In The Name Of The Father, The Daughter & Grandsons .. Amen!

Just a sample: “Rajiv Gandhi Breakfast Scheme, Pondicherry; Rajiv Ratna Awas Yojana, Delhi; Rajiv Arogyasri Health Insurance scheme, Andhra Pradesh; Rajiv Gandhi Computer Literacy Mission, Assam; Rajiv Gandhi Bridges and Roads Infrastructure Development Programme, Haryana; Rajiv Gandhi Vidyarthi Suraksha Yojana, Maharastra; Rajiv Gandhi Tourism Development Mission, Rajasthan; Indira Kranthi Patham Scheme and Indira Jeevitha Bima Pathakam, Andhra Pradesh; Indira Gandhi Niradhar Yojana and Indira Gandhi Landless Agriculture Labour Scheme, Maharastra; Indira Gandhi Priyadarshini Vivah Shagun Yojana, Haryana; Indira Gandhi Calf-Rearing Scheme, Andhra Pradesh”. The sample is from A. Surya Prakash’s “All in the name of the Nehru-Gandhis”.

So when the Supreme Court asks the GOI and State govts to explain why it spends crores on political ads paying tributes to their leaders it is responding to a PIL that only partly addresses the issue. "The political parties in power are blatantly squandering taxpayers' money to highlight their achievements and to glorify their leaders of present or past. Such a practice is either aimed to avail unfair advantage in elections by political parties or to assert loyalties towards the political leadership of the party in power. This wasteful and wholly unnecessary exercise cannot be justified in any manner" the petition said. But if one adds up all the people in whose honour the ads are released I doubt the number would be very high. Most of these ads naturally come from the Congress which pays frequent homages to members of the Nehru-Gandhi family.

Surya Prakash’s article mentions over 450 Central and State schemes and projects named after the Nehru-Gandhi family. Yes, even Sanjay Gandhi has projects or monuments named after him. That article is over a year old and it is safe to estimate this would have crossed 500 schemes by now. The PIL in SC addresses only the ads related to birth and death anniversaries of political leaders but if one looks at the ads for various schemes “branded” with names of political leaders it is a much larger pie. This is how a political establishment is created. This is how the media is co-opted into the branding exercise as the biggest beneficiary of the doles (Also read The Gandhi Septology). And we are not even getting into "paid news" in the discussion.

People have seen small posters at shops where consumer durables are sold; these are commonly called POPs (Point of purchase). Not everybody who walks into a store looks at these POPs or reads the messages. So who reads them? It’s the shopkeeper and his employees who cannot help reading them day in and day out. They have no escape. As they read it frequently some of them internalise the message. Now imagine, that there are millions of people working in all the Nehru-Gandhi projects, they read the messages every single day. There are media house who are beneficiaries who read the messages every single day. There are the beneficiaries of the scheme; the poor, the villagers, the farmers and they read the messages frequently. Consciously or unconsciously all these people are bought into the establishment by the branded schemes, projects and ads. The beneficiaries are hammered the message into believing “This scheme is brought to you by the Nehru-Gandhi family”.

The babus and other employees who work on these branded projects slowly become the victim of the belief that their employment is brought to them by the “Nehru-Gandhi” projects and they would otherwise be in some other job or at worst jobless. The biggest cash-beneficiary is, of course, the media. It’s a tap that turns on the cash for them. Why would they even complain about it? Apart from these “branded” ads the GOI holds the power to dole out other ads like for PF, ESIC, Customs which may not have the slightest relevance to the time of the release (see here). The PIL also overlooks another issue. Most of us live in the belief that these “branded” ads and birth and death anniversary ads are the only method used by the govt. This is a fallacy.

Supposing I were a Minister and my friendly channel called me up seeking sponsorship for a frivolous event what would it take to dole out a favour? A contractor who handles large contracts worth thousands of crores for the govt wouldn’t really mind shelling out a few lakhs or crores on various events in the media. Take a little trouble and check on who sponsors all those “Indians of the Year” or “Indians of the decade” awards and shows. You might find that some of the biggest govt contractors shell out money for events which are totally unrelated to their business. Take HindustanTimes Summit 2012 for instance. Most of the sponsorship of the event came with your money. Most of large sponsors of the event are giant PSUs/Govt companies. Surprisingly, some of them don’t even advertise in the normal course of life. 

