Tuesday, October 30, 2012

People whose opinions don't matter

This is totally a subjective issue. Others may feel that what they say makes sense. But my view is different. Their views don't matter because of the following reasons (in my perspective ):

1. The opinions are lopsided and hence unbalanced and biased.
or 
2. Opinions don't have substance. They talk in generalities which makes less sense, atleast to me.
or
3. Some of them have low level of knowledge as far as the issue at hand is concerned. Therefore, people may term them as 'armchair critics'.
or 
4. A combination of above.


Kumar Ketkar


Dileep Padgaonkar

Karan Thapar


Sidharth Bhatia


Tehseen Poonawala

KTS Tulsi
Sanjay Jha


Shekhar Gupta

Vinod Sharma
 

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Media Debates - A Perspective



Though Team Kejriwal (TK) is fighting an anti-corruption battle and therefore it is expected that they themselves are answerable for any wrongdoing, the team does not hold any public office and therefore any comparison with the existing political system would want that the accountability of the latter needs to be much higher.

A lot has been going on in the media regarding this fight against corruption, especially in the last two years when high profile cases have come to light and the courts have begun to take an active role in the governance. In media, the debates that are aired on primetime have adopted a new role where justice (in the realm of perception) is meted out in few hours. As an observer and a citizen, these debates have begun to turn farcical in my perspective. In some (or many) cases, these debates have become a tool of propaganda to fool people who are ‘thought’ to be of low intellect. Though psychology teaches us that many a times people make decisions –sometimes important- without much thinking (termed as peripheral processing), it is hoped that in case of debates people don’t make the same mistake. When courts in India take years (or even decades) to give judgments, most of the fight is fought on perception and therefore these primetime debates assume importance. In the following paragraphs, I have discussed few instances where I feel that media is behaving irresponsibly.

  1. Recently, TK came out with documents showing how there is a strong prima facie case (later media investigations confirmed it) of holding an independent inquiry into some of the cases. The media responded by saying that how can someone hold press conferences and make ‘wild allegations’. Some even pronounced it as ‘Hit and Run politics’ or ‘OB van politics’ etc. But when Mr Khurshid held a press conference, the media responded by saying that he gave point by point rebuttal, though he could not give convincing answers to the specific questions.
  2.  In debates the time allotted to various participants can be easily manipulated. If the total time allotted is given more to one side, the overall impression that a viewer gets is that one side is able to convince comparatively better that the other. More time obviously means that one side has been able to make more arguments.
  3. Allowing rebuttals to one side more often is also a problem. If one side has been allowed to rebut every counter argument made by the other side, it gives an edge to that side and this can also give an impression of fairness to the side which has more rebuttals in its pocket.
  4. In any debate, broadly speaking, there are 4 sets of people – the two parties holding opposite views, neutral experts and the anchor. The issue of ‘unofficial spokespersons’ is well known to people who regularly watch debates. There are a set of people, who are categorized variously as ‘Senior Journalists’, ‘Analysts’, ‘Senior Lawyers’ etc who are expected to give an unbiased view on the issue at hand because they don’t belong to any party. But the problem is that many of these neutral observers are not so neutral in their affiliations. Therefore, it is self-evident that they would be able to tilt the public opinion because viewers tend to believe more what the person has to say when he is perceived to be independent.
  5. It has been observed that media indulges into intense scrutiny into what TK has to say. They are pinned for every argument made by them. (It is already iterated that they don’t yet hold public office.) They are asked to provide all the documents that will prove specifically all the charges made. If that is the precedent that media is setting, then what is the need for an investigating agency? There is something called as prima facie case which the media deliberately chooses to ignore. On the other hand, it is now well known that some of the questions and documents that were part of the press conferences of TK were already in public domain. But media chose to ignore it. No scrutiny here, leave alone intense scrutiny.
  6. Low knowledge level of the anchors – Many a times, it is seen that anchors don’t do adequate homework before coming for the debate. Therefore, they end up asking general questions. This was explicitly seen during Lokpal agitation where it had become increasingly difficult for the proponents of Lokpal to convince these anchors that ‘independent CBI’ is the need of the hour. Now this does not mean ‘no accountablity’. Independence and accountability are separate parameters. The idea is to tire people out so that they get discouraged and demoralized. Similary in the debate on Mr Ashok Khemka, firstly some participants accepted that they have not read the court order on the posts held by Mr Khemka. Some participants chose to indulge into selective reading of the court orders. Now if there is no clarity in the order, then what is the need to have a debate on this specific issue and that too when the person himself is not present to explain it. (http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/left-right-centre/was-ias-officer-shunted-for-taking-on-robert-vadra/250998)
  7. The issue of lawyer spokespersons also needs some consideration. They tend to focus on technicalities (sometimes flawed or one-sided). This confuses viewers who don’t have adequate knowledge about the subject at hand. The objective itself is to confuse people. Fluent English and usage of well crafted sentences does not mean that person is telling the truth. This is the reason why there is often no answer in straight ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. 
  8. Topics of debates are so chosen as to put a particular side in bad light for no reason. Sometime back Anna Hazare talked of flogging those who drink after they don’t listen. This was created into a debate in one of the channels. But the same anchor forgot that Nehru had said that the corrupt should be hanged to the nearest lamppost. Besides this, topics such as ‘Has TK lost its credibility?’; ‘Has TK or Team Anna lost its steam?’ ; ‘Is TK or Team Anna a media creation?’; ‘Is politics of hit and run sustainable?’; ‘Is TK playing OB van politics?’; ‘Press conference of TK a damp squib?’ throw some light on how things can be downplayed in the eyes of public.
  9. It is quite strange that media has never focused adequately on Subramanian Swamy. He has been fighting some cases in the Supreme Court which are of national importance – Ram Setu, EVMs etc - but he has not been given his share of coverage.
  10. Sometime back Mr Kejriwal challenged in Devil’s Advocate to call one of the accused parties in the expose done by them. The challenge is still open. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEJcQQxwjwQ)

The net result is that social media has come to reflect the real views of the people and act as a counter to the mainstream media.

From the above arguments, it is clear that some (or many) of these debates are conducted to fulfill certain objectives that speak contrary to the fact that Media is the Fourth Pillar of the Democracy. There is still a belief that there are some people in Media who know that they have a responsibility towards the society and therefore there is no attempt to paint everyone with the same brush. Now when the country is changing, it is high time that all the pillars of democracy stand up to fulfill the aspirations enshrined in the Constitution. 

(Argument should not be made that the article wants to convey that all debates that are aired come in the above category.There are debates and debates.)