The Union Of Snakes

Listen carefully: “..And when the twelfth largest company in the world controls the most awesome, god-damn propaganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this network…  So, you listen to me. Listen to me! Television is not the truth. Television's a god-damned amusement park. Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, sideshow freaks, lion tamers, and football players. We're in the boredom-killing business. So if you want the Truth, go to God! Go to your gurus. Go to yourselves! Because that's the only place you're ever gonna find any real truth. But, man, you're never gonna get any truth from us… We deal in illusions, man. None of it is true! But you people sit there day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds. We're all you know. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to think that the tube is reality and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you. You dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube. You even think like the tube. This is mass madness. You maniacs! In God's name, you people are the real thing. We are the illusion”. Those are confessions and rants of a has-been but reincarnated TV anchor to his live audience. *

The Union of Snakes

Somewhere in a corner of Delhi is a building that houses a union. It’s called the Editors Guild of India. As far as I know, it doesn’t have any website or any information for the public. Once in a while the members meet, have coffee and lunch, and confess their sins and then go back to their regular world of creating illusions. You see, habits have a very strong gravitational pull about them. So they met again on July 6, 2012 to confess their sins and seek redemption. Speakers were editors who were wondering how to address various challenges to the media including paid news. I must make a small correction here. What they are referring to is the ‘news media’ and not any other form of media. Hmm! That’s like snakes in a pit discussing how their oil can be better refined for their snake-oil distributors. So let’s sample a few:

Shekhar Gupta: Anchors in the electronic media on the manner in which they have gone from "becoming inquisitors, have now become judges and executioners". He then cited reporting on the Adarsh as an example of how little the editors cared to cross-check facts which led to "a mythology being built…. senior journalists were embracing the government" and "speaking for the government". Ah well, there is no better mythology in recent history than SG’s Raisina Hill army concoction, a stale one too. It’s revolting to listen to a man who embraces the govt more than any other and whose paper survives on ad doles by the govt. He urged members not be "seduced by the government" by accepting RS nominations or becoming part of any govt panel.That sounds like Moses himself talking doesn’t it? With what moral authority does the man speak? I believe journalists should not only decline RS nominations but not accept any govt awards like the Padma during their active careers. Shekhar is guilty of that too. Forget accepting awards and nominations from govt. the media snakes actually dole out awards to politicians and ministers, the ones whom they are supposed to keep a watch on. How can the watchdogs be rewarding potential crooks? And still claim objectivity and fairness in reporting is their motive or goal?

Here’s another gem from SG: "Indian journos are, afraid of their shadows, waiting for regulation". Simple fact is, no amount of regulation can ever be a substitute for the conscience of an editor or a reporter. Self-regulation is the mythical nonsense that these snakes offer as substitute while selling their soul to the devil at every opportunity. Rajdeep Sardesai, another of those editors, quotes SG: “journalists’ downfall is being caused by arrogance, greed and incompetence”. I wonder which part of that quote doesn’t apply to Shekhar or for that matter any other editor. If Rajdeep really understands that quote he should be looking at Sagarika Ghose on his own channel – arrogance and incompetence personified. In response to being scoffed at for his Raisina Hill blunder Shekhar and his team filed a 500 crore defamation suit against others. And talk about bad timing. SG makes this statement when veteran journalist Kuldip Nayar in his autobiography reveals about him: “He had become arrogant and abnormally affluent”. Abnormally affluent? Shekhar must feel like a schoolboy bunking classes after that remark.

Raghav Bahl, Network 18, said the media needs to regulate the content by itself and does not need "content filters", and criticized the way the media was "purveying virtually by rote half-understood government language. "Government is god, is the stance journalists are taking and end up magnifying what is a wrong hand-out by the government department" he said, putting the CAG report "in that category". Really? Talk about clever trickery by Bahl. Of all the govt departments, the one department that still retains a high level of integrity and trust by people is the CAG. The reason why Bahl cites the CAG report as a “hand-out” is because his channels somehow did not manage to prove the charges in the 2G scam were inaccurate and couldn’t be dumped by Rajdeep & Co. This is as third-rate a snake-oil sales pitch as you’ll ever get in a union meet. And as the rant in the opening paragraph indicates; a giant investment by a corporate giant is the best form of content filter that Raghav Bahl would endorse. Time will tell how Bahl’s media outlets will report on this corporate giant. 

