Editors' Access Baggage

So the mafia is angry. The mafia is frustrated. It is all starting to show. They want the PMO to be friendlier to the “Editors” mafia and open up communication lines with them. On any other bright day I would have said it’s a fair demand but not when it comes to our media mafia. It is not a big secret that we have some of the most corrupt and incompetent editors in the history of our media, especially TV. Ever since Narendra Modi formed the new govt he has kept this crooked bunch of thugs at a safe distance and rightly so. Just as he has shut down the privilege pipelines of many Babus he has also shut down some “privileges” of many media crooks. Let’s read what the demand of the Editors Guild of India is (Report):

“A statement issued by the Guild said that a "top-down, one-way interaction in a country with limited internet connectivity and technological awareness cannot be the only answer for large masses of readers, viewers, surfers and listeners. Debate, dialogue and discussion are the essential ingredients of a democratic discourse… By delaying the establishment of a media inter-face in the Prime Minister's Office, in restricting access to ministers and bureaucrats in offices and in reducing the flow of information at home and abroad, the government in its early days seems to be on a path that runs counter to the norms of democratic discourse and accountability," it said.

Hmm! So our crooked editorialists who crawled all these years as slaves of a dynasty suddenly talk about democratic discourse and accountability. Let us ask these people what accountability they have. You know, if there are riots in Saharanpur or Moradabad they scream Modi is responsible, Modi should act when it’s the State govt that is in charge of law and order. Take the case of Barkha Dutt, the alleged group editor of NDTV, and their recent nonsense (I prefer to stick to the recent instead of going into the history of NDTV crimes):

Now, NDTV has regularly and consistently trashed Modi and BJP with fake news and twisted news items. Whenever people point this out to Barkha she grandly claims she is not in charge of their website or Twitter account. So what exactly is an editor responsible for? In a newspaper, the editor is responsible even for the content of advertisements that appear in the paper. That’s the law. But Modi is responsible for Saharanpur or Pune but SoniaG or MMS were never responsible for even rapes in Delhi. This political pimping by “Sickular” editors has not gone unnoticed by people. Under the Sonia-MMS decay, all these editors had been “Durbaris” who enjoyed all the luxuries in the world while accusing everyone else of abusing their official positions. How did MMS operate with the media? Here’s a shameful Durbar he conducted with only FIVE editors of select newspapers in June 2011 (mostly made up of Congress cronies like Kumar Ketkar):

Does that look like a formal or regular press meeting or a private “Durbar”? I remember that because I called it PM's Press Meet - 'Friendly Fire' and here is what I wrote back then:

“I believe it’s very unfair to call it a ‘press meet’. It looked like a luncheon meet of the ‘mob’ for a friendly discussion on the state of affairs of their turf. It’s strange you would think. A Prime Minister holds a press meet with five select editors from the print media and then needs to be defended by his own spokespersons. That is precisely what Manish Tiwari and Ambika Soni were doing on  June 29.

Some of the firm assertions of Manmohan Singh at this meet were “I am not a lame duck PM” and the media is an “accuser, prosecutor and judge”. I agree with the media part though. That is their general approach to all issues. Other than that, the PM generally blamed the opposition for the lame duck tag. These statements were made when most of the ‘chosen’ editors were ones who are known to be friendly to the Congress.”

Is this the same nonsense that the Editors Guild is demanding now? Don’t forget, the same MMS held a previous meeting with only TV editors (in February 2011) as if they are some privileged class of royal durbaris. I am sure many will remember Harish Khare snubbing Arnab Goswami in that private meet telling him it is not an “inquisition” of the PM”. Barkha, who didn’t honour the PM with her presence then, later lamented that none of the editors talked about Pakistan. iRudali! It should also be remembered that on both the occasions MMS called editors only under the heavy burden of scams which he had to whitewash and not as a “routine” interaction. Unfortunately for the editor-mafia, Modi does not have any scams so far that he has to wash or defend. And Modi is absolutely right in keeping this mafia at a good distance. They are known to have twisted every word he has uttered in the past. Therefore, it is proper for the PM to speak directly speak to the people or communicate through social media. Some of these editors have also wanted the same social media dead or regulated.

