Talking Shop: No coochie coos here

“Useful men doing useful

things don’t mind being

treated as useless. But the

useless think themselves

important, hiding their

incompetence behind a

false cloak of authority.”

—Paulo Coelho

Note: The ‘good’ adjectives and character-defining embellishments used below are ill-deserved, the progeny of editorial ‘majboori’ and literal compulsion, and have nothing to do with reality. The ‘not-so-good’ expletives and invectives used through the writeup, to the contrary, have been hard-earned by the protagonists due to their professional (mis)conduct and journalistic (non)-accomplishments. With that caveat in place, let’s move on.

The times are abysmal, with humanity at its sootiest and monochromatic worst, given the appalling actions and animal reactions we witness today. “Justice delayed is justice denied,” goes an English saying. I quite disagree, for in today’s scheme of things, justice isn’t just being denied; it is being bullied, belied and beguiled, rendered decayed. That somehow gets us to ducks; lovely, cute and mesmerizing coochie coos. But last week, we saw ugly ducks, as also their uglier duckling offspring. They broke both myth and bank when they buried their hideous heads in the sand, shortly after the apex court passing a historic judgment.

We shan’t delve into the judgment itself, for the focus is on something far more ‘today’ and none too historic in the making—the meandering and spineless sections of the media that distort the truth, ignore what doesn’t fit their larger agenda and highlight anything that pleases their bosses, regardless of reality. Life is just about a visit to the bank, it would appear. How else can one explain the absolute lack of air-time accorded to this judgment?

Not the first blooper

This isn’t the first instance of lack of reportage or mis-reportage and, going by the very hard-earned track record of many of today’s mediapersons, it shan’t be the last either. Louis Yako once said: Pressure from the powerful is why mainstream media has failed, because their language marches in step with that of bankers, war-mongers, oppressors and executioners. What is needed then is the language of sensibility and love, not fundamental hate. Today’s world has an innate desire to manipulate, control and discredit, numbing the populace to weaken the larger ability to discern truth from fiction. This is the new media.

If we move from the Supreme Court judgment on Electoral Bonds last week, we get to the Farmers’ Agitation 2.0, which is being ignored, except to vilify those even trying to protect themselves, as was done in the first version of the protests two years back. There are no (or distorted) reports on tear gas, rubber (and plastic?) bullets being used to disperse agitating ‘annadaatas’. Even the first death during this agitation (a heart attack) has been ignored.

Good journalists taught us that there should be no taking of sides. Really? In Agitation 1.0, for one, ‘victorious’ farmers returning to their villages caused chaos on the highways as they forced motorists to stop and accept sweets from langars. No reports. In Agitation 2.0, the media has gone a step further, ignoring the plight of its own too. A reporter injured by a tear gas shell kept asking for help, but none was provided. In fact, his colleague continued with the business of spreading misinformation without batting an eyelid. No reports.

Time moves on, they don’t

Poonam Pandey, who ‘died’ recently of cervical cancer, hogged air-time and print space for days. When she turned up very un-dead, the miracle was buried. In the Bilkis Bano case, the release of those convicted for the crime was covered threadbare—laddoos, flower-petal showers and all. When the Supreme Court recently ordered their return to prison, there was pin-drop media silence. No reports.

Moving on, Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan’s son didn’t just spend a month behind bars, he was publicly and brutally maligned by the media for being in possession of drugs, not only as a user but as a peddler too. When the young man was found innocent, having been framed by the very policeman who filed charges against him, there was no excitement. No reports.

Then we have the mother of all media-created messes, the Sushant Singh death case which was studded with mental images of a ‘star anchor’ going berserk, shouting “Mujhe drugs doh, drugs doh, drugs doh (give me drugs)”. Mischievous reporting followed through the dark evening and the darker night. When the Sun rose, it turned out there were no drugs involved at all and no murder either. No reports.

Today’s media does not talk of unemployment, rising prices and inflation—garlic touched Rs 700 a kg recently. No reports. MSMEs continue to flounder, years after the introduction of GST and demonetization. No reports. Some of our largest banks are reporting an increasing risk of NPAs. No reports. There is rising crime against women, increasing incidences of lynching by mobs, frequent riots in many states or the rule of local goondas. No reports.

Disappearing lineage

The faithful and mighty pen-wielders are all but gone, replaced by a string of elocutionists and verbalizers who stink. Most of the new media dance in and out of debates pointing fingers and shouting obscenities, rarely observing even basic editorial and ethical etiquette. They use debates to service something else—either a crack at the welfare state, moral and social standards, feminism, communal outrage(s) or touchy-feely victimhood. Once-mighty academic voices now land in the middle of court cases or inquiries, offering undecipherable rationale or wisdom. We have the authorities themselves, who, during the entire period of accession, ascendancy and discovery, do not make any comment on the abuse being meted out or the rifts being caused. Where is the bottom rung? I don’t know how far the rot goes.

We began this column with ducks and ducklings; let’s end with aeroplanes. “Helicopters are different from aeroplanes. An aeroplane, by its (very) nature, wants to fly. If not interfered with too strongly by unusual events or incompetent piloting, it will fly,” Harry Reasoner said. The problem we face stems from this vein—interfering non-pilots flying an ultra-modern aircraft without having the ability or intent to keep it in the air. The hapless craft has no future but to come crashing down when the wrong commands or stimulus are inputted. Similarly, when a wrong person with suspicious intent picks up a reporter’s microphone and starts spreading his jam and tart, the sandwich nauseously thrown together is anything but palatable. With distaste delivered in undue haste comes waste. Do not chew on this, please.

The writer is a veteran journalist and communications specialist. He can be reached on narayanrajeev2006@gmail.com. Views expressed are personal