12-22-2007, 03:45 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Introspect? Us? </b>
pioneer.com
Lookback: Udayan Namboodiri
Just as the east coast-based media establishment of America rewrote journalism's rules to back the John Kerry ticket in 2004, so too did India's liberal elite seek to ensure the fall of Narendra Modi in Gujarat 2007. Can't say if the American disaster will be repeated here - but no harm hoping for an end to the illiberal tradition
The Gujarat election is over and the result keenly awaited. We don't know who will emerge winner in one of the most bitterly fought elections in recent memory. But we do know already who lost. The liberal media elite. In the eyes of its consumers.
The common man, whether in Porbandar or Nagaland, now has a fair idea of what "media objectivity" is all about. <b>All the biases and hypocrisies of the liberal media elite were exposed in the last quarter of 2004. Rules and ethics were given a pass for the sake of pursuing a singular agenda -- remove Mr Narendra Modi</b>. Whether or not that succeeded will be known on December 23, but Saturday Special is on to something higher this week. Gujarat 2007 will be recalled for years as a disaster for the image of the Indian fourth estate as a whole. The corrective steps that must be taken if the long-reaching effects of the damage are to be avoided should begin with some soul searching.
We must look inwards and address the following questions:
Was it Ms Sonia Gandhi or was it Mr Modi or some other party that originally raked up "emotive issues"? Was not the first shot fired at a "summit" organised by a media house in New Delhi in the second week of October, that is, two months earlier?
Can it be denied that in that "summit", the Gujarat Chief Minister, after he had delivered a speech quite in line with the theme chosen by the organisers, was set upon by a gang of highly motivated people comprising, among others, a minor Congress leader, a former editor of the host newspaper and a <b>TV news presenter, all of who demanded that he "apologise" for the post-Godhra riots of 2002? </b>
<b>Did we see wrong again, on October 20, Mr Modi walking out of an interview when its host (who will go down in the history of Indian television journalism as the founder of the you-ain't-nothing-if-you-ain't-offensive principle) tried to hustle him into making self-destructive remarks despite Mr Modi's request that the riots subject be kept out? </b>
<b>Is it fair to first organise TV talk-shows on themes like "Is Modi a dictator", "Is Moditva dividing Gujarat?", etc. and then complain that the election track was distorted by "emotive issues" instead of "development"? </b>
There are examples of similar disasters from other free societies. In 2004, the media establishment based in the eastern coast of the United States decided to transform the newspapers and channels under its control from mere onlookers to the presidential election of that year into active players. Deciding that Mr George W Bush was bad, and it would be badder still if all Americans did not think likewise, the media moghuls marshalled every form of synergy possible to ensure Mr John Kerry won. Actually, all the tricks that we saw in Gujarat over the past month were only desi versions of those seen in America three years back. The media organised events -- big budget processions in downtown New York, huge demonstrations in stadiums, anti-Iraq involvement plays, documentary films exposing alleged lies of Mr Bush and Mr Dick Cheney - so that doubting Thomases could believe that voting against Bush was the done thing.
Yet, the unthinkable happened. Mr Bush won. By a huge popular margin too.
The good thing about the American media is that while the rest of the country went back to normal life, journalists went into intense soul-searching, which was reflected in their writings. They admitted that they had gotten myopic, missed the issues before the real America and generally blaming themselves for causing the division in American society which Mr Bush and Mr Kerry exploited.
There is no culture of accountability in almost all spheres of life in India. And since we don't know yet which way the ordinary Gujarati voted, it may be premature to hazard a guess on the necessity of introspection in Delhi's aren't-we-grand media. <b>Yet, one gets an eerie feeling that most of the buzz in Delhi's newsrooms this Sunday would be on the subject - why were we wrong? </b> <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Jaya Jaitly (see Main Story), a columnist with hands-on experience in politics, exposes the grissly corruption, both in terms of money changing hands and intellectual dishonesty, that marked Gujarat 2007. She marvels at the utter lack of connection between "fear psychosis" that the media and Congress (in that order) alleged and the real situation where you had Muslim voters in Jamnagar rejecting the Election Commission's offer to put up all-Muslim booths.
M Burhanuddin Quasmi (see The Other Voice) comments at the end of it all that the liberal media got its strategy all wrong. If demonising Mr Modi was the objective, there were better, time-tested ways to do it. Rather, the media chose the least-cost option -- revive the ghosts of 2002. In his opinion, a far more potent weapon would have been distributing information on the marginalisation of the ordinary Gujarati from the "boom story" on the State's economy. He could have a point. In post-1991 India, economic growth and happiness have emerged as two mutually exclusive concepts. <b>If Mr Chandrababu Naidu and Mr Digvijay Singh could fall, why not Mr Modi?</b>
For the Indian Muslim, it was betrayal twice over. For, in the end, we all end up recalling not the words of our enemies ( in this case Mr Modi and his ilk ), but the silence of our secularist-liberal friends.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
pioneer.com
Lookback: Udayan Namboodiri
Just as the east coast-based media establishment of America rewrote journalism's rules to back the John Kerry ticket in 2004, so too did India's liberal elite seek to ensure the fall of Narendra Modi in Gujarat 2007. Can't say if the American disaster will be repeated here - but no harm hoping for an end to the illiberal tradition
The Gujarat election is over and the result keenly awaited. We don't know who will emerge winner in one of the most bitterly fought elections in recent memory. But we do know already who lost. The liberal media elite. In the eyes of its consumers.