Given all these doles and generous lifelines who do you think the media is going to stand by in their reporting? You? Fat chance! They will support the propaganda and stand in defence of the hand that feeds them. It’s now widely recognised as the ‘Politico-Media complex’. On his 20th death anniversary there were 11 Rajiv Gandhi ads in Hindustan Times alone, there were 9 in the TOI and 8 in Indian Express. That’s just three newspapers and you can imagine the count for the rest (Reuters)

Take a look at the first ad on this post. Twenty years after his death Rajiv Gandhi is still fulfilling the dreams of the urban poor. For all you know he will continue to do so for another hundred years. There must be someone else who is doing his or her bit for the rural poor and the semi-urban poor. A small handful of people have been turned into the “Mai-Baap” of a country, with your money. It is not improper to say a small thanksgiving prayer… In the name of the father, the daughter and the grandsons… Amen!

PS: The book “Social media as watchdog” is now available. You can order a copy from HERE.

HT's Red Underwear

Somehow, that story of B.S. Chandrashekhar on his tour of New Zealand keeps coming back. After being repeatedly frustrated at a biased umpire turning down his genuine appeals when he finally clean-bowls the batsman he couldn’t help telling the umpire “Almost got him, didn’t I”? Another version of that story suggests he told the umpire “He’s bowled, but is he out”? So what do news outlets or media celebs do when they are clean-bowled or caught with their pants down? They shout “they didn’t check with us first and didn’t give us a chance to respond”. Oops! Get caught with pants down and then claim they weren’t naked. Remember Radiagate? Barkha Dutt wailed that the tapes were published without seeking her response first. I wonder if that would have altered anything at all since the “error of dodgement” would have been the same and there wasn’t any chance she was going to say “sorry, I screwed up”. This time around it’s a member of the unholy trinity that’s been caught and called.

Last month the Press Council of India (PCI) an otherwise toothless, colourless, spineless body released a report which recommended the censure of a few newspapers for indulging in “paid news”. After an investigation their Inquiry Committee cleared one newspaper and indicted several others, including Hindustan Times. It’s fair to believe the Inquiry Committee would have given HT a chance to respond and would have heard them too before the final report in December 2012. P. Sainath, of The Hindu, wrote a report on this on January 29 and HT was upset The Hindu didn’t check for their response before publishing his story. I guess if HT were to be asked, they would have responded with the same crap that they published on February 1 claiming “HT brings you real news, not paid news”.

Do you buy that? Does anybody buy that? Do note that the HT is not so much against the PCI report but is upset with The Hindu publishing a story without checking with them first. HT was indicted for “paid news” during the Bihar elections in 2010 in not one but four separate incidents or stories according to the PCI. Here’s what Sainath actually wrote:

Note that he quotes PCI: “in all other cases, the candidates accepted they had purchased news”. So the confirmation comes from even the candidates who may have paid HT for the insertions. There is a fair chance that HT’s big bosses in Delhi and their top management do not indulge in these practices but that doesn’t automatically imply that branches of newspapers and local journalists do not indulge in it. HT surely has bigger fish to fry than small time candidates paying money for news. They have much bigger events like HT Summit through which they can get the “Mota Maal” from sponsors. There’s also DAVP that the govt can use to dole out heavy amounts of unessential ads. There are govt companies that can dole out money as sponsorship for mega events that include characters who have waged war against this country. The PCI though is quite confident and clear in their findings. Here’s a screen grab from the PCI report (Thanks to @sureshnakhua) which doesn’t need any further explanation:

Far from apologising for their conduct or stating they have made an appeal, if any, HT prefers to brazen it out with self-righteous wailing. We are by now used to that kind of behaviour, aren’t we? The tragedy is not what the PCI has discovered but what it hasn’t uncovered so far. HT has a family outlet called LiveMint. Like angels, LiveMint states in an article titled “Election Commission pegs paid news market at Rs.500 crore”. Nice, eh? Can the HT group explain where that kind of money goes? Any idea? LiveMint adds: “Of the total amount paid to media firms (around 40% of the poll expenses of parties), the EC estimates half to be towards paid news”. And the good news for every media outlet is that a major election is just around the corner. Not just the general elections but also simultaneous Assembly elections in a few states. Lots of opportunities, let’s make money.

