A General's taunt
General V. K. Singh lashed out at the media last week.
ALKA GURHA on why his ‘presstitute’ remark was undesirable. (Pix: Sagarika Ghose~s ToI column on April 13, 2015.)
We live in times when the above headline is enough to label me as a ‘Modi-hater, anti-national, paid columnist’. I am none. As an ordinary media observer, it is unfortunate that I have to begin by defending myself.
Minister of State for External Affairs, General (retd) V.K. Singh tweeted, “Friends, what do you expect from presstitutes,” in response to, perhaps, those in the media who had created a controversy after the General attended the Pakistan Day celebrations last month. The General later apologized and clarified that 90 per cent of the media does not belong to the above category. In hindsight, the remark was unwarranted on two accounts.
One, by retorting distastefully, General V.K. Singh undermined his laudable efforts at evacuating Indian citizens from Yemen. With social media on his side, his actions were speaking louder than his tweets. But his tweet took the limelight away from the Ministry of External Affairs where Ms Sushma Swaraj is performing a commendable job without attracting unnecessary controversy.
The silver lining in the abusive world of anonymous trolls on social media is that people are watching every move. Even if sections of the media try to twist a story, people see through the media charade of manufacturing unnecessary outrage. A sizable number of social media users are willing to stand by you, even if it means lynching the media for false propaganda. And for this reason alone, General Singh could have avoided the tweet controversy.
Second, while the aam admi can spew vitriol on social media, responsible ministers should refrain from engaging in an ugly public war of words. Even if we discount the inherent contradiction of an army general donning the hat of a diplomat, those in responsible positions are expected to act according to the cap on the head.
The General, used to calling a spade a spade, needs to master the art of saying ‘go to hell’ in such a way that his critics really look forward to the trip. Diplomacy, they say, is more than doing the right things at the right time. It is about avoiding saying wrong things at any time.
This is not to say that Times Now’s questioning of the General’s patriotism was called for. In fact, the channel’s strategy of manufacturing outrage and looking at news from the prism of TRP is becoming obvious. It all began when the hash tag #ShameOnTimesNow trended on Twitter after Times Now suggested that the defeat of the Indian cricket team was a national shame.
Despite its efforts, the news channel failed to sell the strategy of shaming the team and got shamed instead. So even if the General had not used the term ‘presstitutes’, Times Now was unlikely to emerge with a nationalistic halo by questioning V.K. Singh’s patriotism. It is more important to do what is right than what is easy. Why push someone who is ready to jump from a high rise?
More significantly, it is time for the media, particularly the television media, to introspect. Why did the General say what he said? And why was the mood on Twitter in his favour even though his comment was undesirable? If the last few days on Twitter are any indication, the fourth pillar of democracy is the new punching bag.
Over the past year, people have seen how the media narrative has changed with the change in regime. Apart from the Zee-Jindal war and Radia tapes, several editors have resigned and media houses have changed hands. With media ownership in grey areas, the agenda was obvious.
Sagarika Ghose defends the media in her Times of India column, ‘Target: media’ when she says, “a huge, diverse, chaotic, clamorous and largely uncontrollable media still provides a rough check (and not a blank cheque) on the system.”
In his article ‘A Suspicion of Fear’, dealing with the media coverage of attacks against Christians, Santosh Desai, also in the same paper, writes, “The fact that the media has sensationalized some attacks is probably true, but to construe a grand conspiracy from what is increasingly the standard way in which the media covers anything is a bit of a leap. Media sensationalizes pretty much everything…”
Above all, the mutual back-scratching between politicians and the media houses is no longer under a veil. In his Sunday Times of India piece, ‘Of ‘presstitutes’ politicos and other ‘buyable’ types’ Ruchir Joshi writes, ‘History provides us several examples of witty and self-aware generals but perhaps V. K. Singh is not among them. Had he been, he might have hesitated before broadcasting this little coinage, realizing that if the Indian fourth estate is a house of ill-repute, then its most frequent customers, not to mention its managers, are people from his own political formation. He might also have given a thought to all the 'keeping' our politicians owe to the oligarchs. In any case, one coinage often inspires another — so I, for one, would much rather be a presstitute than a polstitute.’
Whatever the nomenclature, most journalists agree that the credibility of the media has taken a beating.
While we may not approve of the General’s ‘presstitute’ remark, we laud the commendable evacuation efforts from Yemen under his leadership. As for his war with the media - all wars represent a failure of diplomacy. And the job of a diplomat continues even while the forces march.
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