Nilim Dutta - New Feather In Media Mafia's Cap

Did you read the post “Pots & Panellists”? If you didn’t, here’s a small piece from that one:

All our TV channels have a database of panellists. Let me explain. Supposing a channel is doing a debate on politics the ‘booker’ (the guy who books the panellists for the show) types in “Politics” as a search-term into the database and up come Vinod Sharma, SwapanD and so on. You type… “Anything on Women” you are guaranteed to get Mamta Sharma of the NCW. You search “Elections”... Yeah you guessed right, you’ll get Yogendra Yadav & Co. You type “Islam”; you will likely get Zakir Naik and Shah Rukh Khan. You type “Expert on everything” you’ll get only one name: Suhel Seth. It’s like a Cola vending machine. You press a button and out pops a panellist. What’s the context? We’ll get there in a bit.

In meantime let’s understand journalism a bit more. This is an interesting transaction between two friends; Barkha Dutt and Swapan Dasgupta. The lady fondly recalls Gandhiji on his death anniversary on January 30 and wishes we could celebrate him in a more ‘organic’ way. You can see SD’s light-hearted response. Now if you don’t know SD, he’s a killer of unsuspecting celebs with his subtlety. For the most part at least two of the Gandhi concepts that SD mentions are out of fashion. It’s the third one that Barkha picks on. Considering January 30 is a “prohibition day” across India she reminds SD and asks “guess which state has prohibition”? Umm, let me think, it can’t be Puducherry. It’s definitely not Goa. Assam? Nope. The little smirk at the end of her question tells me Barkha is thrilled at having another pot shot at a state she is not famous for being affectionate with because of that man with the silver hair and beard. But this is the alarming obsession with which our media picks their spokies, panellists and writers. One such product has landed them in some serious embarrassment; Nilim Dutta.

Barkha may not have anticipated even in her great nightmares of Narendra Modi the cheeky, stinging reply that was to follow from SD. And when he says “the one you don’t acknowledge is Indian” and refers to Kashmir he leaves it unclear if by “you” he only means Barkha or a whole lot of other people. Prohibition in Gujarat has existed since it was born. Prohibition in Kashmir is the handiwork of Mullahs and extremists and not the law. So last year in July-August when Assam was burning our media mafia desperately needed an ‘expert’. No matter how many times they pressed the “Assam button” in the ‘expert-vending’ machine they could get only one name; Arnab Goswami. Hmm! But that guy had already joined the Judiciary and was running his own court on TimesNow. Arnab was also probably the only media celeb to attend the funeral of Bhupen Hazarika; remember? So they had to pick someone else.  

When it comes to Assam (or North-East as they generally refer to that unfashionable territory) they had all kinds of excuses to avoid coverage. You know, like Rajdeep Sardesai’s “deaths being lower than Gujarat2002, lack of OB vans, tyranny of distance” and all that. Damn! We run the mafia and we don’t have a local boss in Assam? We don’t have a ‘Wiseguy’? So maybe all the TV channels and poodles in the tabloids and newspapers looked up Twitter. Lo and behold, look what the cat brought in! The perfect Rat! This guy gave proof on December 6, 2011 that he wanted to chew LK Advani’s balls. And when they found the guy was equally anti-Modi they couldn’t believe their luck. Jackpot! So Nilim Dutta became the Assam expert for all them. Tehelka (yes even the ones who use call-girls for journalism), Firstpost, Indian Express, The Hindu, the online site Kafila, NDTV, BBC and others were thrilled to bits. For the media celebs on Twitter he became the Saint from Assam. Nobody cared to fact-check, nobody cared to do a background check.

Nilim Dutta (ND) knew everything. He knew about Assam, about Bodos, about Bangla Desh. This guy was a ‘secular’ expert on everything just like Suhel Seth. Most of all, ND was a champion of the “secular” theory that the whole illegal Bangla immigrants was rubbish and this gave our media morons the weapon they wanted to counter the truth about the riots and the long standing strife in Assam. They were so carried away that they didn’t even bother to check who the guy is or what he does for a living. They were thrilled that he was running some “Strategic research and analysis organisation” which had its headquarters in the independent country of Facebook and a branch office on Twitter. What amazes me is that the guy was being exposed by Tweeple all along and still the media toasted him as a great find. You see, if you bear hatred towards Narendra Modi you are entitled to Gold Membership in the MSM club. That’s the only qualification you’ll ever need. When the moment arrived, our media was there to hand out a Platinum card to ND.