It’s not just B.S. Chandrashekhar that I’m reminded of. Remember those extraordinary deductive powers of Sherlock Holmes? Sitting on his chair and smoking his pipe, Holmes heard a knock and in came his friend Dr. Watson. “Ah, good morning, Watson” said Holmes adding “don’t you find it a bit warm to be wearing your red flannel underwear”? Astonished at this stroke of genius by Holmes, Watson asked “how on earth did you guess I was wearing my red flannel underwear”? Holmes typically replied “Elementary, my dear Watson, you forgot to put your pants on”. Elementary, dear HT, your red underwear is showing, because you were caught with your pants down.  

Anjali Damania - Jenny Come Lately

When Kishore Samrite, an ex-MLA of Samajwadi Party, filed a case in the Allahabad HC against Rahul Gandhi for alleged abduction of a woman named Sukanya there wasn’t a whisper on any of our TV channels. The HC dismissed the case after Sukanya was reportedly produced in court and slapped a fine of Rs.50 lakhs on Samrite. The case is now in the SC. Surprisingly CBI, which investigated the case, has stated to SC such a woman doesn’t exist.  Strange, isn’t it? The Allahabad HC dismissed the case after the woman was reportedly produced in court and now CBI claims in SC the woman doesn’t exist. Never mind. Did you hear any of this on any TV news channel? Did you hear any of it when Samrite actually filed the case in the Allahabad HC? Nothing! When the HC dismissed the case and slapped a penalty, Headlines Today only reported the dismissal and the penalty but not any details about the case. Read the post “Rahul Gandhi-Sukanya case: Amazing media silence”. Now imagine if some member from BJP or TMC or AIADMK or BJD were involved in the case instead of RG. You can then imagine the case would be on TV 24X7 for all these past 6 years without let up.

Is it any surprise that even Mamata Banerjee, in her interview to Rajdeep Sardesai, hints at “PaidNews”? Paid by Congress particularly! Okay! Then there were reports about Sonia Gandhi being one of the richest women politicians on earth by Business Insider. I’m sure you’ve seen Arnab debating the report on TimesNow. No? Or Rajdeep Sardesai’s interview with her about that? No? Yes, I think you finally remembered that discussion on the billions stop here with Barkha. No? Damn! Everyone missed these reports? Well, that’s our celebs in the media for you; shamelessly devoted to maligning anyone and everyone opposed to Congress. It wasn’t even a day since the news of the resignation of Ajit Pawar, Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, over the massive irrigation scam that our media found a whipping-boy. One would have thought there would be news about the scam, how it was operated, how the contracts were given out and who benefitted from it. Nothing!

Politicians, regardless of parties, are known to dole out favours to each other. But for the media to make extra-ordinary charges on the basis of someone’s allegations is stretching a bit too far. They must have heard Arindam Chaudhari’s clarion call: “Dare to think beyond irrigation, water, canals and dams”. And Lo and behold, they found Damania, Anjali Damania (AD). The Jenny-come-lately! And the target? Nitin Gadkari (NG), the BJP president. Anjali Damania seems to be a band member of Arvind Kejriwal who is fighting… I don’t know who or what he is fighting anymore. From a position of credibility and trust the man now enjoys as much credibility as Nixon selling used cars.

