Monday, March 11, 2024

Coverage of Ambani ‘pre-wedding’ tells you everything that’s wrong with the media today

Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on March 6, 2024

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2024/03/06/coverage-of-ambani-pre-wedding-tells-you-everything-thats-wrong-with-the-media-today


Last week, I spoke to some students at a Mumbai college. They were in their second-year of a three-year degree course in media studies. I asked them how many of them wanted to be journalists. In a class of around 35, only one young woman raised her hand. 


Some others explained that in the first year, more of them had considered journalism as a career. But over time, they had concluded that there was no future in it.


If 19-year-olds in a Mumbai college think there is no future in journalism, what is the future of journalism in this country? 


The question came even more sharply into focus last week when a journalist with more than 20 years of experience, working with a national newspaper in Mumbai, literally died on the job. He was not in a conflict zone. He was in his office in central Mumbai.


His unexpected death led to considerable churning amongst journalists in Mumbai and elsewhere. It raised several questions that concern not just journalists but the media. It illustrated the insecurity and stress that journalists live with even when performing routine functions.


The death of this journalist also brought focus again on the state of the Indian media. 


Take, for instance, coverage of events leading up to the “pre-wedding” (not sure what that means) of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant in Jamnagar, and the event itself.  


In the days before this “pre-wedding”, print media and television news carried glowing reports about Vantara, an elephant sanctuary set up by the Ambani scion. If you read the print reports, you will wonder whether they are reprints of a press release sent out by the Ambani communications team. There’s little variation. They are factual, yes, but there isn’t one critical question. From these reports, it is evident that the journalists went on a paid junket. 


Yet, of all the English newspapers I looked at, only one –  Indian Express – carried this disclaimer: “The correspondent was in Jamnagar at the invitation of Reliance Foundation.” And one newspaper, The Hindu, chose not to send a reporter even though it also received an invitation. 


Print coverage, however, was restrained compared to the cringe-worthy report by prominent India Today anchor Rahul Kanwal. Watch his report, especially from 20.45 minutes onwards where you see him exulting over the taste of the food prepared for the elephants! It’s entertaining, but it is not journalism.


All this animal talk was only a precursor to the actual event, that stretched over three days with the broadcast media giving a blow-by-blow account of the parade of national and international celebrities that hot-footed it to Jamnagar, a city in Gujarat with an Indian Air Force base that accommodates a limited number of domestic flights.


Most newspapers and channels failed to ask the obvious question: How will all these guests make their way to Jamnagar if there is no international airport? Jagriti Chandra of The Hindu filed this story. She found that, in no time, small Jamnagar airport was converted to an international airport for 10 days. All permissions were cleared. After all, what could be more important than the “pre-wedding” of the son of one of India’s richest men?Unfortunately, The Hindu buried the story on an inside page although it deserved to be on the front page.


Why bother to comment on the media’s predictable coverage of this over-the-top “pre-wedding”, you might ask? Because it forces us to acknowledge, yet again, that mainstream media in India has moved a very long way from what was once considered “journalism”.


I have placed the word within inverted commas for a reason. Because given the nature of politics in this country, the open nexus between politics and business, and the concentration of ownership of the media in the hands of big business, we must ask how long journalism of the kind that existed even a decade back will survive.


The media has been transformed over time to a product that must be sold. Once that is accepted, there is little room to discuss why this product is any different from any other: a bar of soap or a packet of chips. All need sales pitches. The more they sell, the more the business prospers.The more people read, listen or watch your “product”, the more advertising will come your way. 


But what about the producers of this product, the journalists? Where do they stand in all this? Where is the idea of what journalism was all about? Is it even relevant today in this new scenario?


There was a time, not too long ago, when journalists found secure employment. Under the Working Journalists’ Act, journalists’ salaries were fixed based on the circulation of newspapers and the designation of the journalist. They also got the kind of benefits people working in other formal sector companies received such as a provident fund, gratuity, bonus, medical allowance, etc. 


Most importantly, they could not be sacked arbitrarily. There was a process to be followed. And there were unions that could stand by journalists. Although salaries were low, journalists had what we would jokingly call STD (security till death). Now, this has literally become ISD (insecurity till death). 


Today, most journalists are on contract. They can be laid off without notice or explanation. During the Covid pandemic, many media houses laid off journalists and other staff. Some publications closed altogether. The unemployed then joined the growing number of independent or freelance journalists desperately looking for assignments for which they were paid a pittance, not enough if you had a family, or the inevitable debts that piled up. 


