A prayer for the next elections
May the anchors realize that when most results come in by noon, or thereabout, they should stop saying "early days."
Hammer and Tongs
ALOKE THAKORE
Now that the EVMs have been put away, the paramilitary forces are on their way back, the candidate in my neck of the urban wood has finished his lap of honour, and journalists in at least five states are rightfully burnishing an election epaulette, allow me to make a prayer for the next elections.
May the anchors in deference to the electronic voting machines, which spit out the result and not let it trickle as would happen in the days bygone when paper ballot after paper ballot would be counted, stop saying "early days." May the anchors recognize the difference between counting in stages across the country and counting of all ballots at once within a state, which was the case this time, and stop saying "early days." May the anchors realize that when most results come in by noon, or thereabout, they should stop saying "early days."
May the anchors not be as excited about the elections as the winners and losers themselves. May the anchors recognize the difference between facilitating the reporting of results or even reporting them and the active participation in a contest as if their professional future hinges on the person who is elected. May the anchors distinguish between reporting of poll results where political parties are the actors and the keen contest they are participating in when they are either beating another channel or have already beaten them with an interview, even if the audio may not work. May the anchor watch their own shows dispassionately looking not for the crinkle in the suit, but for that excitability that renders most words unintelligible to all except those who sup and dine with them.
May the suits in the studio, anchor and analyst alike, from their empyrean heights treat elections and the process of forecasting and analyzing them not as a subfield of divinity or grand theory, but that of empirical social or political science that demands some hard knocks in the districts. May they recognize the complexity of the country, which reportedly made the economist Joan Robinson say that whatever could be said of India the opposite could also be said and both would be true, and learn that Congress and BJP are allies in certain municipalities of West Bengal. May they choose to specialize in certain states remembering that many Indian states are larger than most countries and arguably equally, if not more, complex.
May the channels, hence, recognize local knowledge and draw their analysts from the states or empower their local journalists rather than parachute a recognizable face. May the channel do one better and compare their own reporters’ performance with those of local channels and arrive at what I offer as the law of reporting in India: the Indian language speaking and writing local reporter’s knowledge, accuracy and fairness is equal to three of those journalists who are their English translators.
May the newspaper expert not use the word "swing" unless it is backed by figures that show a movement of votes rather than seats. May the expert not then add another "massive" to it if the figures are not yet in and the only measure is the number of seats. May the expert remember that in a first-past-the-post system that we have in India, the number of seats are not necessarily an accurate indicator of swing in votes. Or may be the expert may choose to use "swing" and qualify it with swing in seats because the less acute among the readers associate swings with vote percentages.
May anchors and copy editors save the reader and viewer from such trite constructions as Laughing Buddha or Smiling Buddha or rising son or son rising. May they remember that Buddha and sons are not about to disappear any time soon and continue the search for more conceits and clichés by, may be, relying on alliteration.
And may the edit page editor beware that despite all the distractions that an election offers, there is no saying when a sharp reader will pass off excerpts from an obituary in the New York Times as his own view on the death of an "iconoclastic economist, leader, diplomat and an unapologetic member of the political and academic establishment". And may be I am wrong, but in these times, dear edit page editor, you would not want to abet plagiarism. Considering the newsprint spent on plagiarism, it is ready to be added to sloth, greed, and the other five deadly ones.
Amen.
Feedback: hammerntongs@fastmail.in
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