Raju Das from Assam lists ND’s minor achievements in a tweet. Other than that, ND also led people to believe he was a RAW agent (and yes secret agents do go around telling people they are that). He managed to fool Barkha Dutt and NDTV because, as I’ve shown, anyone anti-Gujarat is a hero and an expert. Sreenivasan Jain of NDTV runs a pathetically ironic show called ‘Truth V Hype’ and it borrowed ND (No, don’t confuse, NDTV doesn’t stand for Nilim Dutta TV). Then there’s Tehelka, whose editor Shoma Choudhury is the female version of Suhel Seth. She too is an expert on everything and hangs around TV studios and Litterfests most of the time. I can understand these guys, but following their choice of ND as an expert, even some reasonably careful sites like FirstPost got fooled and even the Beeb got fooled.

When Nilim Dutta was finally arrested he tweeted being assaulted by the police instead. Friends like Pritish Nandy urged MoS RPN Singh (spouse of an NDTV anchor) to intervene. RPN Singh, who is a follower of Gandhiji’s “peace model”, immediately swung into action and called up Assam police. Educate yourselves: If you choose the career of a fraudster you have better chances of protection from the mafia and action from the highest offices of this land. In their haste to debunk the truth about Assam the media mafia picked up a guy with a dubious history. Rediff even points out: “Dutta, according to the police, is a serial offender in this regard. He was arrested and released on bail on 2004 on similar charges. The only difference is: this time he has Twitter celebs backing him, at least until now”!

You can read the rest of the story everywhere in the media now and have a good laugh. Crooks who were defrauding the nation with their fake programmes, debates and articles can also get screwed by one of their own wiseguys. The best was that when ND was being arrested he had someone use Twitter to send a message that he was being “assaulted” by the police and that his ankles were broken by them. Turns out he was actually trying to jump out a window to escape. Nothing captures this better than this pic (Thanks to @Surnell who tweeted this). Long back I wrote about “India’s biggest mafia” and with sound reason. Every crime and activity you can find in the regular mafia, you can find in our MSM too. So there’s nothing to worry. The media mafia just added another feather in their proud cap.

BanglaDesh & Pakistan Must Be Laughing

The GOI made a spectacular discovery on August 18. They discovered that all the images and reports about Muslims being killed in Burma and which provoked riots at various places in India came from around 76 websites. Importantly, a large number of them were from Pakistan. So blame it on Pakistan. Okay! This was our media tom-toming a statement from Home Secretary, R.K.Singh. After the violence in Azad Maidan, Mumbai, on August 11 there was a sudden exodus of NE people from Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore. This exodus was stated to be based on fear-mongering by SMS threats and blew up to a large scale on the evening of August 15. Depending on where the moon rises, the number of NE citizens who have fled mostly southern cities ranges from 20000 to 30000, according to our honest and reliable news media. Go ahead, choose your own number!

Since the Assam violence started our media has offered us many excuses to not cover the events thoroughly. Logistics, not enough deaths, no OB vans and the hilarious list can go. What is amazing is none of them are even willing to report the truth that is right in front of them. Maybe the National Broadcasters Association (NBA) decided once again not to report Muslim violence as they once did when riots occurred over a mosque in the Jangpura area of Delhi. On August 17 after Friday prayers a group came out in Lucknow to continue protests over Burma and Assam. They also vandalised public property as also statues of Buddha and Lord Mahavir at public parks. They also attacked media personnel who were covering the event but images of the violence did get around.

It seems TOI didn’t know which group was indulging in the violence in Lucknow even as the police looked on helplessly. Well, TOI gave us a thorough description of these people in their report. I quote: “LUCKNOW: A mob tried to disturb communal harmony in Lucknow by indulging in violence and arson under the garb of agitation to protest violence against Muslims in Assam and Myanmar. Around 50 people dressed as Muslims, wearing skull caps and scarves, created ruckus in the crowded Hazratganj area violence soon after Friday prayer”. Garb? Dressed up? Oh well, that’s how media reports when it comes to a certain group. I was naturally curious after the TOI report and after extensive research found that it was a disgruntled group of angels from Puerto Rico that had dressed up as Muslims and were agitating in Lucknow. Something even tells me they are disgruntled because they were agitating for gay rights in their homeland. I wish TOI had gone a bit further and blamed Puerto Rico just as our govt now blames Pakistan.

