How a section of media passes off the government’s ‘official version’ of events as news gathering

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on January 7, 2022

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2022/01/07/how-a-section-of-media-passes-off-the-governments-official-version-of-events-as-news-gathering

Even as the rising numbers of people infected by Covid-19 is once again front-page news, we have before us another example of how easily mainstream media amplifies the official version of an event.

I am referring to reports about the “massive security breach” in Punjab on January 5. The story is still unraveling.

However, there are some aspects of the coverage in print media that are in some ways similar to the so-called ”botched” security operation in Oting in Nagaland's Mon district on December 4 that resulted in the death of 14 civilians.

The similarities are not the details. They lie in the ease with which mainstream media reproduces the official version of an event without so much as a question mark or quotation marks. It takes several days for other versions of the event to appear, if at all. By then, the majority of readers have already made up their minds about what happened based on the initial reports. (Tellingly, some newspapers did start using quotation marks around the phrase “security breach” two days later or adding the word “alleged”.)

In the case of the prime minister's cavalcade being stranded on a flyover on its way to the National Martyrs Memorial at Hussainiwala in Punjab, the similarities in the front-page stories on January 6 is startling. The outlier, as usual, is the Telegraph which states an opinion in its choice of headline – “Hubris waylaid, Modi goes back” – and then the lead story, “Beating a retreat with 'zinda laut paaya' parting shot'”.

While the Hindu modifies the “security breach” phrase in its front-page headline by attributing it to union home minister Amit Shah – “PM's car caught in Punjab stir; unacceptable breach, says Shah” – the Indian Express uses the phrase as a given, even without quote marks: “Security breach leaves PM stranded on flyover in Punjab; bid to harm him: BJP”. Similarly the Times of India leads with “In security breach, PM stuck on Punjab flyover for 20 min”.

The point here is not whether what happened qualifies as a security breach or not. That is being investigated. But when you have on record the chief minister of the state in which this has happened explaining what happened, and the protesting farmers who apparently led to the hold up giving a different version, is it not legitimate to question?

When you don't have reporters on the spot who could have verified what actually happened, do you automatically go by the official version, particularly at a time when politics in Punjab is so polarised as it heads for an election? Or do you make an effort to get other perspectives?

When it comes to the prime minister, or anything on our borders, the mainstream Indian media has a long tradition of initially going by the official version. Rarely is this even questioned, unless evidence to the contrary is so obvious that it is unavoidable. As happened in Oting, when one of the miners who survived the shooting by the army clearly stated that they were shot at without warning. Reporters who have tried to raise questions have had a tough time surviving in mainstream media.

Another curious aspect of the January 5 incident in Punjab is what the prime minister is supposed to have said to “some officials” as he returned to Delhi from Bathinda. This is what the ANI news agency quoted him as saying, “Apne CM ko thanks kehna, ki mein Bhatinda airport tak zinda laut paaya.” Say thanks to your CM, tell him I managed to get back alive to Bathinda airport.

The Indian Express used the quote in its front-page story while attributing it to ANI. Neither the Hindu nor Times of India used it. The reasons are fairly obvious. Who were these “officials” to whom the PM said this? Was it said on camera? Was the reporter present to take down the precise quote? There is a basic rule in journalism that if you use a direct quote, you attribute it to someone. And if that someone wishes to remain anonymous, you say so.

The importance of those words is becoming evident as it is flogged by BJP leaders in statements and press conferences. Additionally, we now have to watch the spectacle of BJP chief ministers, like Shivraj Chauhan of Madhya Pradesh, urging people to chant the Maha Mrityunjaya Jaap for the PM's long life. And, of course, TV channels have gone to town on this, with some reading into the incident a conspiracy to kill the PM.

It is also striking that while several English language papers either did not use this quote at all, or chose not to amplify it, the Hindi newspapers highlighted it and made it their main headline on their front pages.

There is little doubt that this will now be the main discourse around the January 5 incident, although there is no evidence so far that there was an actual threat to the life of the prime minister. But in election season, who cares about such details? The narrative is in place.

