Everyone
values information but not everyone values perception. Creating perceptions is
the game in the media. Let me rehash an old story from the West to NDTV’s context. Now everyone knows NDTV
is like the former USSR’s Pravda news agency except that NDTV is a willful
mouthpiece and slave with an agenda. When Narendra Modi inaugurated the
Sabarmati River front in Ahmedabad he took a boat ride. Strong winds blew off
his cap which fell some 50 feet away from the boat on the water. An unperturbed
Modi just got off the boat, walked on
water, retrieved his cap and walked back to the boat. Yeah, I guess you
know what the headline on NDTV was: “Sources:
Narendra Modi can’t swim”. There used to be another story during the
US-Russia cold war. There was a race in Moscow. The Russian came second but the
American came in one before the end. That is how NDTV would report it except
that NDTV won’t tell you that there were
only 2 people in the race. So you will have to figure out who actually came
first.
Politicians
will say what they want and they cannot be restricted. But if news channels are
merely going to repeat what they said like a box of parrots then they failing
in their jobs. The job of a news channel also involves “fact-checking”. This is
where all the Indian news channels fail miserably. Sometime back I had written
about an interview of Digvijay Singh, a darling at NDTV, by Sunetra Choudhury.
Diggy claimed in some context that the Congress
had never attacked the family members of the BJP or other Opposition
parties. This is a LIE and NDTV let it pass; which is why I had strongly
recommended “NDTV needs a lie-detector”. Looks like they still haven’t got one!
So on the
night of July 1 NDTV decided to debate something they called ‘Twitter wars’
over the Uttarakhand tragedy. Yep, the anchor was Nidhi ‘Larger picture’ Razdan. And like a true parrot Nidhi merely
ran a “She said, he said” story without bothering to check on facts. Ever since
the channel sacrificed their tagline “Experience truth first” they have stuck
to their philosophy of narrating only part fiction. So what was the issue?
Sushma Swaraj tweeted something about Congress incompetence over Uttarakhand,
Manish Tiwari tweeted back that LOPs lecture on some CBI proposal but didn’t
visit Uttarakhand, Sushma Swaraj tweeted back that they were advised by Home
Minister Shinde, Manish Tiwari tweeted back asking why Rajnath and Modi didn’t
follow that advice, then Ajay Maken tweeted, then someone else tweeted blah
blah. The whole thing by itself is comic but trust stupid NDTV to make a debate
out of it. After all, this is a channel which even debated “who is stricter” – Rahul Gandhi or
Sonia Gandhi. Here, take a look:
There is
absolutely nothing in it except that NDTV won’t state a few facts. First, it
has been a practice with Congress and its crony channels to accuse others of “politicising” events or tragedies if
their incompetence is criticised. The only two parties who most demonstrated scavenging
on the Uttarakhand tragedy are Congress and TDP. These two parties came to a
physical fight at Dehradun airport on who will ferry back the survivors. Of
course, the most idiotic trip by anyone to Uttarakhand has to be that of Rahul
Gandhi. Doesn’t matter!
The question
now is did NDTV check what Manish Tiwari said last is correct? Is it true that
Rajnath Singh and Narendra Modi did not heed Shinde’s advice? Let’s check:
1)According
to reports Sushil Kumar Shinde gave out his advice of VIPs avoiding travel to
Uttarkhand on Monday, June 24.
2) Rajnath
Singh visited Uttarakhand for an aerial survey and some interaction at Dehradun
on Thursday, June 20.
3) Narendra
Modi visited Uttarakhand on Saturday,June 22.
4) In total
disregard of Shinde’s advice on June 24 it was RahulG who choppered to
Uttarakhand on June 25 and 26
with no real purpose to his trip. The Congress claimed it was a “common citizen” trip and not as a VVIP.
We all know what RG did there. He was a total nuisance. So for ManishT &
NDTV RahulG is above rules and law as has been all these years, isn’t it?
I know, it
all seems very elementary now, doesn’t it? Shinde gave out an advice on June 24 while both Rajnath and
Modi had made their trips prior to that date. So how would they follow Shinde’s
advice? True to his usually bogus comments Manish Tiwari was blabbering
nonsense. Well, one can’t stop the loveable Manish, that’s his nature. But I
can say with authority that Nidhi Razdan missed the “larger picture” here, the
picture of FACTS. That’s how NDTV
does “shoddy journalism” and creates
deception in their debates. Now, let’s try to look for some real facts beyond
these silly political statements.
On the night
of July 1 on his programme ‘Centrestage’ Rahul
Kanwal on Headlines Today confronted the Uttarkhand Congress MLA with
documents indicating there was abundant warnings on the cloubdburst, extreme
rainfall and glacier melting. He went to the extent ot asking why the
Uttarakhand govt shouldn’t be charged with murder. There were no convincing
answers. I don’t know about murder but there is no reason why a number of PILs shouldn’t
be filed in the Supreme Court for “gross
negligence causing deaths and destruction” against that govt. You see, NDTV
won’t discuss these issues but will discuss frivolous nonsense.
While the
media indulged in the nonsense of the “Rambo
act” of Narendra Modi there was someone who finally pulled their pants and
skirts off. Meenakshi Lekhi commented on July 1 that “it was a thousand times better to be a Rambo
than be a Dumbo or a Scambo”. She just misses a point all along. It
is NDTV’s job to defend Dumbo and Scambo with any deceptions possible, even if
it comes to a tragedy like Uttarakhand.