That Lucknow bit was fanciful from TOI. But what about those wild SMSes that sent out threats to the NE folks to quit. Nothing to worry! You see, faster than police or any intelligence agency can investigate, our media ‘exodus-specialists’ have all the answers. There is the Social Genius, of course, and we now have Johny-come-lately Mihir Sharma. This bimbo sounds like a conspiracy specialist. No, I’m not talking about Sagarika here! 

Both the Social Genius and Sharma imply through their tweets that the Hindu RSS had spread the threats and were then playing angels helping the fleeing North Easterners at Bangalore station. While Sagarika asks “What is the agenda here?” Sharma even modifies a tweet to make his implications pretty clear. It’s RSS who should be nailed for this.

After all the sermons over keeping rumours out, not spreading fear and doling out sympathy for the victims what do our media charlatans do? They do exactly the opposite of what they preach. Spread rumours, spread hate and even spread hate against those who were helping the NE at Bangalore station. Truth is, they don’t have any more information than you and I do. But it’s alright! Karnataka police on August 18 arrested a few people (Again, Puerto Ricans?) from Bangalore and I quote the TOI report (Damn! This time they disclosed the names, shame on TOI!)

Bangalore: Director general of police Lalrokhuma Pachau claimed police caught three persons sending hate SMSs and MMSs, after a raid at an electronic shop in Koramangala on Saturday. He said the investigating team received information that Anees Pasha, 26… started spreading rumours through SMSs and uploading videos electronically to incite hatred against people from the northeast region…. Anees told police that he and his associates were sending SMSs to a large number of people which wrongly depicted violence in the northeast. Pachau said the mischief played by Anees and his brother, Thaseem Nawaz, 32, of Platinum Court in BTM I Stage, and an associate Shahid Salman Khan, 22, of Teachers' Colony in Venkatapura, had resulted in the panic and fear.

Let’s come back to the Pakistani websites. There are quite a few websites that faked the images of Muslim victims of violence, whether all of them were Pakistani or not. But did the crowds at Azad Maidan gather and indulge in violence because of these websites. It wouldn’t appear to be so. I am once again producing a tweet from someone who received fliers which had those gory images and these leaflets were inviting Muslims to Azad Maidan to join the protest. This was on August 10. Some of the elements at Azad Maidan came prepared with stones, rocks, iron rods for the peaceful protest. These images may have been reproduced from the websites but were the leaflets being distributed by Pakistanis? The invitation to Azad Maidan came through such leaflets, SMSes, Tweets and FB pages. None of the tweets or FB pages appears to have put up any images. So even if there were provocative but fake images on websites what did the damage was probably the printed leaflets circulated by leaders of the agitation which ended up in violence. Were these printed in Pakistan too? The Internet has many provocative images of all kinds. But it is those who used it on the ground in print that resulted in the chaos.

Even so, why did it take so long for the media and govt to get to this information of images on websites? When I saw the tweet and image shown above, a simple search told me these were faked. Like many others, I had also tweeted a link to the site by a Pakistani blogger, Farhaz Ahmed, who had systematically explained the misuse of these images. Some in the online news media even carried articles about these fake pics and the explanation. So how come the govt is now claiming these websites were the one to provoke violence. This reflects poorly on the Intelligence mechanism of the state and the mainstream media. In one stroke the govt has happily blamed Pakistan and our dubious and deceptive media is happy to run that line instead of confronting the govt with actual facts and chain of events. I had tweeted about the web images being fake on August 12. It took the govt 6 more days to realise this? Amazing! What about the media? Were they sleeping too? This information was available all over the net but most in the media were busy blaming Hindus, RSS and even “Third parties”. I would call this criminal neglect by news media of their duties.

Sagarika and Sharma weren’t the only ones spreading rumours. There were many other journalists who indulged in excessive misinformation, hate and sermons to the public. That’s what you get with a compromised media. Far from challenging the govt on the lies about these violent incidents, threats and exodus our media is happy setting the platform for them to spin facts. Expect more lies to follow. According to the media and govt. illegal Bangladeshis weren’t involved in Assam violence. All the other violence was caused by Pakistani websites. Both Bangladesh and Pakistan must be laughing.

