media cannot say anything except that I'm a troublemaker, which doesn't sell very well. They don't publish anything I say unless it becomes impossible like now…They've been doing it systematically. When elections take place, many journalists come and ask for money, saying they'll give favourable coverage in return”. Well, some state elections are around the corner. The infamous five will come out with all kinds of opinion polls and needless to mention, it will be bonanza in terms of the moolah for the channels of the comic five and, of course, their freedom of screech will cross new levels for sure.