Raghav Bahl? That's a laugh. Like politicians, media barons too think people have short memories. Here's an extract from Girish Nikam, which till date remains a mystery that Bahl has never answered:

What does Raghav Behl, the MD of TV 18(CNBC TV 18 and CNN-IBN), have to say about Manoj Modi (right hand man of Mukesh Ambani) claiming (on June 10,2009) in his conversation with Niira Radia that he told(threatened) him(Raghav) “your organisation is corrupt…. Even factual stories you don’t print about ADAG and you will work for us. I want to know who is the source, Mukesh(Ambani) ko personally attack karega toh main manoj modi hoon, chodega nahin kisiko.——-Raghav said in order to put pressure on me(Raghav himself)— send me(raghav) a legal notice”...... Did Raghav Behl ask Modi to send him a legal notice? If not true, did Raghav Behl get a letter from Modi, making such threats, as Modi claims in this tape and repeatedly asks Niira Radia not to disclose about it to anyone?

In one of the conversations(on June 13,2009) .......Niira Radia remarks that “Sebi investigations is on against Siddharth(Zarabi, Economic Policy Editor, CNBC TV 18), Udayan(mukherjee, anchor and MD CNBC TV 18)....they are getting their wives involved in the (stock) market), and the SEBI investigation is on”. She also goes on to say that Udayan Mukherjee “files the highest tax returns among journalists…… he pays Rs.6 crore as income tax, and he doesn’t even earn that much”. Now what has Raghav Behl and his colleagues named here done about these obviously serious charges? Is what she is saying true? If not what action are they contemplating or have taken? So much for Raghav Bahl's self-regulation.

After a lot of motherly talk about propriety, not pandering to govt, govt is not God and not eating hand-outs from govt, who do they invite? Well, they invite a minister Salman Khurshid and Opposition leader Ravishankar Prasad. Khurshid, the man known best for his smooth double talk! Inclusive growth and sustainable development are the two most abused terms in the 21st century by govts all over the world. So the minister, fond of quotas in every other domain, called for an "inclusive, collective approach" while debating on the criminal aspect of defamation. There you go: “Inclusive”! He said civil suits in defamation could be effective in dealing with the criminal element of defamation. Hmm! Let me interpret that for you. Whenever our current govt mentions ‘defamation’ it mostly refers to offensive material about the Gandhis or cartoons about the Nehru-Gandhi clan. Bad taste and offensive content may not be healthy but they’re certainly not criminal and most content that Khurshid, Sibal & Co. want to filter won’t exactly amount to defamation in a court of law. But he hopes the Union would get the hint. That’s another verbal hand-out that has passed over Raghav Bahl’s head I suppose.  

Do these snakes have the guts to face the real issues instead of spurious issues like regulation? Here are some important observations by Ajit Mohan: “The Rotten State of India’s Media”, in the WSJ December 2, 2011. Excerpts (Emphasis mine):

What is broken about the news media in India is self-evident on the front pages of the dailies in the mornings and on the nightly news on television in the evenings… Frighteningly, the situation is even worse on television channels. Most news channels just do not do reporting anymore. What counts for reporting is usually a small snippet of a roving ‘journalist’ talking to a few randomly chosen individuals on the streets of Delhi and Mumbai for their take on the big controversy of the day. This then segues to what has become the preferred format of all channels: a panel of six to eight ‘experts’, usually spokesmen of major political parties mixed with out-of-work politicians, newspaper and magazine editors, and the day’s representation from the roving celebrity class of lobbyist-PR agent-commentators (whose reason to be on the panel is never quite clear), ranting at each other while struggling to have their screeching voices heard above the incessant screaming of the anchor. All this while the viewer struggles to keep up with the multiple, disjointed layers of scrolling headlines perennially sliding on the screen below the screamers…

