Regional media and state governments
After going through the piece, " Beware Friendly Media" by Soroor Ahmed, a former colleague in The Times of India, I am convinced more than ever about the need to put the relationship between chief ministers ( government ?) and the regional media under the scanner. An overly fawning and friendly media vis-à-vis an irrationally hostile media need to be studied at greater depth than what has been attempted by Soroor so far.
There is of course a contradiction when he writes that Lalu Yadav survived as chief minister of
When Lalu Yadav went abroad for the first time, he insisted on taking a friendly journalist with him. Nobody questioned the criteria used for selecting the journalist concerned. And it is worth reminding Soroor that contrary to his belief, the regional media fawned over Lalu as well. Yes, some fangs were bared in course of time and even Nitish Kumar will face them some time or the other, but even the fodder-scam, in which Lalu Prasad went to jail thrice or more, was pursued by only a section of the media.
Release of advertisement by state governments, appointment by state governments to important commissions, boards etc., grants to NGOs, nominating journalists for junkets and to committees, allotment of land and houses, commercial plots and even appointments are some of the many ways by which chief ministers seek to cultivate a friendly media. Only an authority like the Comptroller and Auditor General ( CAG) of
But having said that, I am mildly surprised at the vehemence with which Soroor appears to suggest that compliments paid in the media to Nitish Kumar are misplaced. I am surprised not merely because scholars like Ram Guha appear to have been bowled over by Nitish Kumar and consider him as one of the best chief ministers in the country today—but also because my numerous Bihari friends tell me of the changes they see on their visits to the state. They all claim to be pleasantly surprised to find roads where none existed, municipalities which seem to have woken up, schools which have begun holding classes, teachers leaving for school in the morning and doctors actually in attendance at primary health centers. They could well be exceptions and isolated examples but accounts from half a dozen people visiting different districts and returning with similar impressions are difficult to discount.
There is little doubt, however, that media and civil society have let down the states and the people. Not just the media but even academics, activists and government employees are equally to be blamed for the states which have failed. I remember a member of a World Bank team asking me how the media in
The fact that Nitish Kumar had nasty surprises sprung at him during his Vikas Yatra is again indicative of media¿s failures. Had the media been alert and active, they could have raised the issues and questions that people finally raised and caught the chief minister by surprise.
Most serious journalists in Bihar, and there are many that I know of, have read and appreciated P. Sainath¿s book " Everyone loves a good drought". But I am not aware of any attempt having been made to revisit the places and the people Sainath wrote about. Fifteen years after the book, it might be time for someone to undertake that journey and look poverty and poor governance in the face.
The writer is Consulting Editor ( East), Dainik Bhaskar, based at Kolkata.