Mispredicting the CWG?
The Telegraph carped, Anandabazar cheered. One ignored achievements of the atheletes from its home state, the other celebrated them. From The Hoot’s comparative coverage series
SAADIA AZIM contrasts the CWG coverage in Bengal’s two leading dailies, both from the same publishing house.
_150_200.jpg)
The overall fiasco the media predicted for the Commonwealth Games event, finally did not happen. Its amusing to see how some newspapers coped with that. From Kolkata comes this comparison of two newspapers of the same group which handled the run up to the Games in similar mode, but covered the playing out of the Games quite differently.
Two weeks before the Games, newspapers in Bengal as univocally as the television channels, had predicted its outcome. The largest circulated English daily The Telegraph and its Bengali counterpart Anandabazaar Patrika (ABP), both from the same publication stable, spent more time and energy in predicting a fiasco than in coverage of the run up to the event. But then, when the games began, the two papers adopted different stances. The Bengali daily tried to make up, while the English newspaper ‘The Telegraph’ waited for its negative predictions to come true.
And sounded a bit skeptical when they did not. “Not so bad (touch wood)” said the paper’s banner headline on the morning of October 4, after the rather spectacular opening ceremony. This was substantiated with a beautiful wide angled front page photo of the splendour associated with the inauguration. The main story under the banner headline on the front page confirmed the reservations ‘The Telegraph’ had about the ‘success’ of the gala event. It said, ‘Balloon a hit, DD spoils show’ on how despite the spectacular aerostat light show Doordarshan failed to telecast the event properly. A few other stories covered that day on the sixth page were ‘ Foreign team official caught with firearm,’ and , ‘Reward of labour--eviction’ on how the daily labourers were being sent back from the Games Village after their work was done, in a move to clean up the Capital city.
The paper persisted with its ‘ doubting Thomas’ attitude till about the last phase of the games where India performed much better than expected and ended up second in the medals tally.
Yet, Anandabazaar Patrika, the largest selling Bengali newspaper, from the same publication house on the same day adopted a more sportive outlook. ‘Jai ho overriding criticism’ was their take on the inauguration success. There were two other headlines on the front page that read ‘Aamrao Pari, udbodaner juluse chomkedilo dilli, (‘We can also do’, Delhi shimmers in inauguration glory), and ‘Oikko Dekhate Shokriyo Sonia, Hajir Momota soho bohu Mantrii’, (Sonia active in solidarity show, Mamata present with many other ministers) a rather political story on the presence of politicians together.
For the duration of theCWG while The Telegraph persisted with its critical coverage overlooking the sporting event itself, Anandabazaar concentrated on the sports and events, and dedicated a good number of stories to sports and sportsmen. The Telegraph dedicated two exclusive pages in their sports section for the event, but the main paper lacked stories on the players or the events that were a part of the CWG. ABP on the other hand, catered to the sports loving Bengali palate with more sports stories in the front page and the main paper, in addition to the fare on the sports pages focusing on features on participating nations and the achievers. Compared to the Telegraph, had more stories and photos from the stands of the CWG games and It was able to play up well the Bengali connection in most of its pieces.
The Telegraph on the 5th of October, still appeared to carp. It’s banner headline read, ‘Horror to Hurrah’. The stories on page one were not about the sporting events, but about the power politics behind the CWG.The ABP had a front page coverage on ‘Sukhen’s silver due to a slip’ and another on Soniya Chanu getting silver in weight lifting.
On the 6th, the Telegraph had two stories on its front page with the banner headline ‘Re-Lax and enjoy’. The first one was an extensive report on Lakshman’s performance in the Mohali Test while the second one on the CWG said ‘Delhi looks better with global gloss’ on the new hyped look of New Delhi because of the Games. ABP on the other hand had front page coverage for its Bengali readers. “Golden day for sports, Morning Shooting, evening wrestling’ with photographs of ‘ the golden boys’ Abhinav Bhindra and Gagan Narang displaying their medals. Another story on page eight was on the Bengal boy Sukhen Dey, “Sukhen’s father wants him to return to his home at Sukhrail”. On the 7th, the English daily had no front page story on the Games, ABP did : It satisfied the Bengali yearn for more sports with front page coverage on ‘Gagan beats Bindra’ and ‘Haryana akhara gets gold’.
On the 8th while the Telegraph busied itself with the offensive Kiwi TV host and condoms clogging the drainage in the village—“ Rousing games in private”. It was Mahalaya that day, the first day of the beginning of ten days of Durga puja festivity. ABP keeping up to the expectations and demand of sport loving Bengal, had an attractive headline, that read “On the eve of Mahalaya, women are the power of the Games’. With the photo of Virangana holding her gold medal, the story described how women have grown to be the stars of the Games.
It was a pattern—even when the CWG achievers of the day were Bengalis, the Telegraph was above putting them on page one. Perhaps because the new sports stars were no cricket demigods to be worshipped by the media! Yet, ABP had on page one a story and photograph on Dola Banerjee getting a gold and Poulami getting a silver, both catering to Bengali demand.
On the 10th The Telegraph had a story on its front page on ‘ how India summoned the Australian high commissioner after policemen in Victoria were caught joking over a footage of an electrocution’. A small photo of the South African swimmer Roland Schoeman was also inserted after he tweeted about the ‘monkey act of the crowd’. ABP on the other hand carried Sania Mirza’s picture after her loss to her Australian counterpart. The story was on how Sania missed gold despite trying hard and finished at silver. There was another story from remote Ranchi, about Deepika Kumari and her dreams of a gold medal at Olympics.
It was only on the 11th that the Telegraph front page had a snippet on ‘ India at games’ on India’s position on the medals rostrum. The country by then was rising in the medal tally charts. ABP had the full coverage of India’s exemplary win in hockey with Pakistan. And a sports related CWG story from Bengal on Dola and Rahul Banerjee’s archery victory on page one,that found place in The Telegraph only in the CWG sports section. The contrast between the English daily and the Bengali ABP was the fact that ABP had more features related to sports events and promoted the local connection to the CWG, while The Telegraph seemed to have wider interests.
The trend was reversed for a bit on the 12th when The Telegraph had a CWG banner headline that said “Throw them out girls”, with a photo of Krishna Poonia in action. Whereas ABP that day concentrated on Sachin Tendulkar’s hundreds with only a small story about Krishna Poonia’s discus throw. On the 13th The Telegraph had a banner headline saying ‘ High home and away’ with a wide angle photo of the packed Jawaharlal Stadium with spectators carrying the tricolor during an athletic event. The tone had changed by now. Their political correspondent had written a front page ‘first person’s account’ on the revelry surrounding the Games and on the joy of watching it from beyond the angles of ‘politics, and crime’. ABP had just sports page coverage.
The 14th was cricket’s day of glory with India beating Australia by seven wickets, and both papers focused on cricket. On the 15th The Telegraph declared that it had changed its mind. A banner headline painted in the tricolor said loud and clear, “ Score: Second, Verdict: First” with a supplementary skeptical headline explaining, “Games end high on performance and perception”. All the three stories that day in the front page were from the Games venue. The headline on one story read, ‘Afterglow of non- failure’. And another said grudgingly, “Sign of success and a lesson”.
The media does not like being proved wrong.