So, how did we get here? For a start, the crisis in Indian media does lend credence to the emerging wisdom around the world that objective and independent journalism can only thrive in a non-profit environment, perhaps with the benevolent support of wealthy trusts and individuals. Most major newspapers and television channels in the country are owned by for-profit corporations that understandably have an emphasis on the bottom-line. These organizations invariably have other business interests and relationships that may make objective journalism within their newspapers and channels difficult and inconvenient. Many media outlets are disproportionately reliant on their advertisers – a recent analyst report estimated that nearly 75% of print revenue in India comes from advertising – thus, the temptation always exists to pander to them, especially when these advertisers are the subjects of the reporting. The temptation must also exist to punish those advertisers who choose competing outlets. This drift towards seeking easy ways to pander to audiences and advertisers is exacerbated by the culture of incestuous self-serving relationships.

Go fix that!

I can go and on but I think the ‘real us’ get the message from the snakes every single day. The days of straight and honest reporting have long been buried in every news channel and newspaper. Honest reporters would be an oddity these days. Still, the last thing one wants is any govt intervention or regulation of the news media. It will take another huge Radiagate or a monumental scandal of the media to break to really see any true reforms. Till then the union of snakes will keep peddling snake-oil through their distributors and networks. As the anchor rants “We are the illusion”!

*Excerpts from the speech “We are the illusion” by Howard Beale from the movie “Network”

Quotes in this post are from NYDailyNews and FirstPost.

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Modi's Facts Sting UPA, Rattle Media

The first one was shot dead, the second was beaten to death and the third was stabbed to death…. Relax, that’s not from some silly movie, just our real life CPM (Communist Party – Marxist). Says Firstpost: "His speech was surprisingly vivid in details of the murders that he said the party had planned and executed. He said, the party had made a list of 13 people and killed four of them – all Congress functionaries. “One, two, three, four…” he said narrating the sequence of murders. The star of the foolish street-corner spectacle that plunged the CPM into a fresh crisis is MM Mani, secretary of the party in Idukki in Kerala". Funny part is, why is the CPM killing Congressmen? The CPM is a natural ally of the Congress in ideology. They have been friends and even allies at the centre. What has been revealed is that the butchering of opponents by Communists in Bengal and other places has been a long historical process. Well, shoot, beat or stab to death even criminal parties are friends as long as they keep certain forces out. Um... You can usually tell such forces by the colour: Saffron. In this quest all crimes, murders, corruption, looting of the state or nation, everything can be forgiven.

And when those claiming to be ideological descendants of secular figures like Aurangzeb or Stalin have to fight such forces they won’t fight on “performance’. They will tag them with names: Communal, fascists, extremists and for their biggest performer; they like Hitler or Joseph Goebbels even better. Even members of the rattled, secular media join the chorus. People like Sanjiv Srivastav of Headlines Today or Kumar Ketkar of nowhere. And yes, it gets harder each time to figure which one to name from NDTV and CNN-IBN. Once their leader, Guttermouth Manish Tiwari of Congress, sets the tone, the paid mice in the media happily follow. All this because Narendra Modi not only attended the BJP national meet in Mumbai but also delivered a stinging speech against the UPA. Unable to respond to anything that Modi said, Guttermouth came up with this: "Gujarat CM is a frustrated man. It seems the soul of Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister during the Nazi regime of Hitler in Germany, has gone inside him. He has crossed all limits”. Oh! Haven’t we heard this before? Modi frustrated because Gujarat is failing, farmers are dying in Gujarat, corruption is at an all-time high and he is going to lose the next elections. I can understand that part. The good part for Manish Tiwari is that he’s only caught with his mouth open so far unlike his former media colleague, Abhishek Singhvi, who was caught with a lot more open. So let’s summarise what Modi said on May 24 in Mumbai: (These are excerpts of the essence and not a full translation)

 

On droughts: If the River-linking dream of NDA as conceived by Atal Behari Vajpayee was pursued there would be no drought in Maharashtra. Farmers wouldn’t be killing themselves in Maharashtra. But since UPA came to power in 2004 that dream was killed.

There’s no Neta, Neeti aur Saaf Neeyat (No Leader, Principle/Policy or good Intention). In the absence of these one can see the current state of the nation. Nirmal Baba is in the news these days. The Delhi’s central govt is no different from a Nirmal Baba durbar. UPA promised inflation will be controlled in 100 days if they came to power. They make promises like Nirmal Baba and get their own agenda accomplished.