Many journalists stepped out of journalism altogether and joined public relations companies or non-profits. Even if their hearts were in journalism and they loved what they did, they simply had no choice. Those who hung on and continued to go from one insecure job to another became victims of stress-related diseases.


Adding to these other stress factors are the conditions at work. Everyone is under pressure. Newspapers must show sales to attract advertising. And it is only advertising that covers the costs of not just paper and printing, but also salaries of journalists. 


Increasingly advertising of the kind newspapers attracted, even the smaller ones, a decade ago, has shifted to broadcast, and now to digital. This means print media is scrambling, with only the largest in each language being able to sweep up most of the decreasing basket of advertising. And government advertising, from central and state governments, has grown exponentially, and with it another kind of pressure on print media.


The pressure to produce exclusives, to beat the competition, has increased manifold on journalists. In the past, print journalists did a story, sent it to the desk, and occasionally phoned in an update until closing time. Today, journalism is a 24-hour job. With digital, there is no closing time. Every page is open for news and updates. 


Additionally, to keep up with the competition, even legacy print media now has podcasts and videos. The same set of journalists who write often have to take on these additional tasks. Yet, even as the nature of their work has changed, their jobs are not secure. 


Those with some kind of financial backing have the choice of quitting and trying to find another job. But most journalists cannot give up a job in hand just because they have a demanding, or even abusive, boss. And the work is stressful –  they just have to buckle down and do it. 


Ultimately, all this affects the quality of journalism. Why would anyone break their heads to come up with an exclusive if they are not sure their paper will use it? And even if it is published, they might not be rewarded for it. You can get by doing the routine stuff, and that itself is a lot when the overall staff strength has been pruned. So, the majority would just tread water, continue with the minimum, stay under the radar, and collect their salaries at the end of the month. 

Despite this, a handful of journalists in mainstream media still manage to write compelling, well-researched stories. Their work stands out and must be recognised. But we also need to shine a torch into the conditions under which they work. The death of the Mumbai journalist has triggered a much-needed conversation on the newsroom. 

Sunday, February 25, 2024

Modi govt’s message for 2024, with blocking orders and an OCI cancellation

Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on February 22, 2024

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2024/02/22/modi-govts-message-for-2024-with-blocking-orders-and-an-oci-cancellation


The Narendra Modi government hates the concept of ranking countries on a press freedom index, an exercise that Reporters Without Borders undertakes each year. The last such ranking, in 2023, placed India at 161 out of 180 countries, below others in our region, including Pakistan (150), Nepal (95), Sri Lanka (135) and Bhutan (90). Only Bangladesh has the distinction of being two notches lower at 163.


So, in 2024, will India’s ranking in this index sink further?


Going by the government’s actions since the beginning of this year, there is more than a good chance that it will.


On February 9, Caravan magazine received a notice from the Information and Broadcasting Ministry about an article it had published on February 1 titled, “Screams from the Army post”.  It was given two days to respond. The magazine did respond but the ministry was not satisfied. On February 11, a meeting on Zoom between representatives of the ministry and Caravan was held. Later, on the same day, the magazine received a notice that it must take down this article within 24 hours.


What was the offending article, that has now been taken down, about? It was a detailed story written by Jatinder Kaur Tur on allegations of torture by the Indian armed forces against civilians from Rajouri and Poonch in Jammu and Kashmir in December 2023. Three of the 25 men picked up for questioning died in army custody.


The government used Section 69A of the IT Act, a section that has been challenged in several high courts, to justify its action. The section permits the government to take down any content that it concludes threatens the “sovereignty, integrity, defence of India, security of the State, friendly relations with foreign states, or public order or for preventing incitement to the commission of any cognisable offence relating to the above”.


The government’s concerns about certain types of information coming out extends not just to platforms and publications located within India, but even those outside. Thus, in January, the Hate Tracker, a platform that documents incidents of hate speech and hate crimes in India, but is located outside the country, was blocked in India. This report in Article 14 sets out the details. The reason? The same as that used for the Caravan article under Section 69A.


The government has also demonstrated its inability to accept the right of foreign journalists based in India to report freely what they see and hear. On February 16,Vanessa Dougnac, a French journalist who has lived and worked in India for 25 years, was told she would have to leave the country. Her Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) status was withdrawn. She was told that her work was “inimical to the interest of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of India and to the interests of the general public”.


