New Breed Journalists: Making Nuisance of Newssense

Every day and now, I get calls from the people searching for jobs in the electronic media, say categorically TV media. No one seems interested in the radio and forget about print. Almost all of them are the new breed of fresh journalists coming out of the media institutes and universities in bulk who want to be taken in any TV channel as anchor or reporter. The last day I got a same call from a newcomer who did her internship in Aaj Tak and wanted to get absorbed somewhere as Reporter in Delhi. When I directed her to Star News, she asked the address of the channel office and didn't knew about the DLF building in Connaught Place. When I asked her that how she will be going to work as a reporter if she didn't knew the basics of geographical locations. She just said, "Wo sab to ho jata hai Sir!"Now, as she has spend more than two Lakhs in Amity, she was not ready to work in less than 12k p.m. Now, where is the merit? What is the basis for this huge demand? Huge in the sense that most of the capable print journalists manage to get over 10 k p.m. in three to four years span of their journalistic career. There is a huge imbalance between the pay structure in print and TV. Although, one will be surprised to know that all the TV channels are headed by those people who have basically come from print. But the thing which upsets this scenario is their choice of the candidates. I know that this girl will get through her unemployement in a short span of time and cross me after one year in monetary terms, then never look back to me as if the print people are the most louzy creatures on this earth.This is not a complaint, neither to cry over the difference between print and TV. Rather, we are more concerned about the output which is being given by these young chaps who spend two Lakhs and get easy entry into the important outlets of social responsibility. Their selection has a huge impact on the content and form of the whole TV media. Let's forget about the structural aberrations, but we as journalists are always accountable for the news items, their selection, their rundown and priority, visuals shown and the images left out. If we are not taken in on the basis of our journalistic understanding and a minimum level of humanistic morality, then the social responsibility theory of the media gets shattered to the finest level. Whenever we talk of the media's responsibility, let's never forget about these new entraints who are the most responsible factors in dilapilating the news.But, remember, their heads are also equally responsible for this crime. Just to cite some examples. The newcomers are never told by their seniors to understand the difference between naxalite, terrorist and banned outfits. They are never told the difference between CPI, CPI(M), CPI(ML) and other communist parties. They can never know if they are not told that what is the full form and difference of S.H.O. and S.O. Go and ask any crime reporter the hierarchy in the police department. You can easily check this out. Nowadays, reporters covering the reservation issue are now and then using the term Mandal Comission. Just ask, how many of them know who was Mr. Mandal and what he did that put the country on fire? You can easily check this out also.So, the crux is that, there must be an informal training of the newcomers in the media group which they join by the heads of those organisations. This would firsthand increase the collective responsibility of the media group, secondly clear the common minimum agenda of the the group and last but not the least, help to create loyal journalists. Our senior journalist and writer of daily Hindustaan Mr. Rajendra Dhodapkar was once telling me the story of the golden days of daily Jansatta when Prabhash ji and Banwari ji went abroad for more than a month without handing over the responsibilities to anyone and the newspaper ran smoothly and responsibly without any hurdle. Prabhash ji is a journalist as well as a trainer in the sense that, as Mr. Dhodapkar accepts, " We are all children in front of him because today also, he keeps on teaching us the basic tenets of journalism and most importantly, requirement of the freedom of a journalist."It's not like setting standards like Jansatta of those days in the news channels, but at least we must help our colleagues and newcomers in keeping them aware of their social responsibility as a journalist. So that next time, when Nepal arises from the shackles of supression and someone comes from news channel to cover the rally at Jantar Mantar, we must not hear the questions like....Sir, please first of all tell me what's happening in Nepal? Yes...a byte carrier(I call TV reporters by this name only) from Sahara samay asked this question exactly the same way and the person who was standing in front of the gunmike got amazed. He was in dilemma...what to say. Not only this, even, a new journalist from Jansatta was heard saying Nepal and North-East are same. He had to take an interview on the insurgency in North-East and the person he chose was the senior journalist Anand Swaroop Verma. When I told him that Verma ji specialises on Nepal issue, I came to hear this nonsense from him. This was the nuisance of the newsense.Do you also want to keep this nuisance going on? If no, and certainly no, then come out with some suggestions so as to build a pressure on the key people sitting in media groups to keep an eye on these nuisances being played by there subordinates and correct them. Waiting for the same.........

What’s “Larger Than Life”?