So what was this Anjali’s problem? Seems she met NG three times over this irrigation scam and according to her he had asked her to back off the allegations because Sharad Pawar was a close friend. So she’s very upset that the one man, with a RSS background, she trusted to arrest all scamsters in the irrigation scam let her down. And she has proof of her discussions with him in the form of an SMS she sent him. Damn! This is a warning for all you people out there. Make sure nobody sends you SMSes; you could be incriminated in any crime of their choice. So from September 27 it was AD all the way for our media crooks and the irrigation scam itself was over and done with. While NDTV and CNN-IBN made allegations along with AD on their channels, Times Now went further and held a full panel discussion. Some interesting titbits from TimesNow:

Anjali showed her mobile to the world as demanded by Arnab. Then she read out her SMS to NG as proof of her conversation with him. I can’t believe it was actually an SMS. She invoked patriotism, invoked RSS bhakti, invoked blah blah… She read it for nearly a minute or more. Who the hell sends SMSes that long? It read more like a legal notice than a SMS. Well, I would estimate it could be something like that. Send a message to make it part of a record that may be handy in future. She doesn’t have even 1 message in acknowledgement or of any nature from NG though.

During the discussions AD states she received threatening phone calls. On a single day she got 30 such calls she mentions. All of that must be to stop her from blowing her “whistle” I imagine. So a panellist asks her why she didn’t record any of those threats and she responds with “am I expected to record all threatening phone calls”? Oh! Now, she’s on a whistle-blowing trip and receives not one, not two, not three but 30 phone threats in a single day and she still didn’t consider it necessary to record even one of those? Umm.. routine for RTI activists I suppose. Fine! Strikingly, she doesn’t even complain to or even inform the police. Does that sound normal to you? Does that look like the behaviour of a reasonable person?  

So the rants began from NDTV, Times Now, CNN-IBN, Headlines Today and I’m sure all the other language channels too. “Gadkari silent”! “Gadkari fails to respond”! “Gadkari hiding”! As if all that clearly established his guilt. On September 27 NG sent AD a legal notice charging her with defamation and all her claims to be falsehoods and untruths. The best headline after this was, of course, from Times Now (Sep 28), the guys who have already been slapped a 100-crore defamation damage: “Irrigation scam puts BJP on the back-foot”. Haha! So from Congress and NCP being the perpetrators of the scam it is the opposition party that is guilty and is on the back-foot. But Arnab did pull out a few documents that showed AD had more than just public interest in mind while tracking the irrigation scam. Seems, she held lands that would have been damaged by some dams.

As for the legal notice by Nitin Gadkari you have to only see the two reports and how contrasting they are: TOI and NDTV. For some reason NDTV doesn’t reveal the full story while TOI has a little more than the legal notice. Let’s read some excerpts from the TOI story: (Includes comments by Eknath Khadse, leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly)

Gadkari's notice to Damania on Thursday evening asked her to retract her "false, baseless and defamatory statements". "You are making such false and baseless statements only to make sensation with the object to defame my clients. The state BJP unit was the first to unearth the irrigation scam and has undertaken public agitations...,'' said the notice. Senior BJP leader Devendra Phadnavis said…. "In the last budget session, I raised several queries based on the papers procured by the BJP and Damania through RTI. I had even mentioned that IAC members were being targeted for raking up the scam. In fact, she (Damania) wasn't even aware of the whistle-blower (chief engineer Vijay Pandhare). I told her about the letter and gave her Pandhare's number"… Further attacking Damania, Khadse said: "Damania had taken land near one of the irrigation dams. The govt decided to raise the height of the dam, following which Damania's land was getting affected. She wanted the govt to lower the height, but all her efforts yielded no results. On the contrary, the govt forfeited her land as Damania had purchased it without being eligible for it."

So, as usual, where it concerns the opposition, the onus to prove guilt is not on the “accuser” but on the “accused” to prove innocence. That’s our MSM. Throughout September 28 no channel asked any questions about AD’s lands or their status. None! Who knows she might have even met NG (assuming she has indeed met him) to save her lands and turned bitter if/when he had refused! Why isn’t that possible? I can’t help rephrasing the statement of the Amicus in that SIT report about another whistle blower, Sanjiv Bhatt’s claims: “There is no evidence that Anjali Damania did not meet Nitin Gadkari and seek to save her lands”. Now let the media twist that one. Well, move over Top Cop, Anjali Damania is here and she’s the new darling of our media. The Jenny-come-lately! 

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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