Journalists on pedestals

BY ARUNODAY MAJUMDER| IN Opinion | 20/11/2016
Arnab may have exited the small screen but journalism in India is yet to throw up the mythical Batman that he is said to have destroyed.
ARUNODAY MAJUMDER offers an uncharitable take

Clockwise from top: Arnab Goswami, Raj Kamal Jha, Ravish with his mime artists.

 

The sudden exit of Arnab Goswami from the idiot box has allowed palpable relief. Ambition has resurfaced in newsrooms and dinner conversations have finally resumed. Perhaps the high-voltage 9 pm drama had exhausted its viability. Perhaps it had triggered the economic law of diminishing returns. After all, even that mother of loud theatrics – ‘Kyunki Saas bhi Kabhi Bahu thi’ – did not last forever.

But now that he has bid adieu to the small screen, for some time hopefully, it is clear that The Joker has fundamentally damaged the ethics of doing news. The contagious villainy of Arnab has rubbed off even on the best in journalism in India. It now seems that there is a little bit of The Joker in every Batman who claims to be the proverbial watchdog. This perhaps is his biggest ‘disruption’ – a word that Arnab uses obsessively to underline his professional philosophy.

While the form of his signature show ‘The Newshour’ was a mere irritant, the content was manipulative and therefore, dangerous. A dozen  guests, crowded graphics, comic flames and noisy debates revolt against taste. Arnab has also ignored facts, created facts, called for a media ban and even indulged in religious profiling. The latter are symptoms of unbridled authoritarianism that challenge not only journalistic values but also civilizational foundations. They are signs of treachery.

Now that the media is Arnab-free, it will not be silly to expect a return to facts and fact-based opinion. But developments within the media fraternity do not inspire hope. Facts remain unexplored although opinions continue to floor.   

"‘Bhakts’ trolled them. Cadres worshipped them. Journalism in India had suddenly discovered two saints."

Consider two cases – the vote of thanks delivered by Raj Kamal Jha at the 2016 Ramnath Goenka Awards and the innovative stunt pulled off by Ravish Kumar against the proposed one-day ban on NDTVIndia. Both deserve applause but both must be questioned too. If God is not beyond doubt then neither can Raj Kamal or Ravish be.

The reaction to them was expected. ‘Bhakts’ trolled them. Cadres worshipped them. Journalism in India had suddenly discovered two saints. While the usual suspects threw stones at them, others rained flowers. The latter must remember that even the Vatican conducts a very rigorous check before appointments to pedestals.

Raj Kamal shared a remarkable anecdote. He said:

“You may not find this in Wikipedia but Shri Ramnath Goenka, and it’s a fact … and I can say that as the editor of The Indian Express, he did sack a journalist when he heard that the chief minister of a state told him ‘apka reporter bahut achcha kaam kar raha hai’ … When we have a generation of journalists who are growing up in an age of re-tweets and likes and they do not know that criticism from a government is a badge of honour.”

The words – ‘criticism from a government is a badge of honour’ – became an instant hit. IThe phrase  was tweeted, re-tweeted, liked and even loved. But nobody bothered to verify the anecdote. The ‘who’, ‘where’, ‘when’ and ‘how’ of the statement still elude. Everybody believed the editor when the common refrain in J-Schools is: ‘When your mother says she loves you, get a second source.’ Nobody has bothered to verify the anecdote that Raj Kamal offered in public. Instead, it has become a fact because it is likeable to many. Why should the followers of Arnab be blamed then?

It is likely that Raj Kamal’s story is true. But that does not solve the problem either. If criticism from the government is a ‘badge of honour’ then journalists will try to earn it by exposing the government. But what constitutes an exposé today? Is it the malicious type that ‘The Telegraph’ unleashed on the Mamata Banerjee government? The mercurial Mamata directed a series of criticisms at the Ananda Bazar Patrika (ABP) group. Any appearance of Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders on ABP platforms was also prohibited. Is such a reaction from the government a badge of honour or shame? Incidentally, the owner-editor of the ABP group had to step down following the record victory of the TMC in the 2016 election.

Raj Kamal earned applause for challenging the prime minister in the very presence of ‘his highness’. But the control that an absent man exerted on that evening went unnoticed. That man is the symbol of the corporate grip on the freedom of the media. That man is industrialist and media mogul, Mukesh Ambani.

"But nobody dared to ask about the media sell-out to the corporates."
 

Raj Kamal referred to the record number of applications for the Ramnath Goenka Awards and said:

“… this is a reply to those who say that good journalism is dying … that journalists have been bought over by the government.”

But nobody dared to ask about the media sell-out to the corporates. It did not seem odd to anyone that the short film (40:20 - 44:45)  which was screened to highlight the milestones in the journey of ‘The Indian Express’ and its patriarch, Ramnath Goenka, made no mention of the bitter war against Reliance Industries and its then patron, Dhirubhai Ambani.

The ‘badge of honour’ must not be earned through selective criticism of the state. Opposition to an unfree market is equally important to command respect and confidence among the public.

In the other instance, NDTV gave a free hand to anchor and senior executive editor Ravish Kumar to counter the threat of  a one-day ban from the government. And Ravish served up a long show where mime artists caricatured a government that has little respect for the fundamental right to free speech. Though the exercise became a drag after a while, a strong point was made nevertheless.

However, it must be asked where this defiant spirit was when NDTV circulated an internal email that ordered journalists to not question the army in the aftermath of the “surgical strikes”. Ravish must have received that email. If not, he could not have missed the news. It is inexplicable why an upright Ravish would not even whimper at this curb on the freedom to question. Unless, of course, he weighs circumstances and then either puts on or puts on hold his ‘fearless’ act.

In a decentralized polity and “liberalized” economy, power is diffused. The state is no longer the Leviathan. Rather, chiefs command fiefdoms. Selective attack on the state is a convenient exercise in such a scenario. As in the case of Ravish, it allows space for discreet submission to the immediately dominant – the editor and the chairperson of NDTV in this case.

So, Arnab may have exited the small screen but journalism in India is yet to throw up the mythical Batman that he is said to have destroyed.

Murmurs can be heard – “Arnab is gone. Long remain Arnab”.

 

Arunoday Majumder is a doctoral candidate (provisional) at the Centre for the Study of Social Systems in JNU. He is a freelance educator and an independent media practitioner. arunoday.majumder@gmail.com

 

 

 

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