'BECAUSE ITS NOT CANTANKEROUS, ITS NOT NEWS'

OCCASIONAL ABERRATION

(A light hearted detour into the world of the high and mighty Mughals of the Media, all in good fun)

" BAK RAHAA HOON JUNOON MEIN KYA KYA KUCHH,
KUCHH NA SAMJHE KHUDA KARE KOI "

Media Musketeers:
Oracles of Untruth ?

"Editor: a person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed."
- Elbert Hubbard

People everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with news. - A. J. Liebling

Should the Media give up what some see as its illiterate obsession with cynicism and arrogant self righteousness, just because it can afford neither? No, because no one should give up his or her sole access to bread and butter. This, and how would you feel as a mother if your son was Tanvir Ahmad, the former Pakistani Air Chief Marshall, whose picture in a Government of India ad about female foeticide has the Indian media 'up in a horrendous cry / Such as women make when their husbands or their lap dogs die."

These are some of the inane issues I have been thinking about ever since my friends in newspapers and television decided that Tanvir Ahmad ad was the worst thing to have hit the national security since the Chinese invasion of 1962. Some of my greatest friends are from the world of journalism, all of them gentlemen and ladies, despite their profession.

This said, the media breast-beating over Tanvir's picture on a Government of India ad makes my jaw quiver on the edges of vomiting. The reaction of the nation's, indeed humanity's conscience keeper (for that's what our media likes to believe and proclaim about itself) would have been ridiculous – even hilarious -- were it not nauseating and had it not touched an issue of the profoundest import for the whole mankind. But of course, the media can , as is its wont, pat itself on its back for its 'impact', - what with the Government of India also agreeing to play ball by discovering that female foeticide is strictly a parochial issue from which the Pakistani mothers can, and indeed must be excluded.

What is the media trying to suggest? That it is alright for a female foetus to be killed in the womb if the progeny of that foetus later is going to grow up to be your enemy? Or that female foeticide would have been justified – even desirable and necessary – if we knew in advance that the female in the womb would in due course give birth to a Hitler or even a terrorist? In that case also, you end up killing Hitler's mother to save Hitler from being born! That’s really living up to the great reputation for "Indian mentality." Chor ko nahi , chor ki maan ko maaro.( Don't kill the thief; kill his mother instead, so she doesn't give birth to more thieves.) Are the ethics of the "sacred campaign against an outrage against humanity "(words of a famous journalist to describe the social scourge) limited to ensuring the birth of 'good children, guaranteed never to be our enemy'. And is the media even slightly sensitive to what the mother of the Pakistani Air Chief would be going through, reading about the moral indignation of the Indian 'intellectuals' – howling that it would have been okay from the purely human standpoint to have killed through female foeticide so that she couldn't give birth to a future Chief of Staff of an Air Force of a country inimical to India?

And who shall decide whether the girls who are eliminated before birth would become mothers of future terrorists, traitors, criminals, serial killers, corrupt government officials or politicians, or prophets of communal hatred? Or may be, despite their nationalities, an Einstein, a Lincoln or a Mother Teresa? Can a Gandhi never be born in our enemy's land?

That the Tanvir picture on an official Indian ad could have been turned into an opportunity for show-casing the country's global stature, broad vision and even moral courage and magnanimity on matters humane is no one's concern. Attributing the "Himalayan blunder" to something so unexciting as a mere official's oversight would rob the media of a great shot at cantankerous nationalism. And because it wouldn't be cantankerous, it wouldn't even be news. No one –but no one – anywhere in the media has risen up to speak the obvious: that female foeticide is not a provincial, racial or nationalist issue, not even an Asian or a global one: it is a profoundly human question, one that cuts –must cut – across geographical boundaries. It is humanity's one common agenda, other than environment. And therefore, while one may perhaps be justified in holding that Tanvir's picture could have been replaced with that of ,say, legendary Air Chief Marshall Arjun Singh, there is no justification for whipping a national(istic) storm.

But then, Pakistan is an enemy, and to be concerned about their future mothers as a part of our "human obligation" is unforgivable -- and probably not 'saleable'. Humanity begins at home and at home must it end too. I can already hear growls and see naked canine teeth of self-declared watchdogs at the mere thought of my words ever making it to the pages of a newspaper or to the "BREAKING NEWS" on some cleanly professional television channel, forcing me to resign my post and giving the media another "kill" in its proud Roll of Honour further establishing its credentials as a moral vigilante. (Some of the headlines could run like this : PAK SYMPATHISER IS BADAL'S ADVISOR - GOVERNMENT MEIN GADDAAR – "BAINS KI BE-HIYAEE: ADVISOR OR A PAK SPY?" – ADVISOR KI ANHONEE BATEIN – "STANDING UP FOR THE ENEMY" – AKALI SYMPATHIES WITH KHALISTANI SPONSORS OUT IN THE OPEN: ADVISOR'S MEDIA BASHING FOR OPPOSING PAK GLORIFICATION)

Well, since I am not a professional journalist, I can not even get anywhere near thGe precision of the modern day Shakespeares. We live in an age when television is glad to translate itself literally into "doordarshan" (how close they are to reality!) And the radio till recently was the other electronic Oracle of Delphi – 'Akashvani.' But compared with the massacre of truth we watch and read everyday now, we are already nostalgic about those innocent good old days of All India Radio. We have moved into an era of the newscaster as an actor, of the reporter as a script writer (not for nothing do they call a report a 'story'!) and of the editor as a philosopher-psychiatrist-economist-physicist-professor all rolled into. It’s an age in which television reporters must look and speak like criminals, and astrology, not astronomy, must explain the events of the universe to the viewers. Astrology, palmistry, even occult, Tantrik practices and beliefs are the flavour of the season. But to be fair to the TV channels, their colleagues elsewhere follow occultism and Tantrik vision of other and more ludicrous varieties.