Before the Punjab drama, we had another major story breaking in the New Year, that of an app called “Bulli Bai” that sought to “auction” over 100 Muslim women, including leading journalists and activists.

Significantly, although most of mainstream television predictably ignored this shocking, misogynistic and Islamophobic attack on Muslim women, one that mirrored a similar incident in July last year called “Sulli Deals”, at least some in print media did take note. Stories were done in the Hindu, Telegraph, Indian Express and Times of India. The women targeted were quoted; their experiences of what this breach of their privacy meant in their lives was reported. And strong editorials were written urging that action be taken in Indian Express and the Hindu.

Although social media was abuzz with this news, and many of the independent digital media platforms as well as YouTube channels did focus on this (read here, here, here, and here), I would argue that mainstream print media recognising this as an issue that cannot be pushed under the carpet has helped put pressure on the police to track down the perpetrators.

It is possible that the Delhi police, which reports directly to the union home ministry, was shamed this time into acting not only because the Mumbai police moved with alacrity and tracked down three people connected to the app within a few days, but also because major print media outlets singled out its indifferent attitude.

Last year, when the Muslim women targeted by the “Sulli Deals” app approached the Delhi police, practically nothing was done. The Hindu was trenchantly critical of the Delhi police when it wrote in its editorial: “It is indeed baffling that the Delhi police, that is expected to play a critical role in securing the lives of all important functionaries of the country, threw their hands up when faced with the challenge of identifying some random imposters on social media. Such a level of incompetence or connivance is ominous.”

The significance of such an intervention is that the outrage does not remain a bubble on social media. This time, apart from these legacy media, several international news outlets have also reported on it. Together this has led to the kind of pressure that ought to have been exerted even last year, when the first despicable attempts to demean Muslim women were made.

Farmer protests have some lessons for the national media

Broken News

Published on December 3, 2020

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2020/12/03/farmer-protests-have-some-lessons-for-the-national-media

The last month of this strange year will be remembered not just for the ongoing and unrelenting Covid pandemic, or the upcoming (hopefully) vaccine against it, but images of thousands upon thousands of farmers from Punjab, Haryana and other states camping out in the chill winter nights on the national capital's borders.

The abiding image we will take back with us are the water cannons, and the trenches and barricades erected on the five roads leading into New Delhi, to prevent the citizens of a democracy from exercising their right to protest and make their voices heard.

The "farmer", of course, is not an undifferentiated category. Yet, all farmers, rich or poor, landed and landless, women or men, only come into our line of vision when there is a natural disaster, like drought or flood, or enough of them choose to die by suicide to be noticed, or when they are angry enough to come out and protest. What happens the rest of the time is something most readers and viewers of the media in India would not know.

There was a time when newspapers had "agriculture" correspondents. Some still do. But "agriculture" as a regular beat does not exist just as "labour" has also disappeared, even though the problems faced by workers have not. In fact, with joblessness and increasing informalisation, and the decline of organised unions, the problems of workers have grown exponentially as their ability to make their voices heard diminishes.

Given that the largest section of the protesting farmers at the moment are from Punjab, this would have been a perfect opportunity for the media to educate readers and viewers about that state, thereby disabusing the ridiculous charges by supporters of the government accusing "Khalistanis" of being behind the protests.

This piece by Pheroze L Vincent in the Telegraph, for instance, gives us the necessary background of how Punjab has seen many struggles for land rights and farmers' rights going back decades to 1907. Also this by author Amandeep Sandhu in Mumbai Mirror, whose book Panjab: Journeys Through Fault Lines has recently been released.

Also useful is this by Abhinandan Sekhri, sub-titled "The shrine in Amritsar offers a lesson in how opposing narratives can coexist in harmony." He writes, “You would be hard-pressed to find many Sikhs in rural Punjab today who see Bhindranwale as a terrorist even if they don’t consider him a hero either. Yet, there are people who revere him as a hero, even a saint." This is the moral ambiguity, he points out, that is the result of social friction arising from religious faith, something that needs to be understood in the historical and cultural context of Punjab.