Boards Don't Hit Back. Twitter Does!

Every evening our top media celebs go on air with a fixed agenda. They probably have their story-boards ready. Their panellists, whose views are already well-known, are fixed and the anchors' leading questions and their own conclusions are predictable. For instance read this tweet by Barkha Dutt for a discussion on Baba Ramdev: “Is Baba Ramdev's Yoga turning Politics Upside Down? Here's our debate”. (Her timeline says 12.14 am Aug 15, but it’s actually a good 12 hours behind IST as we shall see later). Even if you haven’t seen the program you can easily tell where the debate would have gone. Well, these celebs debate on TV when viewers cannot respond or hit back at their outrageous spin and lies. Then some of them get on Twitter and let loose a stream of mindless and sometimes abusive tweets and expect the same silence. Lately, with the exodus of North East Indians from various cities some of them have been spewing excessively mindless hate through their tweets. Some of them are even comic. But they expect the Twitterati to treat them the same way as when they are on TV. That’s what reminded me of this little clip from Bruce Lee’s “Enter the dragon”. Watch the 4o second clip. 

  

Boards don’t hit back just as Lee tells O’Hara. But after hitting the board O’Hara doesn’t manage to lay a finger on Lee in the entire fight as anyone who has seen the movie would know. Scripted story-boards in a studio won’t hit back. Twitter is not a studio board. It will hit back. People won’t take nonsense lying down and will call the spin and lies for what they are. Now, little Ms. Barkha Dutt believes if she has blocked someone (which maybe many) then reading her tweets is “stalking”. It would be difficult to hammer into her brain that tweets are in a public forum whether she blocks or not. In which case, she should also ask her followers not to RT her. Especially being in the news media every word she utters is liable for scrutiny. Narendra Modi has blocked her media-wise long back. Why is she still following his statements or politics and commenting on them or debating them? Is she stalking Modi? This is the foolish argument of the ignorant. Then these media celebs will say on Twitter what they wouldn’t say on TV because it allows them to talk any nonsense as much as it allows the entire population on Twitter. Then why so much anger and hatred towards a certain group on Twitter? But hey, let’s lighten up. And no better way to do that than with the comic duo of Rajdeep-Sagarika:

So according to the Social Genius Hindus were venting against minorities and she had to prove she was a devout Hindu. Cool! So why is she a devout Hindu? Because her uncle joined Ramakrishna Mission! Now this led to series of hit-backs on Twitter under the hashtag #TweetLikeSagarika. Would she have said this on TV? No, but Twitter is the right place for her wisdom. Few months back Rajdeep wanted to prove he was a proud Hindu. Why? Because he eats steak! Sure, beef eating is a definite sign that one is a Hindu, isn’t it? Now what gives these people the right to believe they can say such things and not be ridiculed? Imagine, they are saying the same things on TV with a lot more polish and diplomacy and political correctness. Fun isn’t it? Alright, I have rarely used the term PaidMedia, I prefer the more honourable MediaCrooks. This being-paid thing annoys Sagarika immensely. She rages at those who insinuate that some media celebs are on the Congress payroll. Very unfair! But don’t trust my word, look at the following tweets:

In October 2011 Sagarika’s protégé, the political reporter covering Congress, Pallavi Ghosh tweeted about some being on the Congress payroll. Umm.. that is not some abusive Twitter monster making the accusation but an insider saying it, isn’t it? Now, why should anyone believe that doesn’t apply to Sagarika’s media outlet too? Imagine, both Sagarika and Pallavi are debating this on TV and one is making this accusation and the other is raging. Would they? No, but Twitter allows this and yet Sagarika is outraged and calls it Fascism. You see, journos say things and forget and expect that others will forget too. Unfortunately, Twitter and Internet caches are very unforgiving. They hit back!

