Whose channel is it anyway?

One thing that you learn very quickly as an Indian citizen is how to compartmentalise your anger and concern on a weekly basis. There is so much that seems unjust and wrong that it is impossible to spend time fretting and fuming about certain subjects no matter how important they might be. This week at the bottom of my anger compartment were the new rules laid out by Reliance for Network 18 employees.

According to reports, the shiny new owners of the Network 18 group (that includes CNN-IBN) extolled the virtues of covering them favourably and shutting out opposing voices like that of Arvind Kejriwal in a town hall meeting with the groups' journalists. Having already slapped irony in the face by calling their holding company the "Independent Media Trust", YouTube channel "Flame of Truth" and rotten vegetables godowns "Reliance Fresh" – this was another step in ensuring that their news channels remained free and fair. The meeting was said to have been so disturbing senior journalists stood single file facing their new management carrying a t-shirt that said Sardesai while the national anthem played. Okay I lied about that last one. Regardless, proponents of media freedom were quick to outrage and start every tweet with "So it begins".

The way I see it, I don't see the point of being angry at something like this. The whole point of a corporation buying a media house so that it can control the narrative in its favour. We seem to hang on to hope that somehow they'll remain ethical and let news channels exist in their own independent vacuum. It has happened in the past but that space is shrinking. If I were Mukesh Ambani and owned a stake in something, spent all day making business deals, came back home tired and wanted to relax by watching TV and saw my own network keep badmouthing me atleast a 100 TV sets would have randomly been flung out of Antilla's windows. I'm surprised he stopped at just buying the network.

Independent media won't exist till people start putting their money where there mouth is and support non-corporate news entities. Till then, I'd rather know what the bias of the news channel I'm watching is. I know that Doordarshan is a government mouthpiece and I'm better off knowing that CNN-IBN will now be Ambanis. The only immediate solution to counter this narrative is by getting someone as rich to buy an alternate news channel so they can slug it out while the nation remains glued to Arnab shouting at whoever did something stupid that day.

Till then I'm waiting to see if this tiny piece gets censored. Fingers crossed.