The editors are demanding that the new PM and the PMO restore the old “coterie” through which Barkha ate “Golgappas” at PM’s parties and relay to us when SoniaG was happy or unhappy as advised by Ahmed Patel or through which juniors like Pallavi Ghosh reported planted gossip from the PMO or Congress office. Of course, all this is in the interest of “Democracy” as they dramatically claim. Access Journalism is a curse on journalism itself. Access Journalism, which is what our editor-mafia is seeking shuts out genuine reporters and their work and replaces it with bogus soundbites and “breast-fed” reports. How criminal are these Access Journalism specialists? Let me replay an old video from 2009 of Jon Stewart and it should  shock you how the “Access” journos lie to you, don’t care to ask real questions and suck up to criminals (Video edited to relevant portions – 6-17 mins):

There is nothing that I need to add to the video. All these “Access” editors do the same thing. They chummy-up and don’t bother verifying any reports or any information but base their entire reporting on political-swing and gossip. Every single day they troll Narendra Modi with something or the other; with fake news and deadly headlines. Take a look at these:

NDTV (Hindi) apologised for their nonsense in the first pic. This is a routine with NDTV and other channels as they play mischief with headlines concerning Modi (or BJP). I call it deliberate mischief  because I have never seen such a mistake happening with SoniaG, RahulG or Congress. The motivation is obvious for the Hate-Modi brigade. And these same editors now beg for a durbar? What about the second pic above on dates of Modi’s US/UN visit? Why in the world would morons at CNN-IBN tweet about a forthcoming speech on September 17 on September 25? Do they have any logical explanation? None! What about the other three rogues – ABP News, NDTV (again) and TimesNow? All of them uniformly concocted the date of October 27 and then some engagements on October 28 and 29. How? I tweeted MEA India to seek a clarification and Syed Akbaruddin tweeted back stating the dates given were very clear:

With all the nonsense that these editors can spin on their own why do they want “Access” to PM or PMO? They anyway write all the crap in the world about the PM without any relevance or truth. They have been doing so for over 12 years now. Lies, filth and absolute trash is what they peddled and they are still doing so with many G-37 morons as accessories. There can be a new beginning only if they acknowledge and do penance for their crimes (Like Tarun Tejpal decided he would do). I have a small, modest suggestion. These editors can start by writing Modi a small letter of penance:

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I forgot the infamous “Puppy” episode with which these same editors spread a mountain of lies implying Modi wanted Muslims dead. Well, I have saved that in case I have to write a sequel. Before I leave, I would like you to take a look at the newly constituted Working Committee of the Editors Guild:

“According to Ajay Upadhyay, General Secretary, Editors Guild of India, the 15-member Working Committee includes Sachidanand Murthy, Raj Chengappa, Shravan Garg, Barkha Dutt, Coomi Kapoor, Shekhar Gupta, Jaydeep Bose, Sanjay Narayan, MK Razdan, Vijay Naik, Seema Chishti, Sheela Bhatt, and Kumar Ketkar, among others”.

Some of these members belong in a rogues-gallery and not in any working committee of editors. They don’t deserve “Access” but the “Axe”.

PS: You can now buy the book "Social media as watchdog" with Credit/Debit cards.. Please click on the image link of the book on the right margin of this page to follow the process..

Foreigners Dressed As Indians

(This is a Maxipost in multiple parts for the long weekend. Each part can be read separately.)

Passing a “suck-up” as interview in absence of investigation:

Most people would remember the US economic crash of 2008 more popularly known as the ‘sub-prime’ debacle. Many may also be aware of Sir Allen Stanford, who sponsored a very lucrative T-20 Cricket series between England and West Indies. He was a financial emperor with a Bank and Wealth management firm. You could have guessed that he was also a media magnate of sorts.

I have observed the crookery and criminal nature of Indian media since 1999 but a segment on a TV show that brought out this crookery in the US media most was by Jon Stewart on his programme “The Daily Show”. On March 5, 2009 (IST) JS ran an 8-minute segment called “CNBC financial advice” and showed how CNBC fooled its viewers. Not just that, their reporters were doing ‘suck-up’ interviews of CEOs of the companies that were hiding their failures. I have shared this often on this site as also with many groups. I am reproducing below a 1-minute part of that episode that concerns an interview of Stanford by CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla (CQ) after the economic crash of 2008. The audio in the following may not be very clear so I am providing the relevant parts of it in text (quotes are in blue).

JS: Sir Allen Stanford whose bank and wealth management firm was posting oddly positive results in a down market because… it was a fraudulent Ponzi scheme… (Video 1.10 mins):

CQ: You managed to avoid the sub-prime debacle almost entirely, didn’t you?

AS: A 100% we avoided the sub-prime debacle

CQ: What told you it was not a wise move?

AS: Well it’s very simple..

JS: I ran a Ponzi scheme… instead of investing the money ‘I stole it… 8 billion dollars worth of it… I’m bad’.

JS: Come on CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla you’ve got the biggest white collar criminal in history LIVE on the air, don’t let him off the hook... (Here comes the billion dollar question)

CQ: Before I let you go… is it fun being a billionaire?

AS: Yes.. yes I have to say it is fun being a billionaire.

JS: **** you!