Okay, fun part is over. Let’s get to some serious business. The NE exodus from various cities in India has been disturbing to the nation over last 2 days and nights. But media played down Pune, Hyderabad and the focus was strongly on one city – Bangalore. Again, not very hard to guess why, is it? So Barkha Dutt, who was silent through most of Assam and Azad Maidan violence came alive on the night of August 15 and was tweeting about the exodus from Bangalore which was raging like fire on Twitter. Here are some of her tweets (Once again, for some reason, her timeline stamp is about 12 hours behind IST):

So first there was ambiguity. Then she tweets the trains were booked in advance. Where was the report from? No mention at all? I guess the Twitterati she loathes so much also feed her information. And she is the one who preaches not to spread rumours. Who’s spreading unreliable information here? Here’s more from Barkha:

So, from trains booked in advance it turns out there were rumours forcing NE citizens to flee Bangalore. And then she says about the Karnataka minister: “Good for him”! Naturally, many picked up on this stupid statement. I doubt if Barkha has still realised that. On the night of August 15 she was tweeting as much based on rumours and tweets as anyone else, yet only the Twitterati are rumour-mongers and inciters. Never mind!

No matter what the situation you have to be “prim and propah” with your English and terminology. That’s Barkha’s rule (which, of course, doesn’t apply to her but all others). When the Sikh killings happened in Wisconsin, USA she tweeted: “Btw can we please just call a gurudwara a gurudwara. Sat Sri Akal”. It didn’t matter that the Gurudwara itself had a board calling itself a “temple”. Someone (@KittuKrithika) also pointed out the holiest shrine of Sikhs is called “Golden Temple”. So the preacher also tells you what titles and terms to use. That’s exactly what she objected to when people used the words “flee” and “exodus” for NE people leaving Bangalore. Nice, isn’t it? Here was my response: 

Really? She has conveniently forgotten all the times when she referred to or allowed her panellists to refer to the ‘Communal riots’ in Gujarat as Holocaust, Pogrom or Genocide. Then she calls usage of the words flee and exodus as rumour mongering. By the usage of those words or allowing it on her channel about Gujarat has she not deliberately allowed rumour mongering and even untruths on her own shows? Such is the hypocrisy of media celebs that they forget their own crimes and sermonise others. Their only hope? That people would have forgotten their past crimes.

Note: Her original tweet actually said "WORD are crucial (Singular) as RT'd by me. She deleted that and corrected to "WORDS are crucial" (Plural). Admire her Grammar-sense! (The original tweet containing "word" in singular, although deleted, still remains on Internet records).

So their loathing, hatred and venom for a certain group on Twitter converge in one way or another. Nothing explains that better than these two almost identical tweets:

I have no regrets in stating that celebs like Rajdeep, Barkha, Ashutosh, Sagarika and a few more are divisive enough in the debates they conduct on TV. It is a luxury they have that ordinary men and women don’t. But they also want the best of both worlds. They also want to use Twitter to rage and trash people, which they also do on TV with no one to hit back. And when the Twitterati hit back, they complain about the noise and even accuse them of bigotry, malice and hate.

Unfortunately, bigotry, hate and malice existed much before the advent of Twitter or social media. Many of the inventors and campaigners were in the mainstream media. It’s just that our celebs would do anything to have it silenced through constant accusation of social media crimes. Sure, there may a very tiny group of extremists in social media as in the mainstream media and anywhere else in society. But these media celebs hardly qualify to be the moral police for any media. Each one has broken many ethics codes of journalism. Unlike their protected studios Twitter is not a story board. Twitter will hit back and sometimes it will hurt. 

Excuses For Assam

For a change conflict-heroes like Barkha Dutt and Rajdeep Sardesai weren’t reporting from the ground on the Assam situation. Hardly any great incentive there for anyone, not even one of bringing down a govt or tarring a Chief Minister. As the violence in Assam flared, even on July 25, all our channels were running programmes on Pranab Mukherjee as president right through the day. Sure, they had to repeatedly show Pranab taking the oath, given it’s the first time ever an oath was administered to a president-elect. When they managed to remember Assam they had to hunt for titles for the violence. Communal violence, ethnic violence, Bodo-Bengal Muslim clashes and so on! They didn’t seem to be sure what to call it but soon every one settled for “Ethnic violence”. Ethnic sounds a lot more moderate and fashionable than ‘communal’. Doesn’t it? Much has since been written and aired about Assam but very few seemed to deal with proper facts and sequence of events. It’s also not what they didn’t or couldn’t report but the reasons or excuses they brought up that should make interesting reading.

