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Seeing the world without the lens of big media

The people of India have moved on to the internet, flooding it with petitions, videos, photographs of a reality that has been squeezed out of the so called ‘national’ media altogether.

Seeing the world without the lens of big media

The internet is buzzing with news of people’s protests, opposition to various legislations slated for Parliament, petitions against government oppression, an entirely different world from that reflected in the so called mainstream media through the long, and often very tedious, 24-hour coverage. The VIP media of editors and proprietors with farm houses and five star book launches covers only VIP politicians, mega scams, corporate honcho successions, sensational rapes, leaving the protesting people of India to fend for themselves.

So while television channels are engaged in sensationalising non events, and generating debates on inconsequential political happenings, the people of India have moved on to the internet, flooding it with petitions, videos, photographs of a reality that has been squeezed out of the so called ‘national’ media altogether.

For instance, there was coverage of the people’s protests against the Kudankulam nuclear power project so long as the anchors could dress up the story in sexy garb by pitching the Centre against Chief Minister Jayalalitha.

It was almost projected as a protest organised by the AIADMK leader in a major distortion of the facts. But there has not been a word in the media about the fact that 3,015 persons, including leading activists like Dr SP Udayakumar, have been charged now for waging war against the country and sedition by the Tamil Nadu police. The media has disappeared from view, leaving it to activists to launch petition campaigns and seek justice on their own.

Similarly, there has not been a word in the media criticising former Home Secretary GK Pillai for virtually justifying the encounter murder of young Ishrat Jehan by the Gujarat police suggesting that her checking into different hotels with “another man” was definite ground for suspicion. This at a time when the SIT report has established her death as an encounter in the first glimmerings of justice for the victims of the Gujarat violence. It is the Pillai kind of mindset that justifies state brutality, as clearly his argument is that an independent woman taking control of her own life is suspect. This mentality is reflected in the police station where rape victims are placed on trial by the cops - “the woman is of ‘loose’ character”, “she was not dressed soberly”, etc - before they even register the complaint. It has been left to civil society to move a petition for signatures against the former Home Secretary demanding an “immediate apology”. The Gujarat High Court has fortunately expressed serious displeasure at the comments made by Pillai to the media.

Tired and disillusioned, the young people are moving to the internet not just in India, but all across the world. The real pictures of Libya and now possibly Syria are not found in the world media, controlled as it is by the big powers, but on the internet where local journalists and photographers have been posting videos about the cold blooded murders of sovereign state leaders like Gadaffi (after Saddam Hussein), the repression of the people by Israel in Palestine on a daily basis, and the contrast between the rebels and the people who are supporting the regime in Syria as they do not want their country to be destroyed by US/Nato bombers. The story on the internet is often totally different to what is projected by the big media that has either not understood what is happening inside a nation, or has understood but does not care, or more sinister, is playing along with a larger international conspiracy.

The story of a country cannot be without its people. The government’s decision to bring in a Food Security Bill cannot be divorced, in the coverage, of what impact it will have on the ground. It is the job of the media to explore not the legalities of the legislation, but whether it will bring relief to the people, and to what extent. These stories are not being covered any more with the media getting away with a couple of quotes from the VIP politicians, and a ‘this party is against the other party’ kind of superficial approach. What has happened to the Women’s Reservation Bill? What does 51% FDI in the retail sector mean for the people? And by people, the yardstick should be poor people, and not just the consumers who determine the advertisements and the TRP ratings.

People do not like to come out on the streets to protest. Not even those who belong to political parties. They do so because they genuinely believe that there is no other course, and the issue is important enough to merit their participation. But when thousands of workers march on the streets of Delhi for justice and rights, the entire media without an exception blocks them out as they are the conscience check for unbridled capitalism keeping the corporates in business.

All that is reported are traffic jams as a result of people’s protests. Of course, if the protests turn violent the media is in full attendance to damn the protestors and their supporters.

John Pilger’s film while very important is not mainstream media. It can never be, as it is too honest, very courageous and brutal in projecting the truth. It will be seen by a handful of persons as compared to the millions who are bombarded with contrived images and manipulated news about the Arab world day after day. The media motto is: convert the lie into a truth by repeating it over and over again. It works as international and, of course, national stereotypes have been created on this basis, completely suffocating the tiny voices of truth. Right and wrong is established through this manipulation, with the definition being determined by the powerful few and not the impoverished many.

The state has realised the importance of controlling the media across the world, particularly in democracies. It has also realised that it does not need to do this through draconian laws (like censorship) and has opted for outright seduction. Big media empires are set up with covert state support, and the pay back is through the manipulation of news that is difficult to detect. This has happened in the US, it is happening in India. Multi media chains are being established by industrial houses, they get full support by the government that even bails them out at later stages through closed door multi-crore deals, so that eventually they can control the news. The distance between the journalist and the politician has been bridged, and both go to bed with each other to ensure smooth functioning of the new media industry that first creates the news and then disseminates it with admirable ease. The voter cannot be controlled, but the information can. And as the Iraq war and its embedded journalists have shown so successfully to the world, information can be bought and sold.

Seema Mustafa is a senior New Delhi-based journalist

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