PM has stated many times over that Naxalism is the biggest threat to the country. Yet, in the report card for 3 years of UPA2, there is not one single mention of naxalism or what actions or measures are being taken to tackle it.  PM has stated Malnutrition is a “National Shame”. That it’s a shame for all Indians. However, in the 3-year report there is no mention of reason or remedial action.

PM often talks of coalition compulsions. Our Foreign Minister (S.M. Krishna) who represents the pride of the country all over the world stands up in UN and reads the speech of Portugal. What coalition compulsions cause such a goof-up? PM is from Congress, Defence Minister is from Congress. Yet, never in our history since independence has the Centre been in consistent conflict and dispute with the Army. What coalition compulsions have created such conflicts?

Madam Soniaji says: “Promises will not do, performance must happen”. This only means all these years they (UPA) were making empty promises and she accepts there has been no performance. From Indiraji’s promise of “Garibi Hatao” there have been only promises and no performances. They merely made promises while practiced vote-bank politics.

There’s a 20-point programme since 1975 for the poor and every govt since then has followed this programme. A govt cell monitors this programme. If one sees the reports of the last 10 years the top 5 performers under this programme are BJP or non-Congress states. I raised this issue with the PM. But instead of asking Congress states to perform, the PM has stopped the ranking of states itself under the programme so the world won’t come to know.

In his 3-year report card the PM mentions national agriculture growth rose from around 2.0-2.25% to 3.0-3.25% - 1%? Is that change? In Gujarat, where 7 out 10 years there are droughts, agricultural growth is 11%. And the PM is claiming a national growth of 1% as a great achievement in his report card. If this 1% national growth continues the nation will sink and people will die. Whatever growth he claims is achieved from the performance of a very few states.

For the first time PM has accepted something in his report card. He has admitted that centre-state relations should improve, which clearly implies he has failed in maintaining these relations. Instead of treating states with respect and honour, the centre treats states like they were the centre’s municipal corporations. The UPA has caused more damage to our federal structure than any other govt. in the last 50 years. To misuse the constitution to constantly destroy states is the handiwork of this govt.

The centre proposed the NCTC which seeks to disarm the state from its law enforcing duties and encroach upon it. But in so many years the centre has not been able to extradite one single terrorist back to India. They are in charge of borders but they haven’t been able to stop the flow of arms to naxals. All money through hawala channels to terrorists are under Centre’s jurisdiction, including RBI. They have not been able to control this. State has no interference in that. Our borders are being infiltrated by terrorists and illegals but BSF is under the Centre but they are not able to stop this. Instead of stopping such infiltration they are playing politics with the states with NCTC.

In our population of 120 crores 50% are women. Yet, in his report card, the PM does not make a single mention of what the UPA has done for them. In a country of youth the PM’s report card has no mention of any skills programme for the youth. When asked, PM had once mentioned they are creating 500 skills programmes. I told him China is doing 50000 skills programmes. There is absolutely no mention of any such programme in his report.

Highly unfair of Narendra Modi! First he dares to read that UPA-3 year report and then he has the audacity to quote from the report and pin-point UPA failures. Even all Congress members, UPA members and God’s messengers in the media wouldn’t have read the whole report. I didn’t see one single program on any news channel discussing the report threadbare. Well, it’s not their job. But NDTV which reported the “Goebbels” tag gleefully has a summary of the report.  Read: Highlights:UPA II releases report card. Some opening lines from the achievement list: We need to…, Despite adverse…, Have to quicken…, Need to improve…, Public frustration and anger…, Difficult decisions…, Urge all parties…! Of course, these achievements are enough for media not to analyse if there are facts and what exactly was promised that is missing. I haven’t seen any thorough analysis.

