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.