"Larger than life" is a very common phrase in the English literature; we have got a music album also with this name and whenever there arises a discourse regarding any commited goal, the phrase strikes the mind. Let me ask, what is larger than life? A very individual question, but may be answered in a general framework of the dialectics between life and death. Last day, 22 medicos asked for mercy death from the President of India just for the sake of their protest against quota.There seems no discourse on this incident in our culturally great society.
Is reservation such a matter, say "larger than life" that one can ask for mercy death? There are many aspects of this nuisance. Don't forget our rebellions and independence warriors like Bhagat Singh. They never asked mercy death rather sacrificed themselves for the noble cause. Asking mercy death for the cause which can be, say the most important in the lives of the Indian students, is a cowardice in this respect. Protest and demonstrations are alright and there must be a conscious solidarity of the people against/for the issue, depending on the personal stand. But this is the height of escapism and cowardice which is is being rapped in the hypocrit colors of Rang De Basanti.
It's as simple as anything to understand that life may be experimented in many ways but you can't experiment with death. It never gives a second chance if the experiment succeeds. And after all, knowing that the provision of mercy killing has not yet been a part of the Indian social, political and cultural process, it is being asked for. The simple reason being publicity and the greater reason being the increasing alienation in our culturally tolerant society due to the consumer culture pervading all over.
India is not Japan or U.S. If a bunch of young people have asked for mercy deaths, this shows that the new era of civil protests is rather going to be more defensive and the leading middle class is blunting the whole youth spirit. If there is a disagreement with my views, let's wash it out. A simple recipe. See.
Let the reservation question be a launching pad for the civil protests in India on a much broader scale. Mass needs a slogan, so let this only be the starting point. Forget about poverty, unemployement, eviction, displacement, tribal killings, imperialist suppression and many more. (Let it does not depend on any personal agreements/disagreements including me) But then, two questions will always remain unanswered.
Firstly, the demand of mercy deaths is being asked in the same political system which is going to implement quota. This is a major contradiction. If the system has become corrupt and the whole political scenario needs a revamp, then why to seek mercy from the ruler class? Is the President of India working in an isolated system? Is he not a part of the ruler class?
Secondly, hope that some student from the medical community gets a decisive place in between the rulers, say becomes the HRD Minister. Let's assume that he can curb all the reservations and quotas on his own. But then how will he tackle the upheaval arising from the SC, ST and OBC protest? The argument seems circular, and definitely this is a viscious circle from which mercy death could not provide an exit.
Basically, as far as I have my own understanding of the protests and issues, the doctors are losing the grip against their own interest only by doing these type of populist activities. They will never appeal to the masses because the hospitals are closed and people are suffering. No propoganda will work out, although they have largely circulated a news of the death of a doctor, some Srivastava of AIIMS. No one believes, and the media is not such a fool's foul play at least that it will ignore and not cover a big news like this, if it is true.
We need a right direction and framework to analyse things around us. Don't let the whole issue break up into pro and anti. Rather thinking rationally from a social stratification point of view will sort out the ways. And please, my dear Doctors, don't let your lives wasted to the mercy of the ruling class. Understand the class politics and decide your stand at a macro level, if you are really a rebel. Otherwise, you will be solely responsible for spoiling the whole possibility of any left out and much awaited social revolution in your country, India. Let's care of the revolutionary future. You are our comrade in arms!

A Question reserved!

Much fuss is going on in media for the last few days regarding reservation of OBC’s in Medical colleges. Arjun Singh just threw out a lollypop for the people to lick for some days so that the attention from the basic issues gets diverted and the whole question of Women’s reservation got succumbed to the pressure build up by the current issue. Is this our media which has created a hype of the medical professionals’s protest against reservation?

A Question must be certainly asked to the people, to the doctors and the intellectuals who are opposing the reservation. And certainly, it must be asked to the media as well that why it is not putting up this question. Assume that the government is already corrupt and anti-people and you cannot mould its decisions just by lighting the candles and shouting “Rang De Basanti”. But then, are the medical students and doctors ready to work on the countryside for one and a half decade if it’s made compulsory?

Let’s give them a chance. Say, the reservation will be taken back on condition that there must be introduced a conditional column in the medical exams application forms that the people who will qualify will compulsarily work in the Indian villages for say at least one decade. Then who will get ready for that?

These are the “Youth For Equality”, so called, who are protesting on the roads and as soon as they get a chance to go abroad, they will never come back to their motherland complaining that India has a corrupt system where everything is decided by caste politics. It is true, but it must be asked that why the responsible mediamen like Rajdeep and Co. have not raised this issue? Has someone asked thet self-proclaimed medical leader Aniruddha that how much time it has been since he is on the roads? Has he ever protested for any other issue in his lifetime?

This is a question reserved for media, Aniruddha, Arjun Singh and others. It is certain that Arjun Singh has hit an axe on his front foot and he will also meet the fate of Raja Manda V.P. Singh. There is no doubt in this. But how will you react if at this point of the article, I tell you that the whole protest in delhi and the rest of the country is being managed by some event management companies? Yes...this is truth and harsh truth.

So, when you get a message next time which reads like...Support the anti reservation movement...96 hours of Dharna...94 medical students collapsed...circulate this news like fire...(the same as I got twice in a day from some unknown numbers), just think before you act. Just ask this reserved question from the people around you and the message senders. And you will see the magic...your call will be get unusually aborted and disconnected. Then you will understand the reason why media is avoiding this question. After all, it has to take into account the popular sentiment also.

The Right to Forget...

I got a sms exactly at 18.10... Meerut on Fire...500 under trap...100 feared dead.

This reminded me of the same time but different place when I got the sms regarding Varanasi blasts: I was sitting in NSD in New Delhi enjoying a play which was as boring as anything in our times. I was enjoying because I had no option...and as I got the sms, the first reaction was to ask the well being of friends and foes, both in Meerut and Varanasi.