Now, apart from highlighting Tiwari’s comments through the night and the next day and reporting on supposed infighting in BJP or Ram Jethmalani’s letter to Nitin Gadkari not one in the Congress or their alliance partners, Mainstream media, are yet to challenge the content of what Modi has said. Not one point made by him has been challenged, except an emotional “Crossing the Laxmanrekha on Army” by Tiwari. Ouch! That awful truth about the conflicts with the army must have hurt. Most TV channels blacked out Modi’s speech. Some like Zee TV carried it partly. To my knowledge only Aaj Tak carried the full speech. Rajdeep Sardesai simply couldn’t suffer more than 10 minutes of Modi so CNN-IBN quickly shifted to other stories. All the news channels and even print media were headlining “LKA, Sushma skip rally” as if that were some major calamity. And any discussion, if at all, was about what political moves Modi was plotting. He’s a politician, get used to it!

That Narendra Modi rattles the Congress party is understandable. Why is our hyper ventilating media so rattled? I guess someone speaking facts is at odds with their stated mission of propaganda and spreading lies. After all, didn’t Karan Thapar’s promo on CNN-IBN state: “I don’t want to go into the facts, the facts are disputable”. Yeah.. when it comes to Narendra Modi, facts and truth are unhealthy for the media as they learnt from the SIT report, especially when the ‘honest’ PM and Sonia Gandhi are targets.

Self-Righteous Shill & RTE

Here’s a profound statement from none other than Rajdeep Sardesai: “Bless social media! Power with zero responsibility! Have a good day”. (Twitter April 17, 8.41 am). I can use this particular statement for many debates. That can wait. In a ‘friendly fire’ article Firstpost, the online sidekick of CNN-IBN, dismissed Rajdeep’s silly tweet as sweeping generalisation. Alright, in another tweet (Wee hours of February 5, 12.14 am) Rajdeep says “Tonight time to say F off to those who call us ‘paid media’.We are journalists, not sensationalists or elitists. Gnight”. Hmm! Just months back one of Rajdeep’s colleague, Pallavi Ghosh, tweeted: “..That’s the unfortunate part, came to know yesterday that some journos who I work with closely in Congress are on their payroll”. Pallavi’s tweet was made at 9.53am on October 14, 2011.

Now, would Rajdeep and Pallavi make those statements on their TV channel? I doubt it. But that’s how journos themselves use social media and then complain about it. In response to my post IWJ-2012 another prominent journo tweeted it was “hate”. I asked her how she categorised “lampooning” as hate. She responded stating it was contained in the mail that forwarded her my post and not her own statement. Well, if one stored up all the quotes of journos, most of them would find it hard to believe they actually said those words. Self-righteous shills usually forget what they said or did in the past. That is what brings me to the RTE Act. While much has been said and written about the SC upholding the constitutional validity of the Act it really hasn’t been debated as well in the MSM as it has been in the social media. So Rajdeep would do well not to dismiss social media as having “zero responsibility”. Many of the analysts and writers on social media are far superior to the ones in MSM. Those in the MSM have typically discussed the RTE in a literary flourish rather than with cold logic and facts. Do read on…

“Otherwise, let's be honest - we had become the sort of people who were inured to the sight of a barely-clad shivering child, his tiny stomach ballooned into hugeness by the absence of nutrition, as we indifferently drove past the sight of him huddling with his mother for warmth on a tiny patch of pavement every night. At the traffic lights - where our cars came into enforced confrontation with poverty - and we saw a small hand stretched out for alms, or a disabled man trying to wave a red rose or a magazine at us, imploring us for help - we would barely look up from behind our over-sized designer sunglasses. We would, in fact, sink back into the plush leather of our seats and be extra determined that the story of India would no longer be told in picture-postcards of poverty….  Over the many years that we - the upper middle class - have lived in aggressive denial of the inequalities in our social order, we have become more and more cocooned by our elitism. … That is why the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the constitutional validity of the Right to Education law for all schools - even in unaided private schools - is such a potentially seminal moment for us as a people. And nowhere is our intuitive social snobbery more apparent than in our resistance to the idea of an economically and socially heterogeneous, inclusive classroom…. Others have cloaked their subliminal social biases in apprehensions of a so-called clash of cultures or possibilities of social maladjustment….” Do I hear applause? Thank you!