In a statement before she left, Dougnac said: “Today, I am unable to work and have been unfairly accused of prejudicing the interests of the state. It has become clear that I cannot keep living in India and earning my livelihood. I am fighting these accusations before the competent forums, and I have full faith in the legal process. But I can’t afford to wait for its outcome. The proceedings with respect to my OCI status have shattered me, especially now that I see them as part of a wider effort by the Government of India to curb dissent from the OCI community.” 


As one can imagine, a foreign correspondent being asked to leave on dodgy grounds has not gone unnoticed around the world. In a strong and explicit statement, RSF stated:


“Forcing a seasoned professional journalist to leave India after she had been based there for two decades reveals a very dark and deplorable image of what press freedom has become under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. With two months to go to general elections, the vice is tightening on foreign correspondents who try to cover India in a professional manner. We condemn the unacceptable way Vanessa Dougnac has been treated and the use of absurd accusations as a subterfuge to gag and intimidate outspoken reporters. The Indian authorities must guarantee journalists’ safety and freedom to work.”


The latest action of the government is an order sent to X on February 19 asking it to take down several accounts. Coincidentally, most of these are independent journalists using social media to report on the ongoing farmers’ agitation. These accounts provide us with detailed news about the agitation, about the way the farmers have had to face tear gas dropped by drones and rubber bullets fired by the security forces standing behind concrete barricades to prevent them from marching to Delhi. On February 21, the first death of one of these farmers – 24-year-old Shubhkaran Singh – from a bullet injury was reported.


Coincidentally, or perhaps not, one of the accounts taken down is that of independent journalist Mandeep Punia and his platform Gaon Savera. People might have forgotten that Punia was central to the reporting of the previous farmers agitation in 2021. In this article he wrote for Outlook magazine in 2021, he describes his arrest by the police, and the stories he heard and reported during those months.


Although X has complied with the government’s orders, as it has done in the past, this time it has issued the following statement: “In compliance with the orders, we will withhold these posts and accounts in India alone; however, we disagree with these actions and maintain that freedom of expression should extend to these posts.”


You might think one article, one foreign journalist being expelled, and a few social media accounts being taken down does not represent any real threat to freedom of the press in India. But it does.

 

What these three incidents in the first two months of 2024 illustrate is the intent of this government. Clearly, it is determined to do whatever it takes to suppress critical independent reporting.


It does not care what international groups like RSF think. It does not care where India is ranked in a press freedom index. It is only interested in ensuring that the narrative that it has endorsed about what is happening anywhere in this country, which is dutifully amplified by mainstream TV, is the one that all media should echo. Those who refuse, do so at their own risk.

 

Sunday, February 18, 2024

Beyond PM’s front-page guarantees, silence on Ladakh, and threat to digital media

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on February 9, 2024

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2024/02/09/beyond-pms-front-page-guarantees-silence-on-ladakh-and-threat-to-digital-media


The prime minister has spoken. He speaks all the time, but when he decides to speak in Parliament, we are compelled to listen. It is an institution that he visits infrequently. However, given that the 17th Lok Sabha is winding down as we face a general election, we must pay heed to his words. 


Apart from the predictable rhetorical flourishes for which the PM is now well-known, what continues to amaze those who care to listen carefully is his skill at proclaiming half-truths, or even untruths, as unquestionable facts. 


Electoral politics is a battle of perception, and visibility. And we have seen in the last decade how Narendra Modi, and the Bharatiya Janata Party have mastered this. 


Given that Modi has been the prime minister for a decade, everything and anything he says or does is news. In addition, he has a dedicated space on radio for his Mann ki Baat monthly programme, and even a YouTube channel.

 

As if this was not enough, we have been deluged with daily front-page ads in leading national newspapers. Without fail, at least one national newspaper will display below its masthead on the front page an advertisement that has Modi’s face and the words “Modi Sarkar ki Guarantee”. The ad boasts of schemes launched by the government that have apparently been brilliantly successful. 

 

As these are advertisements, there is no space to question the so-called facts stated in them. But just below the advertisement is often a front-page story quoting the prime minister. Even as the media feels obliged to report everything he says, is there no space to do a fact check on what he says?


No one expects mainstream media, given its current state, to call out partial truths uttered by the most powerful person in this country. Fortunately, we still have space to do this on social media and on independent digital news platforms.


A video worth watching on YouTube is this one by former television anchor Abhisar Sharma. He dissects the prime minister’s speeches in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha made earlier this week. He looks specifically at some of the PM’s comments about India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and establishes the half-truths and sometimes outright lies that were spoken.


