Climate for media not balmy

TALKING MEDIA
Sevanti Ninan  

The prime minister has become a serial newsmaker who keeps journalists busy, reporters and analysts alike. His energy is such a welcome change from the UPA’s nothing-is-happening stasis that even the soreness over not being taken on his trips abroad has worn off and and the big news guys are all investing in despatching their reporters and crews to cover  his US tour.  

The hyperactivity is helping to mask the concomittants—a ruling party whose normally communicative politicians have lost their tongues, and a body of ministers who now only communicate at formal press conferences. And again if you check out the press information bureau’s news releases each day’s big newsmaker is usually the PM.

It has been reported  this week that DD News is setting up a top-of-the-line facility at 7, RCR —Modi’s official residence — one that has fibre-optic connectivity and dedicated standby teams. The government’s publicity apparatus is being honed.

 

 

Managing the government’s outreach is one thing. Managing the demands of an increasingly assertive fellow traveller flock inside and outside the ruling party is less easily done, assuming someone even wants them managed. A BJP MP wants a whistle blower removed fron the All India institiute of medical sciences and the health minister obliges, even as he says he is doing the removing at the Central Vigilance Commission’s behest.

The National Book Trust removes a chapter on Medha Patkar from a children’s book after an Ahmedabad NGO whose founder is also director of a Gujarat government project writes to the Human Resource Development minister Smriti Irani. His objection is that Patkar is now a political person.

At another level, a Hindu Janajagruti Samiti delegation demanded that television anchor Nikhil Chinapa should stop his “vulgar” reality show MTV Splitsvilla on MTV India and preserve Indian culture. A demand that Chinapa shrugged off when they met him.

At the level of state governments the climate for the media isn’t exactly balmy. In Tamil Nadu ruled by the  AIADMK, Sun TV last month found the licence for its cable network cancelled by the ministry for information and broadcasting on the grounds that the Home Ministry had not given it a security clearance for registration as an MSO (Multi system operator). Apparently under the UPA II government the I and B ministry had given a permanent registration to KAL Cable Network for a period of ten years in lieu of security clearance. Sun of course called it political vendetta, went to court and earlier this month the Madras High Court quashed the cancellation.

Working journalists in CM Jayalalitha’s state found this month that the city police had decided to keep a tab on their reporting of crime by having senior police officials “handle” them. Meaning liase with them on their reporting, with four senior officials tasked with managing 26 print reporters from 11 media houses in Chennai. The miffed journalists have sent a petition to the Press Council, for what that is worth.

Meanwhile, Goa police are trying to restrict information. Journalists there said on Wednesday that the police had begun blocking crime data last week by denying them access to daily situation reports which they have been getting for years. In the run up to this development there has been vocal and consistent criticism of the media by chief minster Manohar Parrikar who takes a dim view of the tribe.

In Telangana the saga of local MSOs (multi system operators) blocking two Andhra-owned channels TV9 and ABN, began in June and still continues. The new assembly had taken objection to the language used by them in describing the new legislators, and Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao this month amplified his objection to the larger media coverage of his state threatening to bury the media. Which of course was enough to start a fresh controversy.  This is becoming a landmark case of censorship by the distributor now in its third month.

It isn’t as if a similar litany of free speech woes could not be attributed to the period when UPA II was in power. One has recorded a similar catalogue of censorship and restrictions in this column before this dispensation assumed office. The difference seems to be that never before have journalists had quite the same sense of being on their own where their access to information, and the protection of their freedom to function is concerned.

True minister Prakash Javadekar made disapproving noises about the action of the MSOs in Telangana. But that was some time ago, and so far nothing has changed on the ground.