The next day I was watching the headlines...The life goes on in Varanasi... This has been the most trendy feature of our media to first hype the things as if something very unusual has happened in the country where people just get lost due to Dengoo or Malaria or anything of that sort. After some hours of hitch-hike and formal P2C's and VO's, how could the life comes to normalise? We saw burnt dead bodies on our screen; Sahara Samay, India TV, Aaj Tak and the list goes on. Leave ND, Dr. Roy is that's why honoured amongst his TRP rivals also. He is mature at sometimes. (Don't remind me of the April Fool melodrama which Abhisar and that Takkarwala Ahirwal played shamelessly. I thought that I must send sms to 6388 and I did so. The original text was, "This is the most foul game of TRP ever being played by the mass media in the Indian History. Down NDTV" and lo...I got back thanks for the message.) But this time he has shown that Sharm unko magar kabhi-kabhi aati hai.

Indian Electronic Media has not matured yet. There was no need to have shown the roasted human beings, without that also the weight of the accident would not have been affected. Now, you just keep an eye on the idiot boxes and you will see that the next day they will run the news as..."Meerut ke logon ne itni badi ghatna se bahut kucch seekha hai. Yahan ka jeevan hi aisa hai ki koi bhi ghatna inhein hila nahin sakti. Jindagi dobara patri par aa gayi hai. Aag ne meerut vasiyon ko is baat ki roshni di hai ki ve picchla bhool kar aage ki sochein...". Last but not the least...cameraman so and so ke saath so and so meerut ke victoria maidan se soso TV ke liye.

Now, first create hype, show dead bodies, roasted bones and then console by saying that everything is alright. Who cares about the people's views? Do they really forget the tragedies? They have the right to forget, but necessarily they don't. This is the camerawallahs who decide whether they have reacted to the situation or come to 'patri'.

Someone said in the 'Gladiator'(I saw it in Hindi dubbed), 'Logon ko bhoolne ki aadat hoti hai...' I think this is not an aadat but an imposed right by the state, media and all the wings and compradors of elite exploiters. Let's erase all the fundamental rights from the constitution and incorporate only one i.e. The Right To Forget. After all, we have forgot Godhra, Gujarat, Mandal, Kalinganagar, Afghanistan, Iraq, Delhi slums, Varanasi and now slowly forgetting Meerut. At least this right will have no resistance from the people's side b'coz it requires no legitimacy.

A Preliminary Recipe for TV News

I was going through a research published somewhere regarding the impact and viewership of TV in the rural India. It said that more than ninety percent of the population watches TV not for news (forget about views i.e. JANMAT, it must be renamed as SAHMAT where you can see everybody nodding his or her head in the anchor's i.e. Alka ji's consent) but only for entertainment. ten percent or so who watch TV News prefer Sansani and Dial 100 type melodramatic nuisance and others wait for their chance to be selected in the Indian Idol. Is this the TV News foeticide?

Remember, whenever we talk about electronic media and its impact, we must always draw a dividing line between news (and views together) and non-news. The reason is obvious. You start with the term Electronic media and end up in a mess because you found that you were talking only in terms of news as you are a journalist. This mindset has to be broken because as and when you say that the electronic media in India is in a very immature and nascent stage, you always keep in your mind's core the fate of TV News, not the POGO cartoon and MTV Bakra. This creates a viscious circle and we start indulging in a that discourse about which no one is sure what the fuss is all about.

The fate of Electronic media i.e news media in TV must always be talked about in terms of content, keeping in mind the dialectical relationship between it and the form i.e visuals. If someone is very keen in creating the pressure points for the electronic media; again the same mistake...electronic news media...then the best way to do this is to scan the daily news items and their relationship with the visuals. This can create a perfect balance between what we think and what we speak.

Firstly, to make a corresponding relationship between our thought process and the the spelt words. Don't use Electronic media. Instead use TV News Media or anything of that sort where news comes in. We can't create pressures on the video of Shakira running day and night on MTV but it is possible to make a justifiable balance between the news items and their relationship with the visuals.

The second step in this whole exercise must be to prepare a lexicon or say style sheet which we can usually find in a good newspaper's office. Lexicon must contain the strict rules and regulations categorically of how to select and use a visual according to the story on the run. All types of news must be dealt with in this manual. As and when it needs to be amended, it must be. This can be done in the first phase through the critical analysis of responses to a questionnaire which can be send to the respective news channel heads and chief functionaries.

When you get the lexicon in place, it must be shared with the Press Council of India or the analogous governmental regulatory body like Information and Broadcasting Ministry. Pressure must be build up through the journalist unions to strictly impose this kind of thing on the news channels. Let the government think on the proposal so as to take out any ordinance of this type or anything of this sort.

Virtually talking about the media musings is not going to pay anything, as I have stressed time and again. We will have to enter the physical realities and fight for the people's demands. Otherwise, the ten percent will get down to two percent or so and the media persons will just get amused by watching their PTC's on the screen. Then no one will be left to watch them leaving themselves only. Why to dig our own graves knowing that people don't want information only, they need correct information. And for that, conscious media persons need to assert themselves. Blogging is good, but watch that it doesn't turn into begging.