Sharma is one of several well-known television journalists who now run channels on YouTube as there is no space for their kind of plain speaking on mainstream television channels. Incidentally, the subscriber base for YouTube in India is an estimated 462 million.

In print media, fortunately, there is still space to expose some of this wrong information being sent out to the entire country. Apart from blaming the Nehru-Gandhi family for all the ills the country faces today, the prime minister also ticked off state governments in the south for raising their voices against what they perceive as inequity in allocation of central resources.  


There is no discrimination towards the southern states, the PM insisted. It is leaders from the southern states who are creating a “north-south divide”


The facts, in this case too, tell a different story. Some newspapers, like Hindustan Times, are using data to inform people, such as these charts by Roshan Kishore. Ideally, people ought to go through such data charts and see for themselves why the south has a legitimate grievance. However, in these distracted times, perhaps it is asking too much of the lay reader to spend time going through such data charts. As a result, in the battle of perception, the accusation that a north-south divide is being artificially created by the opposition wins, while the facts lose.


If you are someone who turns to social media for news, comment, and information, as an increasing number of people are doing in the country, you will come across much that escapes the eye of the established media. Sometimes when you watch videos on social media, you wonder whether the reports are really about the country we live in.

Take for instance, the recent developments in Ladakh. In the last week, tens of thousands of Ladakhis have been out on the streets demanding full statehoodfor what became a union territory on August 5, 2019, when the Modi government read down Article 370. 


Size matters and when thousands of people demonstrate, the media generally has to take note. Yet despite the size of the protests in Ladakh, you will find hardly any reports on them in print media, and next to nothing on television. As a result, most news consumers in this country would not have a clue about what is happening in Ladakh. 


Ladakhis are protesting because they say there is no one to represent them. While Jammu and Kashmir might have assembly elections later this year, Ladakh does not have an assembly. It had district councils when it was still a part of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. When will they have elections, and who will they elect, they ask. 


The best-known environmentalist and civil society activist in Ladakh is Sonam Wangchuk. He has joined the protests and threatened to go on an indefinite fast. He wants the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, which safeguards the rights of tribals on their land, to be extended to Ladakh. Yet although Wangchuk is a prominent personality, you do not hear his voice in mainstream media. For that, you need to make time to watch videos like this one in The Print.


The voices from Ladakh are not getting through, either to the rest of the country, or to the government, because the media is not amplifying them. This works in favour of a government that chooses to ignore protests like these and will say something, or do something, only when it suits its larger agenda.


The Ladakhis should pay heed to the way Manipur has been handled by this government. What began in May last year is still festering. It has the potential to blow up into a major conflagration that could affect all of the northeast. Yet, the prime minister has not found the words to say anything about Manipur. And the only solution that the home minister has devised is to say the border between India and Myanmar will be fenced! 


Meanwhile, mainstream media has switched off Manipur. Once again, the only news available of the ongoing violence in the state is on social media. 


This is why the small window of freedom that social media, and independent digital news platforms, provide must be protected. 

Irrespective of the outcome of the 2024 general elections, it is now clear that when political power and business are aligned, the space for free expression in the media gets restricted. 


Additionally, when a government brings in laws that will create more hurdles for independent media, as this government has done with changes in the IT Rules that will permit it to set up a “fact-checking unit” (currently challenged in courts) and the proposed Broadcasting Bill, the chances of it surviving are even dimmer. 



Tuesday, February 06, 2024

Over-the-top coverage, bounty of ads: The saffron hues of Big Media on Ram Mandir

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on January 25, 2024

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2024/01/25/over-the-top-coverage-bounty-of-ads-the-saffron-hues-of-big-media-on-ram-mandir


This was the first paragraph of the front-page story in The Times of India on January 23:

“100 private jets, rose-petals showering IAF choppers, swanky cars, rich and famous people – Ayodhya on consecration day saw all this and more. But it was the townspeople, forced to live with police bandobast for three decades, who brought life and light – 10 lakh diyas lit Saryu’s banks – to Ayodhya’s celebratory mood.”

It ran under this headline: “Jets, copters, swanky cars, VIPs, 10 lakh diyas: Ayodhya’s changed. So has life there.”

The lead story on the front page, showing a photograph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Ram temple in Ayodhya, ran under this headline: “Dev to Desh, Ram to Rashtra: PM”. And a strap above it said “Diwali arrives early as nation celebrates consecration of Ram Lalla’s idol with fireworks and festivity, amid calls for harmony and healing”.