Tanvir Ahmad's case of course is not the only instance of the media "hounds" (how they love this expression!) performing their sacred duty towards the nation. (That's the sole reason why they are in the profession of course!) They would keep you abreast of "developments" by carrying their OB vans right inside the bed-rooms of a family whose daughter has been brutally murdered, to show you 'gory details of reality' by lingering their cameras ( or pens or laptops) for hours and days and weeks on a servant suspected of killing his aged keeper; or showing you ' every angle of truth' in a rape 'item' or by giving close ups of a murdered ninety year old lady lying in a pool of blood and , if they can find it, gore.

Meanwhile, the families, relatives and friends of the victims as well as the doctors and the police must clear the way for media musketeers for "miles of footage" of broken ribs, slashed throats, or of a stray dog eating human flesh. That's someone's idea of "feel good factor for a nation." The reporter must get at the truth and be the first one to do so and beat the rival channel by that extra fraction of an extra fraction of an extra fraction of a second. And he must make the story "exhaustive, in-depth and realistic" by getting all the neighborhood to comment on the 'character and background' of every one who could remotely feature in the "news story at this hour". And in cases involving rape or murder, he must, if unnecessary(!) "reconstruct and re-enact" the "episode."Plus, how can the viewer be allowed to remain ignorant about the fraction of a second by which one channel beats the other to the story? ("Yeh poora khualsa hai kewal "Kal Tak" ke paas") And in case the viewer has forgotten that our channel is always the first to break news, it is our duty to keep reminding him of his ignorance every five to seven minutes - even if he forgets the actual story by that time." And keep Breaking News, till it is completely broken - to pieces- and can no longer be recognized.

And as for educated reporting on sensitive issues, I am reminded of a story titled "Sikh intellectuals guided by emotion" in a highly respected national daily in January 1985. I was one of the speakers at a seminar in which former Prime Minister I.K.Gujral, Late Lt Gen J.S.Arora and journalist Kuldip Nayyar were the other participants. This was in Khalsa College, Amritsar, during the tense and frightful days following the Operation Blue star. I believed – and said – that the army's handling of the situation had been a disaster which should worry us about the professionalism of our elite units (92 army personnel had died in a single day of an operation conducted on an extremely limited and focused area, well mapped out months in advance.) I had lambasted the Government of India for allowing the situation to drift towards this calamity and using the army option much ahead of the more advisable security and political options. I had voiced the Sikh anguish and anger against the Congress Government and said that a government that rolled tanks and armoured vehicles into the holiest of the holy places of the Sikhs was never likely to have much credibility with the Sikh masses, unless it apologized unconditionally. The apology, I emphasized, SHOULD NOT BE FOR TRYING TO ELIMINATE TERRORISM AND EXTREMISSM BUT FOR DOING IT IN THE MOST DISASTROUS WAY POSSIBLE, A WAY THAT WAS BOUND TO BE COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE. I said that the Operation Blue star was a "cure more killing than the desease". Events post Operation Bluestar saw militancy rising to a pitch never seen in Punjab even during Bhinderanwale days.

These observations were trashed as "militant slogans eulogizing Bhinderanwale". Wrote a seasoned reporter of a highly respected English daily for its readers: "It was not a statesman like I K Gujral or an enlightened journalist like Kuldip Nayyar who carried the day at the seminar. It was a young lecturer from the Department of Languages and Journalism in the Punjab Agricultural University who stole the thunder and swept the audience and carried the day. Taking resort to a highly militant idiom, Mr. Bains used the language of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhinderanwale, questioned the Indian state's standing with his community and justified the anger of the Sikh youth indulging in killing of innocents." The reporter had forgotten to mention that I had vehemently pleaded for Hindu-Sikh unity, out rightly condemned violence, spoken with pride about Sikh patriotism, asked the community to remember that even in the political cameos, all parties except the Congress had stood by them, and that if every vote cast in favour of Rajiv Gandhi was to be seen as a vote against the Sikhs, then the votes against Rajiv must count as pro-Sikh – and by this yardstick, the country was still at the back of the Sikh community.' Despite this, almost all the English and Hindi newspapers lynched me for taking "an anti-national stand", and that too when I had repeatedly said that I am "Proud to be Indian, Proud to be Sikh" (Later I wrote an article with that title in the Tribune of Chandigarh). And I had said all this at the peak of militancy in the heart of militancy, the border belt of Punjab. (My whole speech had been tape recorded by the organizers, so I had something to back my objections against the media.)

I protested (I was young and very idealistic about the media at that time) but barring an innocuously published "clarification" in the "Letters to the editor" columns, the newspaper in question chose not to be embarrassed by the mountain of evidence against its massive – and at the time, extremely hurtful for the nation – untruths. Other papers fared only slightly less ignobly.

There was a piece I once wrote about the media atrocities during the days of terrorism. I sent it to one of the leading English dailies. It was rejected of course. Freedom of press mmust not be used agains the press, said a senior editor of the paper after reading my piece. he said he was shocked that I wrote the piece. Sensing that he was very upset, I said its okay and that I will be fine even its not published. He gave me a look of utter disbelief , " Publish it ? Of course it will NEVER be published. IT SHOULD N-E-V-E-R HAVE BEEN WRITTEN !"

(For More , visit this space space next week.)