Indian Express & CNN-IBN - Fake Debates & Reports

This is a follow-up to my previous post on fake debates by CNN-IBN about the Social Media (SM). First the TV channel grandly put out a report on the debate held on the sidelines of the Ramnath Goenka journalism awards. One shouldn’t forget that the debate was anchored by Sagarika Ghose whose hatred for some people on SM knows no bounds. The host of the Goenka awards, Indian Express, then came out with its own report about the event. Quite flattering about SM I must say. The thing to remember is most of these media celebs dismiss SM as a nuisance or at best concede that it’s here to stay. They have forgotten how they themselves arrived on TV. But before we move on, people should recall Sagarika’s famous Look-Live debate that featured Sri Sri Ravi Shankar back in November 2011. Seems their parent company in the US, CNN, is the inspiration for Sagarika and CNN-IBN. Someone pointed me to this hilarious Jon Stewart video. Just watch the stupidity of CNN and how they fool audiences:

Stewart calls it CNN "News slaughtering". That’s right 2 correspondents reporting from the same “parking lot” and delivering the “illusion” of reporting from separate locations. That’s news TV for you. They keep on delivering illusions in the hope that others will be fooled while they can live comfortably in their fake TV-lives. So after CNN-IBN it was the turn of Indian Express (August 4) to deliver some fake story. The IE reporter was in the same parking lot, or should I say the same hall as CNN-IBN where the SM debate was held. So let’s read what their report said (excerpts in blue):

Who's afraid of social media? As the applause for winners of the sixth Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards died down, this question took centre stage. Less than a year after messages on social media spread panic in the Northeast and two girls in Mumbai were arrested for views posted on Facebook, it was a compelling question, with no easy answers….  I&B Minister Manish Tewari called the Internet "the most audacious experiment in anarchy", a "vast, ungoverned space" teeming with individuals who had multiple identities. Democracies and governments had to learn to accommodate voices from this "virtual civilisation".

Anant Goenka, head of New Media at the Express Group, felt that the influence of social media may be overstated. "You just have to look at the numbers," Goenka said. "Twitter reaches the influential. But it reaches less than 10 per cent of the people that conventional media reach." But it could help improve stories, Goenka felt, and it could help journalists find sources online.

So what did you make of that? Now, if you aren’t careful you are likely to miss some lies and some lack of prudence in some of the sentences in the report. Anant Goenka (wonder if he’s a descendant of Ramnathji) reflects a terrible lack of foresight and vision. Oh… but he’s the head of New Media at IE. Any surprise that IE is doing so badly in sales? Those who don’t learn from history are likely to repeat silly mistakes in the future too. Technology doesn’t wait for anyone. It forces change on those who are unwilling to adapt. The typewriter is mostly gone. The concept of “stenographers” in offices has largely disappeared. But we have “stenographers” in the media who report stuff like a box of parrots.

Anant fails to understand how TV itself grew when he claims that Twitter reaches only 10% and that you have to look at SM numbers. Fine! He should remember that TV itself grew from a modest number of lakhs in 1982 to over half the population now owning TV sets. Some states have over 90% TV penetration. While there is no accurate figure for the number available, a fair state-wise estimate can be seen at Wiki. What about mobile phones? When it arrived around 1995-96 people were still dealing with the tiny pagers. Pagers have disappeared. From as much as Rs.16 or Rs.20 per call in 1996 mobile phone-calls are now less than a rupee. Currently estimated at 696 mobile connections, mobile penetration is expected to touch 72% by 2016. Smart-phone users are already 27 million says Nielsen. These estimates are not very off the mark. So why does Anant Goenka believe that the same 10% will remain for SM or Twitter? This is living in a cocoon and unwilling to accept that there will be millions of SM users in the next 2-3 years and it may grow to the mobile-penetration size too. Either this worries the MSM to hold frequent debates slamming the SM or provoke regulation of SM. That is the problem they face.

But the bigger LIE is in the very first paragraph of the IE report. And they expectedly believe that most people will overlook this and move on to the rest of the report. It says: “Less than a year after messages on social media spread panic in the Northeast…” Is that so? How cleverly IE passes fake reporting and one has to wonder what the alleged editor, Shekhar Gupta was doing with such lines. The NE panic wasn’t spread on SM or Twitter. On the contrary SM was helpful in clarifying many of the rumours that were being spread on SMS. Yes the rumours were being spread through SMS and one Anees Pasha and four more were arrested for sending out over 4000 SMSes. In the wake of these SMSes the GOI also banned bulk SMSes for a long time. So why does IE get its kicks with a fake report that SM created the NE panic? Well, if you’re in the same parking lot as CNN-IBN anything will go as long as it helps to slam the SM given the nature of their debate.

Once again, it looks like the only ones really afraid of SM growing are those in the MSM. Ideas whose time has come cannot be stopped or throttled by fake debates and reports. This is more so when technology can make many redundant. I haven’t seen Shekhar Gupta being on the SM (unless he has some alias) but he likes giving lectures about SM. No problem! That’s like a guy who still uses a typewriter commenting on the evils of computer. Anything to survive.

CNN-IBN: Fake Debates & Communal Incitement

Narendra Bhatti of the Samajwadi Party bragged that he got Durgashakti Nagpal the UP SDM suspended in just 41 minutes. He said it publicly and then claimed he was misquoted. On July 31 the foul-mouthed Azam Khan who whined for being “insulted” on a trip to the US made another hateful comment on the Durga episode. He said: "Ram naam ki loot hai loot sako to loot lo” (You are allowed to loot in the name of lord Ram). I wonder how his community would have reacted had he quoted his own religious icons. Such is the shameless behaviour of members of the SP. Perpetrate hate and play victim. We’ll get back to this story a bit later.