Allen Stanford is now serving a 110-year jail sentence. He has been stripped of his Knighthood. And to put it mildly, he is just a “white-collar” criminal. Remember all the sympathy oozing in our media for Rajat Gupta? Remember the sympathy for plagiarist Fareed Zakaria? Most of our senior media celebrities too do such “suck up” interviews and do everything they can to protect crimes of the rich and famous. I am not saying Carl Quintanilla is guilty of any crime but just frivolous journalism. You can see plenty of that in India almost every single day. Our media blossomed when the British were our enemies. Now that the British are long gone, a large majority of Indians are the enemies for some. The job is to hide the truth from them. The British are gone but the New British are here and all you have to do is look carefully.    

The victors’ history peddled by the New British:

A long time back I had a chat with Anand Ranganathan who writes at Newslaundry. It was a chat between two strangers. He is a scientist by profession. I guess this guy dabbles in biotech, cells, molecules and stuff. Very often he spares time to leave the molecules alone to research the “moles” in our MSM. Incidentally, Anand too is from St. Stephens and Cambridge but he’s not British. Recently he wrote an important line “History that is written by the victors is peddled by the vanquished”. The British were once the victors and we drove them out. But it’s the “vanquished British” who still write our history and the discourse in our MSM. Should we do a roll call? Why not!

Prannoy Roy, Rajdeep Sardesai, Vir Sanghvi, Karan Thapar, Barkha Dutt, Sagarika Ghose, S. Varadarajan (Varadabhai). Look up the bio of all these people. All of them are either of the Oxbridge variety or some American university. The last one, Varadabhai, is an American citizen as far as I know. What about Arun Shourie’s ‘Eminent Distortians’? Romila Thapar and Irfan Habib too are the British species. No, I haven’t forgotten Ram Guha. Although he wasn’t bred in Oxbridge or Columbia he has learned the ropes at the London School of Economics. Shekhar Gupta isn’t fully British but he knows how to host the ‘victors’. Some of these people have colluded to distort our history and wipe out the truth in many cases. Some of the media species hold many Indians in contempt but don’t think twice about sucking up to foreigners, white skin or anything that is West. They are Indians but everything about them is like the erstwhile British. Their language, their behaviour, their discourse, their seminars, their Scotch-circuit. Everything! Sagarika Ghose, didn’t realise that Macaulay Putras and Putris applies to her gang and not to any other. The British had as much contempt for Hindu culture, Hindus and Indians in general. Find anything similar now?

The “domestics” of Western interests:

All of these foreigners usually conduct interviews and discussions like Carl Quintanilla. How about a sample? Ever heard of the Global Warming Scam and Rajendra Pachauri? I’m sure you have. This is what happened in January 2010 and I wrote in “Servantile Journalism”:

 

“January 2010, in his interview with Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Prannoy Roy pays him a compliment: “Your credibility is impeccable…” This particular compliment is all over the internet now given the personality he had interviewed. This is Rajendra Pachauri of the IPCC scandal, .Glaciergate, Climategate, TERI funding based on inaccurate glacier-melting threats, TERI gaining a contract while he was on the board of ONGC, and his own personal wealth under scanner. This is the Pachauri of the “Voodoo Science” insult to an Indian glaciologist. Given all this, Prannoy Roy still believes his credibility is really impeccable. Servantility at its best”!

Supposing Rajendra Pachauri was anti-Congress or anti-Sonia Gandhi, what do you think the course of Roy’s interview would have been? Here’s a guy who was being scrutinised by international media for a scam and Prannoy Roy hands him a certificate: “Your credibility is impeccable”. Is it any different for others who are in politics or in public life and friendly to these foreigners? But if it is Modi, Baba Ramdev, or anyone remotely connected with Hindu culture who’s anti-Congress they will be condemned as pure evil. Let me remind you that Roy’s NDTV is a “fund-collector” for Pachauri’s TERI. NDTV promotes its brand in their projects but there is no information that NDTV donates a single rupee. It’s all GOI money and money collected from people by NDTV. Neat, eh?

The Senior Steno-Typists:

Radia’s Senior Steno-typist Vir Sanghvi still writes for Hindustan Times. The man should have been banished from journalism for his servantility, as should Barkha Dutt, but he is allowed to carry on because he is the “white man” in “brown India”. I don’t have any doubt even the British would have dumped the Sanghvi and Barkha types to the gutters of Fleet Street, which is no more the den of British press. But hey, these Oxbridge types in media are the New British.

In his latest article in HT Vir Sanghvi, the man who called Narendra Modi a mass-murderer, reasons why Modi’s popularity has grown exponentially: “The difference is that times have changed. The economy has tanked. Nobody believes that we will be better off in the years ahead — not as long as this government is in office, anyway”. Well Mr.Sanghvi, times have indeed changed. People not only don’t trust the Congress-UPA but they also don’t trust their foot soldiers like you. People suspect media ‘cooks’ as much as they suspect politicians and political parties. And with good reason too!