Page 1 of The Times of India on January 23.

Page 1 of The Times of India on January 23.

This is illustrative of the celebratory and frankly over-the-top nature of the coverage of the temple consecration in most mainstream newspapers. The exceptions were the usual suspects, who covered it but were restrained. The Hindu, for instance, carried its lead story under the headline “Rituals done: PM calls it a historic day”. To see the headlines of all the papers, see this story in Newslaundry

See all this report in Newslaundry, which is entertaining and informative. It gives us a glimpse of what it rightly calls the “media circus” in Ayodhya and records the antics of mainstream television channels and their anchors. It also shows us how many journalists have abandoned all pretence of being media professionals as they shouted “Jai Shri Ram” in the media centre while watching the event on television.

The story also records what ordinary people living in Ayodhya thought of the celebration. Not all were in the “celebratory mood” touted by The Times of India. Life in Ayodhya has changed but whether everyone living there is happy about it is another story – one that has been barely reported.

Also lost in the hype around the temple consecration was the fact that violent communal incidents occurred in at least six states leading up to January 22, as reported by The Quint.

We should not have been surprised by the newspapers of January 23, given the hue of these papers on the previous day. They had a distinctive saffron tinge with almost half the printed pages covered with colourful advertisements on the temple inauguration. 

Indian Express, for instance, in a 20-page edition of January 22, carried seven full page advertisements, including on its front page. The lead story on the front page, when you got to it, was naturally focussed on the temple. Pages 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 were all full-page ads on the temple as was page 9.  In between there was some other news, but even news pages included a comment piece by the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat. And the lead op-ed piece was by the BJP MP Rakesh Sinha. The only pages where there was no mention of Ram were the sports and business pages.

The exception to this common theme song extolling the glory of the new temple was an acerbic edit page article by Pratap Bhanu Mehta. Most people these days don’t have the patience to read such articles; they prefer short news stories with catchy headlines and spectacular photographs. 

However, Mehta’s piece stood out because he asked questions and stated what needed to be said. This quote sums up the main drift of his article, which needs to be read by all those who are interested in different perspectives on the January 22 event and not just the hype propagated by mainstream media:

“It is not just a moment where the state, which has pulled all its mighty power behind this event, ceases to be secular. It is also the moment where Hinduism ceases to be religious.”

Amplifying on this, he noted: “Ram has been transformed from a radiant glow of righteousness, compassion, and imaginative power into something merely instrumental: A litmus test for national loyalty. We are now more valorous devotees of Ram – more than Tulsidas or Gandhi, who rejected the logic of retaliation. You now have to swear allegiance to this Imam-e-Hind, or else.”

Another insightful comment, that appeared not in an Indian newspaper but in The Guardian, was by Mukul Kesavan. It also gives us much to think about.  Kesavan points out:

“In this season of Donald Trump, it’s worth remembering that the ethno-nationalism that the temple at Ayodhya embodies isn’t the handiwork of an erratic, populist tycoon; it is a century-old political project backed by militant cadres that number in the millions. The India (or Bharat) that Modi and Bhagwat envision is more like Netanyahu’s Israel, only on a subcontinental scale; as majoritarian and as intolerant.”

The celebratory tone of the legacy print media around the temple was only to be expected, especially as the flood of full-page ads ensured the well-established dictum: “he who pays the piper calls the tune”. But what is extraordinary is that one of them was so afraid that it junked an article by one of its best-known humour columnists.

Jug Suraiya has been writing for The Times of India for decades. What began as a column in the middle of the edit page has now been reduced to a short piece that appears at the end of the editorial column, or the “third edit” as we used to call it. Despite the reduction of words available, Suraiya still manages to infuse his column with mischief and humour. But this time, his paper clearly did not want to take any risks. No place for humour, apparently, when a temple is being inaugurated. 

So Suraiya’s column, reprinted in The Wire, was spiked.  

As LK Advani famously said after the Emergency, the press now has not just bent down, it has prostrated itself at the feet of “Modi sarkar”.

From that position, it obviously cannot ask even the most obvious questions, especially about the January 22 event or what happened before it. Read the Times of India story quoted above. It says flower petals were sprinkled by “IAF helicopters”. That is the Indian Air Force. Who paid for this? Who decided that this is a “national” event no different from the Republic Day parade or the opening of the new Parliament building last year?

