How our media misses the real issues

At the end of a visit to China, the then Lok Sabha speaker Purno Sangma was asked by his counterpart as to what was the single most important thing that he wished to take back to India from China.

Irrepressible Sangma was ready with his request, “I want to take back the forefinger of the security chief attached to my motorcade.”

“Forefinger? But why that?” the Chinese leader enquired wonderingly.

“His finger has enormous power; just a tiny wave of it brings the entire traffic to a halt.” Sangma replied mischievously, “In India the policeman gestures frantically, but people drive on whimsically. That’s why I want to take your security man’s finger to India.”

Even that may not have worked in our chaos. However, there is one finger that wags every weekday in our TV screens; and by that act has become a subject of considerable debate. Some call that anchor’s programmes Kangaroo courts where rough justice is dispensed instantly. People cite the hectoring tone and preconceived drift of the debate as evidence.

But the programme’s supporters, and they are many, protest that it is refreshingly independent. Moreover is there any point in watching channels which toe the establishment’s line, they assert?

This intense debate has raised once again the old argument about the independence of media. It has become particularly passionate after the 24/7 coverage by the media of Anna Hazare’s fast. The voices against allege that the coverage injected extraordinary strength into an ordinary movement; otherwise the movement would have fizzled out.
The media’s advocates are equally vehement. Isn’t corruption denting the national fabric, they counter? Isn’t it the responsibility of media to articulate sentiments of the silent majority? And this combination of Anna and the media was necessary to move an obdurate system.

Anything less would have been stampeded to silence. They also assert that media’s role isn’t simply news. It has a duty to analyse and to present views; its own and that of experts. Moreover, the media, by its very nature must be in constant opposition to the government of the day; that is its assigned responsibility as the fourth estate.  

Let’s take some recent events; then judge for yourself whether media did well in not covering them critically.
First, there’s the PM’s address to the UN general assembly. There was nothing exceptional about this UN session; a mere scheduling of an annual ritual. Was it then necessary for him to spend a week away from India at this juncture? And what was the need to go there all the way if his speaking slot was to be on a Saturday morning!

He spoke to an empty hall; the few seats that were occupied were by junior diplomats. Others who spoke that Saturday morning were the Prime Ministers of Lesotho, Slovak, Montenegro, Guinea-Bissau and Tuvalu! Clubbed with them, and so insignificantly, can we seriously make a claim for the high table of permanent membership? The speech itself was a reiteration of what we have been saying for the last 35 years; even terrorism and UN reforms were chanted as mantras.

Turning to domestic issues; there is the ongoing, and largely ignored, agitation regarding statehood for Telangana. Admittedly it is taking place in far away Andhra Pradesh, but does that make it less of a national concern?
In even remoter northeast, the devastation caused by the earthquake in Sikkim seems to grow daily in magnitude. But has our national response been adequate?

Close to it a political earthquake is stirring emotions in Assam because its people were left out of the loop when the central government finalised a land swap deal with Bangladesh; a deal reportedly at the cost of Assamese territory.

Why has the media not pursued vigorously these issues? Is it because of their remoteness to New Delhi? Or is media treading cautiously after its hyper-activity in covering Anna’s fast?

Whatever be the reason the fact remains that media owes it to people to articulate their concerns. When media fails to report impartially and independently, an information deficit develops to the detriment of the governing class too, as in autocracies, and as had happened in the Soviet Union. The fourth estate strengthens democracies; but when the media’s role is cramped it diminishes societies. Equally, however, it must be said that while waving fingers might enforce compliance in some societies, their wag does not enhance democratic debate.