Following Sanghvi, and even preceding him, a whole lot of media celebs have called Modi a mass murderer, hero of hatred, communal, a divisive polarising figure. They also call the Gujarat riots Pogrom, Genocide and inflate the deaths each time they write or talk. Why? Because like many other Indians Modi was an ordinary Chaiwalla who rose to power and has no business to be PM, let alone a CM. That he is an OBC disgusts them. Ignorant idiots with “white skin” are far more preferable to knowledgeable, hard-working and performance-oriented Indians. Doesn’t matter if the “Whites” are extremely corrupt too! This is what Anand Ranganathan highlights in his recent post “Inside the fourth estate” on Newslaundry.

The world’s first frequent-flyer:

I can wager that the term “frequent flyer” gained currency more after former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger became famous for his globe-trotting and clocking in amazing sky-miles. Along with Richard Nixon, Kissinger has overseen some of the worst crimes against humanity for which a much respected writer like the late Christopher Hitchens wanted him tried for such crimes (read here). Frankly, there is hardly any writer in the West who can be as bluntly honest as Hitchens was. If the term mass-murderer suited anyone it definitely would fit Henry Kissinger according to Hitchens. It got HK a Nobel Peace Prize. And this guy was no friend of India in his flying days; Nixon and he have called Indians “bastards” and called Indira Gandhi a“witch and a bitch”. Ah well, get used to it, there are now those who defend foreigners if our PM is called “Dehati Aurat”. Nothing has changed. But like the 1984 Sikh killing our media can offer the excuse “but, oh back then we had no television to report Kissinger’s crimes”. So what happens when darling Kissinger visits India? Here’s what:

Now you know what I mean by “suck up”. Most media celebrities lined up to suck up to the alleged war criminal who hated Indians. But why wouldn’t they love Kissinger? After all, he’s a foreigner like they are. There’s Sagarika beaming in delight. I wonder how many questions she asked HK. There’s Prannoy Roy glorifying him. And above all, there is Karan Thapar. Now Karan ‘The Tool’ thinks he’s a tough questioner when it comes to those opposed to Congress or to Pakistan but when it comes to Western rogues he becomes a “Puppy”.

The “Tools” of Western interests:

In April 1976 (during the Emergency) KT was probably at Pembroke College in Cambridge, honing his ‘foreign skills’. I guess that’s where he also learned to knot a bow-tie. I cannot be sure where he sent the message from (India or UK) but here is a Wikileaks release that isn’t quite known in the public domain. This is from KT to Henry Kissinger and listed in the category of VIP travel. Now unless there is another KT who sent this I have to assume it’s ‘The Tool’ and none other.

That communication was when Kissinger was still in office and KT was a student. What exactly was the business KT was hoping to transact? It would be nice if he came out with an explanation because during those days Kissinger wasn’t exactly a friend of India. KT is commonly ridiculed as a “Paki agent”. Is there more than we know? The very next year in 1977 when the Janata Party came to power in India, George Fernandes banned American products from Indian markets. What was KT’s reaction then?

In her 10 grand questions to Modi, Sagarika asked a typical-foreigner question. Check question No.7 in the list. She asks “How will a Modi-led BJP reach out to business interests in the US who are complaining about India's protectionism?” Well darling, aren’t you and others in the MSM taking care of US and other Western interests? Secondly, isn’t that what Manmohan Singh and Congress are already doing? More importantly, why should anyone think of reaching out to US business interests rather than put Indian business interests on top? Does the US govt give a damn about India? Would you ever hear any bimbo asking a US Presidential candidate “How will you reach out to Indian business interests?” (On the contrary you may hear them asking about how the Presidential candidate will save jobs going to India). Now that’s how servantile to Western interests our MSM is. They don’t think twice before their slavish conduct. These are foreigners dressed as Indians, to borrow from AK Antony.

I have often referred to our MSM as “the first line of defence for the corrupt”. Jon Stewart demonstrates it at the top of this post. So let me rephrase Stewart and ask our MSM friends in the context of Kissinger:

Desi People: “Come on Prannoy, Shekhar, Sagarika, Karan.. You’ve got one of the greatest war-criminals and India-abuser in history… LIVE on air… Don’t let him off the hook”

Indian MSM: “Mr. Kissinger, before we let you go… how does it feel to have been a globe trotter and be a millionaire? How was your stay in India?”

Kissinger: “Yes… Yes, it is great to travel so much and to be a millionaire and I thank Indian media for all the love and affection”.

Happy Vijayadashmi!

  

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