Sagarika Ghose' Tweets: Should Twitter Tag Them As Racist?

I am reproducing here the full text from this article: Sagarika Ghose - Case Study on Biased and Racist Journalism:

------------------------

Sagarika Ghose (born 8 November 1964) is an Indian journalist, author and television anchor. She has been a journalist in India since 1991 and has worked at The Times Of India, Outlook magazine and The Indian Express. She is currently (2011) the Deputy Editor and a prime time anchor on the news network CNN-IBN. CNN-IBN is a sister channel of CNN, owned and managed by her husband Rajdeep Sardesai. This site attempts to gather public opnion on whether Sagarika Ghose is racist and a biased journalist or is she just doing her job as a news reporter and an editor. Therefore, feel free to participate in the poll below to voice your opinion

Tweets of Sagarika Ghose - Following are some of the tweets which were posted by Sagarika Ghose on 29'th Jan 2011.

TWEET1 - @bijutweets god was in a bad mood when he made the Indian male thats for sure. !

TWEET2 - Notes from Bangkok airport: Indian males as a species must be the ugliest in the world! The ones on Twitter sound ugly too!

TWEET3 - @corruptcongress you personify the "ugly Indian'. Rude, mannerless at airports and on flights, screaming "racist racist" at any discipline

In western countries such racist slurs tantamount to hate crime, however in India, people tend to be forgiving and ignore such behavior.

Criticism on twitter

§  Ugly Men Controversy - On 29th January 2011 Sagarika Ghose tweeted the following on a social networking site Twitter Notes from Bangkok airport: Indian males as a species must be the ugliest in the world! The ones on Twitter sound ugly "too!" which was heavily criticized on twitter and was on top trending for 3 days in India.Her sexist and racist tweets were reported to TeamCNN and TeamCNN was asked if CNN endorsed her views. Though CNN network did not tender an apology on her behalf but tweeted back the following on 31'st January 2011 - SG issued this apology:"My comments on Indian males was never intended to offend or hurt. Am deeply sorry if it did. My sincere apologies"

§  Hindu Religion Slander - On 23rd September 2010 Sagarika Ghose tweeted the following on a social networking site Twitter "whether or not lord rama is the rightful owner or a divine encroacher is a question unlikely to be settled in a hurry". The screen shots of this tweet are still available across the internet. She was severely criticized for this tweet for being insensitive to Hindu religion and disrespectful towards the most revered Hindu deity.

CNN had in the past fired one of its journalist Octavia Nasr based on a controversial tweet, however Sagarika Ghose continues to serve as the deputy editor and prime time anchor on the news network CNN-IBN.Many people have speculated that she enjoys the protection offered to her by her husband Rajdeep Sardesai who is editor-in-chief of CNN-IBN.

Ethics of Journalism and Sagarika Ghose - Poles Apart (Added 02/12/2011)

Here is an analysis on ethics of journalism and how Sagarika Ghose and her husband's channel CNN-IBN flout them regularly.

1) Standards and reputation

Among the leading news organizations that voluntarily adopt and attempt to uphold the common standards of journalism ethics, adherence and general quality varies considerably. The professionalism, reliability and public accountability of a news organization are three of its most valuable assets.

Being deputy editor of CNN-IBN, Sagarika Ghose has shown little professionalism, reliability and public accountability. She is the one who coined the term Internet Hindus to refer to the tribe of people who have an opinion different from hers. Here are some of the tweets from Sagarika Ghose on the same - Internet Hindus want to `Islamise' Hinduism: they are enamoured of the extremist version of Islam.  Another one goes like this - Internet Hindus are like swarms of bees. they come swarming after you at any mention of Modi Muslims or Pakistan! . Using such demeaning phrases for the hindu majority of india is shocking.

Having read all these tweets, one wonders how CNN would have reacted when one of its top notch journalists like Anderson Cooper or Wolf Blitzer would have tweeted about Internet Christians on twitter but Rajdeep Sardesai who owns CNN-IBN seems to be least bothered about what his wife has been doing to their family owned channel. One must say the quality of news, journalists and professionalism exhibited by CNN-IBN is substandard than that of CNN.

2) Campaigning in the media

One particularly controversial question is whether media organizations should endorse political parties or candidates while debunking others. Political endorsements create more opportunities to construe favoritism in reporting, and can create a perceived conflict of interest.

Sagarika Ghose has been openly critical of the main opposition party of India - Bharatiya Janta Party and some of its friend organizations like RSS. Here are some of her tweets making fun of RSS and BJP - The RSS-oriented Twitter brigade is so predictable! Attack congress, they applaud, attack BJP they abuse and scream blue murder.  Down with liberals, down with minorities, down with cong-media, shout Internet hindus/rss twitter brigade. Day in day out the same refrain. Nothing has been proved in courts till date regarding involvement of hindu organizations in some of the terror incidents that have happened in India in recent years but nonetheless CNN-IBN has been jumping on conclusion calling it "saffron/hindu terrorism" and running programs on it. Here is what Sagarika Ghose had tweeted - Are we in denial about `Hindu'/saffron/right wing terror? FTN 10pm.

With so much hatred against the main opposition party and its allies one wonders if CNN-IBN has sold itself to ruling party, become a mouth piece of it, giving little coverage to scams and short comings of the government.

3) Taste, decency and acceptability

Audiences have different reactions to depictions of violence, nudity, coarse language, or to people in any other situation that is unacceptable to or stigmatized by the local culture or laws. Even with similar audiences, different organizations and even individual reporters have different standards and practices. When certain distasteful or shocking material is considered important to the story, there are a variety of common methods for mitigating negative audience reaction. Advance warning of explicit or disturbing material may allow listeners or readers to avoid content they would rather not be exposed to. Offensive words may be partially obscured or bleeped. Potentially offensive images may be blurred or narrowly cropped. Descriptions may be substituted for pictures; graphic detail might be omitted. Disturbing content might be moved from a cover to an inside page, or from daytime to late evening, when children are less likely to be watching.

Apparently, Sagarika Ghose never attended any ethics and standards of journalism class. Her tweets surpasses all limits of decency and acceptability. They are as distasteful as the demeanor of lady herself. Here are some of Sagarika Ghose's distasteful tweets - 

@bijutweets god was in a bad mood when he made the Indian male thats for sure.!  

Notes from Bangkok airport: Indian males as a species must be the ugliest in the world! The ones on Twitter sound ugly too!  

@prasannavishy you're a gutter snipe.  

So many angry, racist and sexist views from a deputy editor of a news network that is broadcast across the nation will have dire consequences on young minds who try find their role models watching televisions and surfing internet. Without any stern action against the said deputy editor, people will become more tolerant towards racism which is not good for the nation.

-------------------

At the end of the article, a poll asks if Sagarika's comments are racist and biased. Of the total votes till the time of writing : YES: 586 , NO: 60, CAN'T SAY: 19 (Total 665). I am against a ban of any form of expression, no matter how offensive it may be. However, being in the public domain, especially the media one expects greater sense of judgement. Rajdeep himself doesn't come across as a racist person. So I only have one suggestion for him. Can you please do this?

Rajdeep, Can you do this, please?

Sagarika mentioned somewhere in her tweets that she has a son who's almost 20-years! Now, I wonder what she thinks of her own son, an Indian male! Twitter shouldn't ban Sagarika but must tag her tweets as 'Racist' where appropriate.