For 11 days before this event, the prime minister visited various temples around the country. Every day, this was dutifully reported on television and in print. But again, did anyone ask who paid for this? Should a prime minister’s personal resolve – to fast for 11 days and visit Hindu temples – be billed to the public exchequer?

Perhaps a day will still dawn when the media does the job it is supposed to do in a democracy: ask difficult questions about the actions and decisions taken by the powerful. Sadly, given the current state of the media, as evident on January 22 and 23, that day is not yet on the horizon. 

Thursday, January 18, 2024

As media fanned Maldives flames, silence on Lakshadweep’s ecology, Chhattisgarh forests

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on January 11, 2024

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2024/01/11/as-media-fanned-maldives-flames-silence-on-lakshadweeps-ecology-chhattisgarh-forests


Predictable, is it not, that the new year should get off to a flying start with a non-issue becoming a raging controversy, thanks to social and mainstream media. It is a precursor to what we can expect in the rest of this year. 

On January 4, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Lakshadweep, a group of 36 islands in the Arabian Sea which is a Union territory. It is not clear what was the provocation for this visit.  There are no elections on the immediate horizon. Then why? 

In a carefully curated video and photographs that were released to the media and circulated through social media, Modi is seen, alone, on a sparkling white beach. He walks, sits, gazes out at the sea, all this with several changes of clothes. And then, wearing a bodysuit used for deep sea diving, he is seen snorkelling, accompanied by two divers. This is the only image where we see someone else. 

The message in this promo, by none other than the prime minister, is that Indians should choose the beautiful beaches of the island territory for holidays and tourism.

What followed, of course, was more than just a rush of Indians to the Lakshadweep. The resultant ultra-nationalism, with celebrities and influencers making vapid statements about how Lakshadweep was better than the Maldives, another group of islands in the Arabian Sea with beautiful beaches and coral reefs, exposed the real intent behind the promotion.

India has been uneasy ever since Mohammed Muizzu was elected president of the island state in November last year. He has openly reached out to China and already signed 20 agreements as part of a bilateral Comprehensive Strategic Cooperative Partnership.  

The economy of the Maldives is heavily dependent on tourism and Indian tourists constitute a substantial percentage. It appears that the “boycott Maldives” trend triggered by the Modi visit was not spontaneous. It has resulted in hyper-nationalism in India and sharp critical statements by ministers in Muizzu’s cabinet in response.

Apart from the strategic dimensions of this silly spat, the incident has underlined a couple of factors that are perhaps an indication of the way all media will be used in the future. One, that those with the skill to use social media can push agendas if mainstream media picks up the cue and follows the lead. The BJP has already shown its mastery in this regard. And second, that leading up to 2024, this is the kind of strategy that will be used increasingly to build up the image of Narendra Modi.

In the social media melee that followed the tourism promo, no one mentioned the environmental challenges that the Maldives already faces because of tourism. Troubled as it is with the prospect of sea level rise due to global warming, the island state has seen beaches disappear and its precious coral reefs being bleached due to the pollution caused by human intervention.

The Lakshadweep is safe for the moment because the tourist trade has not expanded. But after this little exercise, if it does – and there are already indications that the trend has begun – we will see an end to those pristine beaches and the coral reefs that have survived.  

While these environmental aspects of opening Lakshadweep to tourism were barely discussed in the media, another major story that concerns the destruction of pristine natural forests has also got hardly any traction in mainstream media.

The Hasdeo Arand Forest in Chhattisgarh, described as “one of the last unfragmented forest landscapes in Central India”, will be decimated if expansion of the existing coal mines is permitted. Despite reports by two credible organisations, the Wildlife Institute of India and the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education advising against expansion, the union government gave its clearance in 2022. 

The decision has been met with vociferous opposition by the local Adivasi population. They have taken out massive rallies in the state capital Raipur. Yet, barring a passing news item or a small single column photograph, these protests have barely been covered. The mines, incidentally, are owned by Adani group.

According to an investigative story in Scroll.in a year ago, the second phase of the mining project, which envisages an expansion of the existing two mines in the Hasdeo Arand Forest, would result in 2.5 lakh trees being cut in an area of 1,137 hectares. The forest, spread over 1,500 sq km, is one of the few remaining untouched forests in central India. It hosts rare plants and several species of endangered animals. 

But, as I have argued in earlier columns, saving the environment has become a passing concern in mainstream media. And governments, both state and central, are champions at churning out politically correct rhetoric even as their actions are leading to environmental devastation.

