Strictly personal

I did not want to write this column but am nevertheless doing so, because there is a burning issue that needs to be exposed and highlighted. For despite knowing otherwise, there still remains a fervent hope that sense will someday return and prevail to India's journalism. I am terse and really angry with the wannabes and morons who now populate the media sector, one that I left for just a while after decades of carrying the torch. Now back to writing, I see that in my short period of absence, things have changed dramatically, with many of my ilk being replaced by some shameless people who have blatantly embraced pusillanimity, submitting to the diktat of some new-found rulers and power-houses.

Real issues and stories are being shoved under the carpet, with only fiction and semi-truths being amplified by most television channels and many publications. This is not journalism, and it is certainly not what is taught in journalism prep schools and colleges. A year back, through India's deadly and world-best lockdown, I wrote about this backless and new oft-heckled media mania, one that repeatedly fed us lies. It has carried on—more and more lies.

I also wrote about the media coverage of the Sushant Singh Rajput death case, berating sections of the Indian media for being hyperactive, counter-intuitive and -creative, shamelessly insensitive and downright irresponsible. My attempt was to jolt them hard and wake up any remnants of professionalism and humility that I hoped still remained in the collective conscience of these so-called reporters. I was wrong—for the coverage of the actor's death case and the mystery around it was just a miserable trailer. The real picture is being played out only now by other equally creative and careless members of the media fraternity, in right earnest.

In Assam, in Bengal…

Last week, an astonishing thing happened in the midst of the raucous assembly elections; a bunch of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) turned up inside the car belonging to the candidate of a leading political party. While social media channels and handles went berserk in reporting the matter, every prominent television channel except one conveniently chose to not name this particular party. Some, in fact, went to the extent of calling it a 'laawaris' (abandoned) car!

The first question any half-awake reporter would ask in such a situation is "which party did the car belong to"? No, not in this case—as the entire group of channels kept flashing the story without naming the political party in question. In fact, one of the top news agencies even jumped in to the rescue of the said political party and leader before even the Election Commission could issue a statement, praising them for so quickly and selflessly rushing to the aid of the election process. It proposed

the theory that the official vehicle carrying the highly-sensitive cargo had broken down on its way from the polling booth to the strong-room.

In West Bengal, things were equally astounding, as EVMs were found in the home of a leader from a political party. Here again, the name of the political party was left out by some television channels and publications in the state. This is a shocking missing link because the eastern state is witnessing a particularly brutal phase of elections, as the central ruling party takes on the state ruling party and West Bengal witnesses a contest like never before. This is a painful paradox, for it underlines the fact that there is no visible fire in the belly of the reporters in question.

A disgraceful fall

Disconcertingly, over the years, there's been a disgraceful fall in the quality and tenets of reportage. Few, if any, are writing straight and accurate anymore, and fewer still seem to have the stomach and gumption to carry truthful reports. Journalism is fast turning into a theater of the absurd, all but signaling the impending death of our India's once-stellar Fourth Estate.

Some time back, for instance, the automobile sector was jolted by two news reports, one claiming that Toyota Kirloskar Motors, needled by the incredibly high taxes on car manufacturers in India, was planning to truncate its investments in the country. The resultant carnage in the guise of reportage forced Toyota India Vice-Chairman Vikram Kirloskar to counter the septic stories and re-affirm the company's commitment to continue investing and expanding in the Indian market.

The second report related to Harley Davidson, the iconic American motorcycle manufacturer—the country's leading English newspaper carried a prominent story on the US company pulling out of the Indian market altogether. The curtain is dropping on Harleys in India, some raved. Wrong selection of bike models for India led to Harley's demise in India, others ranted. Mounting losses in a troubled market have coerced the move, some others cooed. Wrong again. If these learned reporters had bothered to dig just a mite deeper, they would have found out that all Harley Davidson was doing was cutting down on costs by merging its manufacturing operations into that of India's largest motorcycle company.

On Delhi's borders

Everyone knows what is happening on Delhi's borders over the last few months, a historical stir by farmers which has made the whole world sit up, take notice and pass collective judgment. Let aside the common man, even the leaders of many countries—such as Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom—have spoken out true and raw, passing an edict in favor of the farmers. People in these countries have even taken to the streets, organizing massive rallies and protests.

But in our own country, the mass media (both television and print) remains largely silent on the matter, with next to no coverage being accorded to the agitation, which is now well into its fifth month, having begun on November 26, 2020. And many sections of the mainline media who have spoken out are reporting what is completely away from the real truth on the ground, so much so that the agitating farmers have placed an informal ban on them. This ban has had some hilarious outcomes, with a few TV channels going to the extent of hiring tractors and fake farmers to conduct 'interviews with the agitators' and report on the developments on the borders. Astonishing indeed!

Ironically, it is only social media channels which are reporting on the matter—and if you compare these video stories with what is being propounded by the mainline media, the only thing one can do is gasp in disbelief. That's because the two sets of stories are diametrically opposite and present completely different pictures. And since the social media set of stories carries live interviews with well-known farmer leaders, it is crystal clear as to who is reporting the truth and who is indulging in fanciful fiction, for reasons known best to them alone. As to what these reasons could be, we can, at best, either fathom a guess or resort to conjecture.

Some sensibility, please

These are tough times, as we see a never-before spurt in the Coronavirus pandemic and as 'newly-infected' numbers touch scary, new highs. In fact, sadly, the 'newly-infected' numbers in April 2021 are higher than they were in April 2020, when there was a complete lockdown in place. We don't have a lockdown anymore, nor is one likely, for any such move will cripple an economy that is anyway struggling to get back onto its feet.

What we do have are massive election rallies in five of India's states, with huge gatherings of thousands of people, none of whom

are sporting masks and following any tenets of social distancing. Sardonically enough, even the political leaders addressing these rallies do not wear masks. What we also have is a 'Kumbh Mela' of historic proportions, a gathering of lakhs of people with no chance of maintaining a safe distance between the attendees. What we have, then, is hundreds of new cases being reported from the 'Mela' venue daily, with even sadhus and saints falling prey to the deadly virus that refuses to go away.

In these trying times, we need to be sanguine, sensible, responsible, something that I have said before too. We are still confining ourselves to our homes as much as possible, and that means the media is the only source of information to us, other than what our friends tell us over today's long telephone calls. TV channels, newspapers and portals are the sole source of getting to know what is happening around us. Therefore, the sanctity of the few media establishments that we grew up with simply has to be preserved and they need to be irrevocably trustworthy.

Let's not let the Indian media become the circus that it is fast turning into.

The writer is a communications consultant and a clinical analyst. narayanrajeev2006@gmail.com