Instead of even attempting to understand this, we have heard not just the usual suspects in the BJP but even so-called liberal journalists lecturing protesters on how they should avoid saying anything that could be construed as pro-Khalistan. How is offering such unsolicited advice even journalism?

Apart from missing out on context and background, although there are a few newspapers that continue to provide this, the protesters have made some important points about journalism and the media that we ought to heed. We also need to think about what is "local" news and who decides what is "national" news.

Apart from demanding that the government rescind what they call "black laws" — namely the Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020; and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020 — the protesters have made it a point to turn their faces away from the cameras of what they call "Godi media" (lapdog media), a term made popular by NDTV India's Ravish Kumar. They insist that they want to be covered by the "national" media but not by Republic TV, Aaj Tak or Zee News, because they believe these channels have misreported their protest and distorted their intent.

Newslaundry has been doing regular reports on these distortions by certain news channels. What is worth watching and reading is this video and this report by Nidhi Suresh of Newslaundry.

The video, in particular, is essential viewing for journalists who want to understand how ordinary people now understand mainstream media. For not only are the men the reporter speaks to angry about the way certain TV channels have covered their protest, they also make some important points about what journalism is and should be.

Suresh quotes a "local" journalist from Punjab who says, “I believe the issue is simple. Do your job, be a journalist, and report what you witness. Isn’t that what journalism is, anyway? We local reporters have been doing that from day one. For us local reporters, this agitation is two months old, unlike for national media, for whom this protest is only four days old.”

He is making a point that will resonate with people beyond Punjab and Haryana. People in northeast India, for instance, are always puzzled by how "mainland" media, as they refer to our so-called "national" media, prioritises what will be covered and what can be ignored in the hierarchy of news.

If you really want to know what is going on in the "regions", you have to seek out regional media, as "national" newspapers have drastically reduced such coverage. There was a time, for instance, when the reports from Assam and the northeast in the Hindu by veteran journalist MS Prabhakara were essential reading for any journalist setting out to cover that region. And they appeared in all editions.

This dichotomy between what is local and what is national is not a new debate. It existed even in the 1980s, well before economic liberalisation and media houses transforming themselves into profit centres where readers are their "market" and news is whatever sells.

In fact, in the early 1980s, when I moved from Delhi to Bombay while still working for the same "national" newspaper, a colleague seriously advised me against the move. "How can you leave national journalism?" she asked. Clearly, even if you wrote on national, or even international issues, for a national newspaper, your location at the heart of the nation, ie New Delhi, was all that counted.

That perception is even more entrenched now. Today, "national" is what media houses, mostly headquartered in New Delhi, decide it is. It is also dictated by proximity to their base.

Thus, whether it was the 2012 protests after the Delhi gang rape, or the 2013 anti-corruption campaign led by Anna Hazare, or more recently the Shaheen Bagh citizenship law protests, the "national" media was available to report and amplify.

Yet, early in 2019, when over 40,000 farmers from 23 districts in Maharashtra took out a Kisan Long March to Mumbai, it did not receive this kind of blanket coverage. It was "local" because their demands were addressed to the state government.

The demands of the farmers marching to Delhi today are not that different. The reason they targeted Delhi is because the Centre has decided to intervene in matters that were largely dealt by state governments earlier. The “national” media mostly ignored these farmers when they protested in their states. They are visible now because the Delhi-based media cannot avoid their presence.

One final point. There are thousands of farmers who are also women. We have seen pictures of women cooking and some women have featured in interviews. But on the whole, all you see is literally a sea of men, reinforcing the dominant image that the "farmer" is a man.

That is not true, as this, this and this story about Harinder Bindu, who has been a farmer for 30 years, emphasise. Women farmers are intrinsic to these struggles. Yet, journalists often do not notice them, leave alone spend time listening to them.

Our job, as the protesting farmers hovering outside Delhi are telling us, is to report what we see and listen to what people are saying, instead of manufacturing motives and conspiracy scenarios that are now the well-established modus operandi of a government that has chosen to be hearing impaired.