To end on a more positive note, the only bit of good news as we enter the new year has been the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Bilkis Bano case. It has ordered that the 11 men sentenced for life for murder and rape during the Gujarat violence of 2002, who were granted remission of their jail term by the Gujarat government, be sent back to prison. It has concluded that the remission order by the Gujarat government was fraudulent. This ruling has generated some optimism that perhaps justice is still possible.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has also taken note of a petition filed by a journalist about the way caste operates inside prisons and the casteist nature of prison manuals that are still being used in Indian jails in 2024.

This shocking revelation was made in 2020 by an excellent series of five articles in the Wire by Sukanya Shantha and Jahnavi Sen titled “Barred: the prison project”. They studied prison manuals in different states and spoke to prisoners belonging to the marginalised castes, especially Dalits.  

What they found was perhaps not unusual given that caste continues to determine how Indian society is run. But the series revealed that official prison manuals laid down tasks that prisoners are expected to do while serving their sentences on caste lines. Thus, only upper castes are assigned cooking duties while Dalits have no choice but to clean. These manuals from colonial times have never been revised. 

This quote sums it up:

“Caste-based labour, in fact, is sanctioned in the prison manuals of many states. The colonial texts of the late 19th century have barely seen any amendments, and caste-based labour remains an untouched part of these manuals. While every state has its own unique prison manual, they are mostly based on The Prisons Act, 1894. These jail manuals mention every activity in detail – from the measurement of food and space per prisoner to punishments for the ‘disorderly ones’.”

The expose was noted and appreciated when it appeared, and the journalists won awards. But the issue would have remained unaddressed had it not been for the decision of one of them, Sukanya Shantha, to follow up by going to court. 

The hearings in the case have just begun in the Supreme Court. As prisons are under state governments, it has asked 11 states to look at their prison manuals. This could lead to important and long-term change.

The lesson to draw from this is that sometimes journalists cannot rest after they have done a path-breaking investigative story. In a society, and particularly today when both politics and mainstream media seem determined to distract rather than inform, there is little choice before journalists but to follow up on the information unearthed and find ways to make the change happen. This is what Sukanya Shantha from the Wire has done by filing her case.

Friday, January 05, 2024

From protests to Parliament: The fall of mainstream media – and why 2024 doesn’t bode well

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on December 28, 2023

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2023/12/28/from-protests-to-parliament-the-fall-of-mainstream-media-and-why-2024-doesnt-bode-well


2023 IN REVIEW

We end this year by being reminded again that there are no clean endings when the issue of sexual harassment is raised. The face of champion wrestler Sakshi Malik, as she broke down in front of the media, could not be a more heart-rending reminder of this ugly truth.

Malik wept because little has changed. 

Twelve months ago, the struggle began to draw attention to sexual harassment charges by women wrestlers against BJP MP and former Wrestling Federation of India head Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh. But not only has Singh remained untouched, his proxy Sanjay Singh won the WFI election on December 21. Newspapers carried photos of a smiling Brij Bhushan wearing garlands as if he himself had been re-elected while Sanjay, the new WFI president, stood demurely by his side.

Soon after, Malik announced that she would quit wrestling. Bajrang Punia and Virender Singh Yadav announced they would return their Padma Shri awards in solidarity. Vinesh Phogat returned her Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna award and Arjuna award.

Their actions remind us that, despite media attention on their struggle in the early part of the year, the government dragged its feet after persuading them to call off their agitation. It filed a case against Singh only after directions from the Supreme Court. Till date, it hasn’t reprimanded Brij Bhushan. The case against him filed by the Delhi police, which comes directly under the union home ministry, has gone nowhere. 

With the issue refusing to die down, the sports ministry finally moved and suspended the newly elected WFI and Brij Bhushan said he was no longer involved in wrestling. 

For the media, there are lessons to be drawn from the trajectory of this high-visibility campaign. Media attention did help the wrestlers put pressure on the government. But given the nature of the complaint (sexual harassment) and the person at the centre of it (a powerful politician), there were no tidy endings. More reason then for the media to continue to follow the story rather than wait for another dramatic event to remind us that, in under a year, precious little progress has been made on the wrestlers’ demands.

In many ways, the story of the wrestlers’ struggle for justice is the story of much of India. Dramatic public protests catch the eye of mainstream media. But once these end, or are forced to end, media attention moves on. And on issues where the people affected do not possess the social capital to launch eye-catching campaigns, there is little to no media attention.