And what could be a better reflection of journalistic ethics than that practiced by Rajdeep as his tweet shows. More died in Gujarat than Assam he says as reason for media coverage. Well, you can’t fault RS for vision and foresight. When he landed in Ahmedabad to report the 2002 riots he was pretty sure the toll would cross 1000. Just a minute! When did he come to this lousy figure of 1000 though? For years NDTV and CNN-IBN, both homes for Rajdeep, had thrown up any number for Gujarat; from over 2000 killed to over 3000 killed. They also made you believe it was ‘genocide’ or it was a ‘pogrom’ in which Muslims alone were butchered. At the time here’s a bit of what Rajdeep wrote on Gujarat: 

“…And now in Gujarat, the accusation is of (media) ‘inflaming communal passions’ when the fact is that the flames of communal hatred have been stoked by a mob, a section of which at least has been patronised by the ruling establishment in Gandhinagar”. The numbers Rajdeep reported and even concocting without any solid evidence that the mob was patronised by the govt could have very well come from Digvijay Singh or any Congress member. Umm.. it must be hard to find such intelligence on clashes in Assam. Later, on the same day of July 24 Rajdeep tweeted an apology for his insensitive tweet. (He says tweet of previous night although it was on the same morning of July 24.) Typically, after his apology RS asked if other tweeters would apologise for questioning his integrity. Integrity? That’s laughable. The lies through Rajdeep’s tweets and reports and of his channel are all too many to qualify him a liar, integrity is too far a bridge.

If Rajdeep’s apology was a lightning bolt of conscience the deputy editor of CNN-IBN couldn’t be left behind. In her true bumbling style Sagarika Ghose tweeted about the violence and a majority of those in relief camps being Muslims. Here we go! So I read both the pieces by Samudra Gupta from the relevant dates, here and here. Nowhere do his articles corroborate her statement. 

The first article of his (July 25) even contradicts her statement as does The Hindu, a clip of which someone has pasted with her tweet. That Sagarika feels motivated enough to take on Internet Hindus is one thing but the content of her tweet, like many before, is the kind of integrity that viewers are questioning. Rajdeep doesn’t seem to get it. Does she or Rajdeep ever wonder if they only report to Internet Hindus or to a larger audience who deserve the facts? After all that and after tagging Assam incidents as “Ethnic violence”, accusing IHs as wanting a religions narrative and describing the state as a complex cauldron what does SG’s channel run as headline? “Clashes between Bodos & Muslims have killed 44 people dead so far”. That is since 8am on July 27. Religious narrative? That’s integrity of these characters who parade as journalists.

It is one thing for the Indian TV channels not to have been quick enough to be on the scene to report but to make excuses, compare degree or deaths in riots all indicate the degradation of journalistic thought and ethics. Capturing images of violence or damage is not merely for airing those for vicarious pleasure of anyone. Videos and images have also often helped in rendering justice to the victims and during times of trouble get help faster. Most channels do not even have regular reporters in the NE states. Not even in the state capitals. Each time there is an incident someone rushes from Kolkatta or from Delhi, after much heartburn I suppose. Instead of admitting that the NE is off their radar, not politically or financially very attractive some media celebs indulge in a slanging match on twitter.

Ironically, the best report I have read so far in MSM on the Assam situation, clearly sequencing the various incidents that led to the larger flame, is on a foreign journal. Samrat, the Asian Age editor and from NE himself, wrote the report on NewYork Times’ India Ink page. (Violence in Assam has deep roots). His report, sans drama or literary flair, narrates the story of events since May 29 which is hard to find in an Indian news report.

Oh well! If you wanted drama and thrills in a report about Assam, the best place has to be NDTV. As the Congress organised a 10-member panel for Assam NDTV came up with their usual “TOP10” on Assam. The hits just keep on coming. I am surprised they don’t do a countdown of the top 10. The only recent occasion NDTV itself found a good deal of time for Assam and sent some reporter to the state was for their entertainment programme “Will Travel for Food”. As for Rajdeep Sardesai and Sagarika Ghose, what can one say anymore? They couldn’t even find their usual best reporters in Assam – the Citizen journalists. Whether for riots or for other issues will the TV channels at least now alter their approach to NE states and care? One has to remain sceptical or wait for more creative excuses next time instead of scale and degree of riots and deaths.
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