The common man, whether in Porbandar or Nagaland, now has a fair idea of what "media objectivity" is all about. <b>All the biases and hypocrisies of the liberal media elite were exposed in the last quarter of 2004. Rules and ethics were given a pass for the sake of pursuing a singular agenda -- remove Mr Narendra Modi</b>. Whether or not that succeeded will be known on December 23, but Saturday Special is on to something higher this week. Gujarat 2007 will be recalled for years as a disaster for the image of the Indian fourth estate as a whole. The corrective steps that must be taken if the long-reaching effects of the damage are to be avoided should begin with some soul searching.
We must look inwards and address the following questions:
Was it Ms Sonia Gandhi or was it Mr Modi or some other party that originally raked up "emotive issues"? Was not the first shot fired at a "summit" organised by a media house in New Delhi in the second week of October, that is, two months earlier?
Can it be denied that in that "summit", the Gujarat Chief Minister, after he had delivered a speech quite in line with the theme chosen by the organisers, was set upon by a gang of highly motivated people comprising, among others, a minor Congress leader, a former editor of the host newspaper and a <b>TV news presenter, all of who demanded that he "apologise" for the post-Godhra riots of 2002? </b>
<b>Did we see wrong again, on October 20, Mr Modi walking out of an interview when its host (who will go down in the history of Indian television journalism as the founder of the you-ain't-nothing-if-you-ain't-offensive principle) tried to hustle him into making self-destructive remarks despite Mr Modi's request that the riots subject be kept out? </b>
<b>Is it fair to first organise TV talk-shows on themes like "Is Modi a dictator", "Is Moditva dividing Gujarat?", etc. and then complain that the election track was distorted by "emotive issues" instead of "development"? </b>
There are examples of similar disasters from other free societies. In 2004, the media establishment based in the eastern coast of the United States decided to transform the newspapers and channels under its control from mere onlookers to the presidential election of that year into active players. Deciding that Mr George W Bush was bad, and it would be badder still if all Americans did not think likewise, the media moghuls marshalled every form of synergy possible to ensure Mr John Kerry won. Actually, all the tricks that we saw in Gujarat over the past month were only desi versions of those seen in America three years back. The media organised events -- big budget processions in downtown New York, huge demonstrations in stadiums, anti-Iraq involvement plays, documentary films exposing alleged lies of Mr Bush and Mr Dick Cheney - so that doubting Thomases could believe that voting against Bush was the done thing.
Yet, the unthinkable happened. Mr Bush won. By a huge popular margin too.
The good thing about the American media is that while the rest of the country went back to normal life, journalists went into intense soul-searching, which was reflected in their writings. They admitted that they had gotten myopic, missed the issues before the real America and generally blaming themselves for causing the division in American society which Mr Bush and Mr Kerry exploited.
There is no culture of accountability in almost all spheres of life in India. And since we don't know yet which way the ordinary Gujarati voted, it may be premature to hazard a guess on the necessity of introspection in Delhi's aren't-we-grand media. <b>Yet, one gets an eerie feeling that most of the buzz in Delhi's newsrooms this Sunday would be on the subject - why were we wrong? </b> <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> Jaya Jaitly (see Main Story), a columnist with hands-on experience in politics, exposes the grissly corruption, both in terms of money changing hands and intellectual dishonesty, that marked Gujarat 2007. She marvels at the utter lack of connection between "fear psychosis" that the media and Congress (in that order) alleged and the real situation where you had Muslim voters in Jamnagar rejecting the Election Commission's offer to put up all-Muslim booths.
M Burhanuddin Quasmi (see The Other Voice) comments at the end of it all that the liberal media got its strategy all wrong. If demonising Mr Modi was the objective, there were better, time-tested ways to do it. Rather, the media chose the least-cost option -- revive the ghosts of 2002. In his opinion, a far more potent weapon would have been distributing information on the marginalisation of the ordinary Gujarati from the "boom story" on the State's economy. He could have a point. In post-1991 India, economic growth and happiness have emerged as two mutually exclusive concepts. <b>If Mr Chandrababu Naidu and Mr Digvijay Singh could fall, why not Mr Modi?</b>
For the Indian Muslim, it was betrayal twice over. For, in the end, we all end up recalling not the words of our enemies ( in this case Mr Modi and his ilk ), but the silence of our secularist-liberal friends.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->