Ah well, my momentary flash of literary genius has to be exposed though. I didn’t write the paragraph above, it was another literary classic from Barkha Dutt. Extracts from her article “Writes of passage” in Hindustan Times, April 13. That is how you discuss a matter of an Act of Law: in literary flourishes devoid of much logic or cold facts. And pray who is “WE”? Add “Designer sunglasses” and “Plush” leather seats in cars. Is that “WE”? When champions of MSM like Barkha want to transfer their personal life experiences as being of a larger population you don’t need sound logic or arguments for any discussion or article. That is where social media wins and does a better job.

Being in the education domain and one who has interacted with more than 3000 schools, thousands of teachers, thousands of children and parents I do know a little bit about schools and their problems. I was associated with an organisation whose directors built one of the finest schools in India from scratch. The school has become a near pilgrimage for any education professional who visits my city. That school wasn’t built by Barkha’s ‘elites’ for the elites. It was built by a group of IIM-Ahmedabad graduates who set up new standards for schooling and even for teacher education. Even before RTE that school had a practice of enrolling a certain number of slum children along with other students from upper classes. One of the founders lived in a slum for months to understand their needs. And no, they aren’t ‘Jhollawalas’ or NGOs and they don’t wear “designer sunglasses”. Those guys started another organisation with negligible capital to improve the quality of school education in India which is helping schools and even State govts. In another case, a sinking Municipal school was taken over by a private body and turned into a well-functioning school now known as ‘Mahatma Gandhi International School’. To me, the RTE Act is more a political act rather than any real act for ensuring education for all children. And just like child-labour laws it is destined for failure. Why? Govt failures cannot be passed on to private citizens by strangling their freedoms and enterprise.

But let’s get back to Barkha Dutt. She is the Group Editor of NDTV and while writing so passionately about changing caste and other equations and our “middle-class” biases she forgets what her own organisation does for schools and people. If you go back to first few paras of this post you will be reminded how journalists often forget what they did or said in the past. Barkha forgot to remember that in recent times NDTV joined Coca-Cola in some school campaign. Now, would they have done the same campaign if Coca-Cola weren’t involved and some other body without similar financial muscle had undertaken it? I doubt it but still, it’s fine if, by the campaign, some good comes to some schools somewhere.

Barkha forgets something else too; NDTV does promote a certain set of schools – Elite, Rich, Luxurious schools. More than just promote, NDTV is the ‘media-partner’ in that campaign. Yeah, it’s called “Good Schools of India” and NDTV promotes them through the directory. The news-channel had also carried a number of advertisements promoting the directory. And what’s the directory about? It’s a directory about the best residential schools in India. Ever visited any of these schools? I can assure you most of them are luxury schools which will be the biggest opponents of the RTE Act. These are hardly the very "..economically and socially heterogeneous, inclusive classroom" in schools that Barkha talks about. However, most of them won’t even be affected because no ‘disadvantaged or poor’ parents would even remotely think of sending their children to these schools. So while the MSM, like Barkha, sheds tears over the poor and disadvantaged, they haven’t really debated the finer points of the RTE at all. Like in most other cases they failed to do their job.I wonder what Rajdeep would call that: "Zero responsibility" plus hypocrisy?

So, as my answer to Rajdeep Sardesai who claims social media has zero responsibility I would recommend that he read the following posts by different writers on  RTE and evaluate the quality of the discussion. It’s far superior to what one will find on TV channels and newspapers:

Is the Right to Education quota really for the poor ?  and On the EWS category in the Right To Education act both by @RealityCheckInd and another one Analysis of the RTE Judgment:Part I – The Question of Severability by Dilip Rao (CentreRight India). Also (update) a great analysis by Sudhir Kumar: Right to Education Act - The Devil is in the Detail.

There are many frivolous and even bad laws that get enacted because the MSM does not do its job. Next time you see a child working at a tea stall or restaurant, next time you see a child buying cigarettes or tobacco products from a pan-shop, next time you see a child buying alcohol for another from a shop remember the worthlessness of the related laws. The biggest Act of ‘Rights’ that the govt should pass is irreversible one that ensures they never intrude in the lives and activities of private citizens and entities. The govt’s courage to do the opposite is partly driven by the self-righteous shill in the mainstream media who have nothing at stake and who, like Rajdeep and Barkha, look down on ordinary people as much as the govt does.