The wrestlers’ protests ought to have reminded us in the media that despite the MeToo campaigns of 2019, the problem of sexual harassment remains an unfaltering reality that women face every day. But there is an even more dramatic example of what we don’t find in the media – or at least not enough of it.

The dramatic “attack” on Parliament by six young people trying to draw attention to unemployment and lack of freedom is another example.  On the anniversary of the December 13, 2001 terror attack, two of them got into the building, jumped into the chamber where the Lok Sabha was meeting, and released canisters of some kind of coloured gas. It was front-page news, but the issues they raised have not been addressed.

Why would young people, who surely knew the consequences of this kind of protest, take such risks if they were not desperate? How representative are they of the thousands of unemployed men and women who see no future, despite the government’s boasts that the Indian economy is growing by leaps and bounds?

Although some mainstream newspapers profiled the youth and their families and wrote about their motives for undertaking such a daring form of protest, television news, as expected, continued to refer to them as “terrorists”.

Unemployment is one of the biggest stories that mainstream media has chosen not to report. The reason is obvious. A government that refuses to accept anything in the media that is even slightly critical of its policies, and has clearly indicated what it will do to tame its critics, is unlikely to look kindly at media that investigates the darker side of an ostensibly growing economy that leaves so many millions behind.

Senior journalist Ajaz Ashraf, in his column in Mid-day, is one of the few to point out why this action by the six has not got the support of even the opposition. No one wants to be seen to be sympathetic to persons charged under terror laws. Perhaps the media too has held back from taking forward the demands raised by the six.

In any case, the taming of our mainstream media by this government is almost complete.  A few voices remain, principally in print. But the rest literally “follow the leader”. 

The road ahead

As we now head into an election year, will we see any change in the media sphere? That is the question any journalist who believes that the job of a free media in a functioning democracy is to question the powerful must be asking as 2023 comes to an end.

The answer to that could lie in asking how many journalists have managed to continue questioning the powerful despite the current government and the threats to press freedom.

The spaces that have remained open for such questioning are mostly on independent digital platforms.  Through this year, this is where we have seen some of the best investigative stories: coverage of the ongoing conflict in Manipur about which the prime minister continues to remain silent, stories on displacement, disasters, and disease, and on the despair felt by those whose stories are rarely told. 

In early December, when the Mumbai Press Club announced the Red Ink awards for journalism, there was little surprise that the majority of awardees in several categories were from these small, spunky digital platforms. When the future history of these times is written, the record of what really happened will be found on these independent spaces as the traditional media, that is supposed to play the role of the recorder of history, is falling woefully short.

That said, the 2024 general elections, or even before they are held, could mean the beginning of the end of these little islands of freedom that still exist in the media sphere. 

The winter session of Parliament rushed through the Telecommunications Bill 2023 even as 146 opposition MPs were suspended. The law was brought in ostensibly to regulate the telecom industry, but serious concerns have been raised about privacy of users as this article by Apar Gupta in The Wire explains. 

More worrying is the draft Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill 2023 which was open for public comments. Designed to regulate what it terms “content creation”, the law will bring under its ambit all digital news platforms like ScrollThe WireThe News MinuteNewsClickArticle14Newslaundry and scores more in other languages as well as hundreds of news-related programmes on YouTube such as the one by Ravish Kumar. 

These comments, made by the Internet Freedom Foundation, make it clear that if passed, this law will most certainly curtail the freedom presently enjoyed by those using the digital space for news. Let me quote this paragraph to illustrate: 

“The bill extends the Ministry’s regulatory ambit to any person who broadcasts news and current affairs programs through a digital medium (such as online paper, news portal, website, social media intermediary, or other similar medium). This provision will apply to any individual, and not just media companies or journalists, who chooses to share news as part of a ‘systematic business, professional, or commercial activity’. Concerns over how “news and current affairs” is currently defined under the bill and uncertainty over the scope of application of this Clause augment concerns around erosion of democratic principles of online free speech. This will threaten journalistic expression as well as a users’ right to access multiple, diverse points of view, especially given the high penalties prescribed in the draft bill for failing to comply with ethical codes and government orders.”

I had hoped to end this on a more optimistic note. Unfortunately, given the way laws are being bulldozed through our Parliament, it is difficult to hope that this government will heed comments such as the one quoted above and many more that have been sent to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. 

Does this government really need such a law, given that most of the mainstream media in the country rarely questions and is always ready to distract from the real issues? The fact that it has even devised such a law should tell us that this is a government that wants to paper over all the cracks, even the smallest ones that will allow for free “journalistic expression”.