Once upon a time, not very long ago, you needed a license to possess a radio or a transistor. When TV came in, you need a license to possess and watch the TV. Some smart-alecs in the GOI even wanted to bring back the license system for TV. Read this:  “Almost every new medium of communication or expression that has appeared since the dawn of history has been accompanied by doomsayers and critics who have confidently predicted that it would bring about The End of the World as We Know It by weakening the brain or polluting our precious bodily fluids”. Books, movies, TV and Radio shows have a history of inspiring crimes. I doubt anybody condemned JD Salinger because ‘Catcher in the rye’ inspired Mark Chapman to kill John Lennon. Surprisingly, Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro and Jodie Foster have never been tried for ‘Taxi Driver’ inspiring John Hinckley’s attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. So when a hate-channel, anchored by a hate-filled racist puts up a topic “Who’s afraid of social media” she is doing exactly what the doomsayers did in the case of Radio and TV.

This was aired by CNN-IBN on August 1 at the Ramnath Goenka journalism awards function. Frankly, I doubt the late Goenka would allow some of the people on the stage or currently in the Indian Express anywhere near him. So Sagarika introduces the topic with some choice descriptions of Social Media (SM). She tries to balance her moronery by throwing in descriptions such as “instrument of freedom” to describe SM. But her real epithets were “New gorilla in the room, bull in a china shop, subversive, destabilising and instrument of propaganda”. Aha! Imagine, one of the most hate-filled people on the SM is anchoring a discussion on SM. That’s TV hypocrisy for you. They even discussed whether SM should be regulated. Oh… when it comes to Islamic terror remember how they talked about the “root cause”? Well, you could say the “root cause” of SM is the Internet. So to cleanse the evil in SM it is necessary to get rid of the internet itself. Right?

Alright, for all the media morons who debate SM on TV, I would like to ask why when there is evidence of TV images provoking violence there is absolutely no regulation of News TV? There’s scientific evidence TV has known to provoke anger, violence and psychotic behaviour. I’m not joking. Just read my past article “Victimhood justifies violence”. People are known to throw shoes at TV or break the screens in anger across the world. Some have known to be provoked to more serious crimes. Shouldn’t TV be regulated? Never mind. And the discussion wasn’t how SM could be used more productively but “who’s afraid of SM”. Well, nobody except the people in the MSM and Govt are afraid of it and they try all they can to brand ordinary people as subversive or propagandists when the biggest subversive elements and propagandists are on TV and in newspapers every single day. One political party even wants to “hire” journalists for their campaign. Can the MSM fall any lower than being looked at as commodities?  

I have identified CNN-IBN as a communal channel that frequently puts up articles, news items or images that insult some religious group or the other. In some cases their unverified reports and hate-mongering deserve to be even legally tried. Were they different in the case of Durgashakti Nagpal? Here’s what the hate-mongering channel headlined:

Mosque demolition? Did Durga order or demolish a mosque? While the reporter screams her head off CNN-IBN puts up such provocative headlines. Is such a headline not enough to incite violence? Especially when you think of the Azad Maidan riots of August 2012 were provoked by fake images you can imagine what such a headline can do. Mind you, the reporter Marya Shakil hadn’t reported anything provocative; she was just doing her job. It’s the hate-mongering editors at CNN-IBN who should be held responsible for this provocative headline. Oh yes, the one who frequently cries over SM also happens to be a Dubiousity Editor at CNN-IBN. And who did they have on their SM debate? There was Manish Tewari who can’t complete one sentence without “anarchy”. There was Kapil Sibal who has left no shoe unturned to strangle the internet itself. These are the people adorning a “Ramnath Goenka” function. Goenka would have cancelled the event had he been alive.

Fact remains, Durga hadn’t demolished any mosque but an illegal wall or as other reports say warned the villagers to not build an illegal wall along a mosque. She had done nothing wrong. Real reasons behind her suspension and the SP vendetta? Let’s read the words of CNN-IBN itself: “Nagpal, during her tenure as the sub-divisional magistrate of Gautam Budh Nagar, had cracked down on the sand mining mafia. She had recently seized 24 lorries involved in illegal mining and form April to June, under her watchful eye, the mining department impounded 297 vehicles and collected a fine of over Rs 80 lakh”.

It should be clear to any observer that ahead of the 2014 elections and the threat of Narendra Modi creating an impact in UP the SP is whipping up communal passions. Durga was just about handy to appease Muslims and inflame their passions. It also remains a fact that whenever it comes to enforcing law we are now compelled by what will or will not offend Muslims or other minorities. Modi demolished 80 illegal temple constructions in and around Gandhingar in Gujarat. But he’s the one who’s “communal” and the bozos in SP and our media channels like CNN-IBN are supposed to be “secular”. This is the grave danger to this country that is being covered up by TV media. Are these channels dangerous? You bet they are. They’re not only the first line of defence for the corrupt they are also the biggest liars who place events and personalities in the wrong contexts to make a corrupt living.

In the first six months since Akhilesh Yadav took over as UP Chief Minister in March 2012 there have been at least seven communal riots. ‘Riot after Riot’ went on in UP while the media played the slave and covered up the violence and reporting of those riots. As they happened, it was people on the SM who relayed the news of the violence. I haven’t seen any channel demanding arrest of the perpetrators or seeking justice for the victims. Did you? Well, you will often find hate-mongering and fear-monger from these “seculars” about communal riots, when most of the worst riots have happened under their very nose (Digvijaya's Desperate & Dangerous Communal Call). How to engineer or get away with communal riots is an idiot’s hand-book you will have to pick up from the “Sickulars” or media channels like CNN-IBN. In the meantime, don’t let any media bimbo lecture you on SM or any kind of media. Nobody is scared of SM and nobody is scared of corrupt MSM.