Media Culpa

No matter how hard you try not to fume at antics of Indian television reporters, you will invariably fail. They are, bar the sane exceptions that are becoming fewer by the day, decidedly callous, unabashed, unrepentant, and ignorant. They don’t learn, they don’t do an ethical job of it, and they strut around arrogantly giving you the impression that they are answerable to none. Actually, they are not. Except to their respective managements whose raison d'être is to make money, and it does not...

In 2006, the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) published a damning report on the presence of banned pesticides in colas. The Indian media, by and large, went easy on the two cola brands – Pepsi and Coca-Cola. The allegation was serious and the implications far and wide. Yet, the cola companies, the opulent advertisers that they are, tided over the crisis with consummate ease. One of the many reasons for this was that news media establishments steadfastly refused to push...

Memories of last year’s Uttarakhand catastrophe are a tad difficult to push under the rubble of amnesia. For the last few days, incessant rains have been wreaking havoc in districts like Champawat, Chamoli and Nainital. Landslides too have been reported from many places. A bridge that had been constructed after the 2013 Uttarakhand disaster has been washed away. It is not without reason that memories of the other day keep rushing back. The superficial reportage of the ongoing rains is there...

There are many reasons why journalists are such a scantly-respected lot today, compared to even what we were when I joined the profession 23 winters back. One being that journalism, increasingly so, has ceased to be about people. The decline, steeply – if I may insist, started in the 1990s when most journalists lost the plot, when the ‘demos’ part of the democracy began disappearing from news pegs. What has been lost in the bargain has been vibrancy, truth. Spins imparted by journalists, apart...

Tuesday last brought this rather alarming and disconcerting bit of news that global warming is threatening more deadly Everest-kind of avalanches. The scare was attributed to the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). But as it turns out, it was sheer scare-mongering, and quite baseless and impetuous at that. The ICIMOD report, Glacier Status in Nepal and Decadal Change from 1980 to 2010 Based on Landsat Data, had in fact made no such assertion or...

Fact No I: Journalists, by virtue of their job, are a powerful lot. They can give any twist to any story. Fact No II: The issue of Muslims/Islam is so dynamic that you can either project Muslims as a bloodthirsty breed or portray them as hapless victims of an Islamophobic dispensation. Take the two facts together, and you will know what I am driving at. There have been a number of studies about Islamophobia and the media that have found their way into the public domain. Some are accurate, others...

The clouds of uncertainty hanging over the Lok Sabha have only been becoming murkier by the day. There is no one to furnish you with a clear picture because everyone who is either a stakeholder himself/herself or is physically keeping track of the goings-on, is not able to make much of the fast-changing equations – what we have, therefore, is a scenario that is perhaps as nebulous as it was when the game of alignments began. If you are neither a direct stakeholder or one monitoring the situation...

Did you know one plus one can make zero? You didn't, you say? OK, take these two gospel truths: i) The Northeast does not quite make news in the Indian mainstream media ii) Media owners are loathe to disseminate news items about journalists through their outlets. Now take an incident which has these two incontrovertible truths as the background: the offices of many newspapers in Manipur and the state's only television channel were shut down on March 21 after threats to four journalists from an...

The Times of India has issued an apology. That's good news. The bad news is that the apology has been buried in the 20th page of Sunday's edition. The info comes to me courtesy Utpal. Here's what the paper had to say: "An article in TimesLife ('Spa With a Difference', March 2) had an inadvertent mention that has upset our friends from the northeast. We clarify here that we have the utmost regard for them and their contribution to the country. We apologise for upsetting any feelings and wish to...

Those of us who have more than a soft corner for the Northeast have been crying wolf since the day we stepped into journalism. We have been crying ourselves hoarse over the stepmotherly attitude of the Centre towards the region. And we have also been mincing no words about what we think of how the news media itself has been handling the Northeast. Over the last few years the news media has shown some interest in the region. For whatever reason. Maybe people have matured. Maybe they have...