Now the answers I am seeking — Why has Narendra Modi not addressed the farmers till now? What is the Prime Minister scared of? What orders did the Home Minister Amit Shah give the Delhi police?
We just finished celebrated India’s being a Republic and what was special this year? A line of tractors trying to enter Delhi, even as police barricaded and obstructed their entry. One farmer swirled his tractor around, to clear the way. How was this news disseminated? The farmer tried to run over police, was the news put out by ANI on Twitter and was widely forwarded by bhakts. Worse still, none of the popular anchors and journalists questioned why a DTC bus had been used to block the road as a barricade. None of these voices of the Government asked why tear gas shells were fired and more so, violent elements had been allowed to infiltrate the farmers’ protests. As if this was not enough, the editors and anchors obviously extended their sympathies to the attacked bus, condemning the angry farmers, who reacted.
Media coverage
No media house, nor any popular anchor questioned why on Republic Day were the floats of our secular nation depicting temples, except for those of two states – Kerala and West Bengal. The fact is, this government wanted to bust the protests at any cost and they managed to again change the narrative.
This is the state of Indian media in 2021. Now the answers I am seeking — Why has Narendra Modi not addressed the farmers till now? What is the Prime Minister scared of? What orders did the Home Minister Amit Shah give the Delhi police? Why did the police provoke the farmers? Did the Bharatiya Janata Party or fringe party elements infiltrate the protest march? On Republic Day, citizens of this Republic who have been protesting since the last 60 days, braving the killer winter chill, have been let down.
Now imagine had this happened during the time of the UPA government. These very so-called editors and journalists, who claimed to be close to the Congress, would have torn to shreds PM Manmohan Singh for his silence and not being accountable to the media. I shudder to think of the decibel levels, as they would have questioned him on air. The same media that was boorish to Singh, is rather tame now as if pre-empting questions from both Modi and Shah and addressing these in advance — basically giving free ‘gyaan’ to those braving lathis and tear gas. The problem is, till now our media has questioned and exposed only the Congress and its leaders. Since the time the BJP-led government has come to power, questioning has been eliminated from public life. Just after Joe Biden Jr took oath as the US President, Al Jazeera had, on January 23, covered how news was covered on ‘The Listening Post’, taking a look at the US media’s inauguration coverage and what is expected during the Biden tenure. Ex-President Donald Trump had continuously attacked the American media and 3 out of 4 Republicans do not believe these were fair elections and polls show how American journalism continues to sink.
How media covers news
They first showed clips of Trump leaving, with Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way’ playing in the background. CNN, MSNBC and Fox put out the news in their predictable manner. The first two called him the worst president while Fox was obviously in his favour. Media observers and editors elaborated on how meticulously were these channels going to question Biden. One said channels can run a graphic of fact checks with whatever Biden may claim. “Everything you did with Donald Trump should be done to every public figure in this country,” was the echo. News grabs of Trump being called psychopath, a deeply disturbed man and a dangerous man by leading anchors were shown. But important to note, the panellists did not condone it. Jannie Jackson, Program Director, FAIR, said that now on, American television channels needed to focus on policy, rather than the personality. “More like where the rubber meets the road, how policies are being made, what are the policies, who are at the table when the policies are being made, is important. You have to show how power works in this country so that people can see where they fit and what needs to happen for things to change.” After that, channels were listed, on the basis of their being pro or anti-government.
Jack Crowe, News Editor, National Review, said, “It is important to see how aggressive CNN and MSNBC are going to be towards the Joe Biden administration. You will see CNN maintaining the status quo, they won’t have constant clashes. MSNBC will be interested to see, how they assessed the Obama administration in terms of civil liberties, strikes and will they be more forgiving to Biden?” And last but not the least, Fox News was ripped apart. The view was they would focus on the new American greatness, existential crisis and white American values. Conservative voices and the media would be interesting to watch, was a common sentiment.
But importantly, Crowe said there would be a certain kind of unity in the right that would be seen across the media after it was virtually split during the Trump administration. But the most important point raised was the growing concern over conspiracy theories and false propaganda spread by the conservatives. Dan Froomkin, Editor, Press Watch, said right-wing political voices were deeply disturbing and they needed to be marginalised and studied. It would be pertinent to study how these were so disconnected from reality. The fact is, be it America or India, we are seeing how the ideas of these extremists have entered the mainstream political arena of the Republicans over there and the BJP and other right-wing parties here. But unlike America, where introspection and analysis is done honestly, we will not see such lively discussions, with analysis. Yes, editors take to social media to criticise each other, but not to address the fact of how television news was killed in India.
Moreover, this expectation that media has to continue to be a watchdog and probe, be it against Democrats or Republicans. In India, media has ceased to be a watchdog or probing. In India, before media was corporatised we were anti-establishment, pro-people and definitely anti-rightwing, none of this is now seen.
Government disinformation
Sadly, the death of Sushan Singh Rajput had taken over discussions from television studios to the streets of our cities. The news channels had portrayed Bollywood as a murky den of criminals, drugs and wheeler-dealers. At this time, we saw how anchors deliberately pushed out news of the pandemic, the lockdown, the crisis of migrant workers and the deaths of people from prime time news and instead, bombarded us with news of the suicide of a Bollywood actor. For a man who held two terms as the PM of this country, Manmohan Singh was subjected to severe criticism and insults, certainly not befitting a politician of his stature. The deliberate conspiracy by Modi, Amit Shah and the BJP to make Singh, the Congress and the Gandhis look like villains blinded the bhakts from seeing any negative aspect of the current government. Sadly, popular television anchors and news failed to bring out the failures/lapses to the top of the news agenda. It was none other than Singh himself, who said, ‘disinformation was no substitute for diplomacy’, after the Galwan clashes. In his letter, Dr Singh wrote, “We remind the Government that disinformation is no substitute for diplomacy or decisive leadership. The truth cannot be suppressed by having pliant allies spout comforting but false statements.”
In fact, after Pulwama, a handful of critics wrote that the credibility of Indian news channels was at its worst-ever low. “Accuracy, corroboration and neutrality pipped editorial discretion,” wrote Nikhil Inamdar. We saw how during the anti-CAA protests, the media was threatened from showing the images. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting asked the television channels to abstain from showing content that was ‘against the maintenance of law and order‘. We saw something similar on January 26 at Delhi. The Khalsa flag, a religious symbol, was unfurled but the tricolour was not pulled down or disrespected in any way. But the way popular news agencies, editors and anchors spread false news, again Khalsa was changed to Khalistan, fear-mongering and false information against Sikh community spread like wildfire. Imagine, if there been no social media platforms, we could have seen strong reactions on the streets.
Misinformation and deliberate dissemination of it seems to be the word of this government, being perpetuated by our popular media. Earlier, the media was looked upon as the voice of change, as the raiser of issues pertaining to the public, with articles presenting the entire picture. On January 26, 2021, we saw how the media conveniently changed the entire narrative.
Neeta Kolhatkar is a senior journalist with over 30 years of work experience across different media platforms. She is currently a freelancer and media consultant.
(Views Expressed Are Personal)
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