In the aftermath of the controversy between Nupur Sharma and Naveen Kumar Jindal, Indian Television (TV) news media has been targeted by left and right.
The first argues that news television is guilty of giving a platform to propagandists of hate. The latter, especially the Hindutva right, insists that news television is guilty of selective outrage by allowing Muslim sectarians to get away with it easily.
So where is the truth?
Take the left-liberal argument first. Does news television give space to hate propaganda? Yes. There is no doubt that there is greater leniency from those who spit communal venom now, than ever before. From a government-controlled Doordarshan monopoly in the 1990s to nearly 400 private 24/7 news channels in India, there is a manic race for eyeballs that often places the sensation above meaning, and where the concept of breaking news has fallen apart.
This transformation is reflected in the contemporary news television format where polarized debates are seen as a cheaper way to design news operations. Where once field reporting was the main diet of news television, the TV studio with larger-than-life anchors is now the dominant arena for noise rather than news.
Even the nature of what passes for a “debate” has changed dramatically. I remember inviting, in the 1990s, the cerebral leader of Congress, the late VN Gadgil, to discuss an insightful essay he had written on secularism. I had planned to have another great intellect – Arun Shourie – to debate with him. Gadgil politely declined, saying, “I don’t want a complex problem to be reduced to you you main main sound bites between the two of us. Now the chains have 10 heads appearing on a TV screen, shouting at each other. I wonder how the soft-spoken Gadgil would react to what I call the “Ravana” multi-headed school of talking-head journalism.
Talking Heads TV is not just an Indian phenomenon; globally, investment in traditional newsgathering has declined. A faulty television rating point (TRP)-centric model means that most news channels are convinced that cacophonous debates on controversial issues such as religious identity will attract many more viewers than intelligent discussions. and significant on “serious” subjects.
Unsurprisingly, when consumer inflation peaked at its highest level in eight years in May, most news channels in India ignored it; instead, they focused on the issue of the Gyanvapi Mosque. A Fox News news pattern on steroids – a reference to the hate TV network’s initial profit making in the United States (US) has meant credibility often loses in the face of small-screen chaos and business results driven on advertisers trumps journalistic ethics.
But why bash the newsroom editors alone? After all, a newsroom reflects the grim reality of a conflict-ridden political regime where hate speech is being “normalized”. Those who accuse the news channels of manufacturing hate conveniently forget that Sharma and Jindal are not fringe elements, as the Indian government rather dishonestly portrays them. They represent the political mainstream.
Now consider the right-wing case of television media bias. For years, India’s mainstream media have been accused of being controlled by the left-liberal elite who despise alternative viewpoints. Interestingly, a similar argument about being denied a convincing voice witnessed the rise of right-wing American network Fox News more than a decade ago. The political right harbors resentment against a legacy media ecosystem, which it says is pseudo-secular.
The accusations are valid, but only up to a point. Yes, much of the mainstream Indian media distrusted, even despised, the Hindutva right, but after 1992, as the BJP became a main pole of Indian politics, there was a marked power shift.
Where once liberals led the media narrative, extremists are now installed in leadership roles in most newsrooms. The alleged appeasement of minority communitarians is more myth than reality: in most cases, topi (cap)-wearing “TV Muslims” and few self-proclaimed the maulanas are caricatured and ridiculed, and demonized on television.
While the Sharma and Jindal storm is a wake-up call for television news, the elephant in the media jungle is the growing influence of social media in shaping public discourse. Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk recently described Twitter as the “place in the digital city where matters vital to the future of humanity are discussed” – lofty words that belie the reality of a nightmarish space where hate speech is often allowed to flow freely in the name of freedom of expression. Many news channels today follow Twitter trends almost by reflex, with their prime-time schedule virtually dictated by the loud noise of the virtual world. Unfortunately, in this public sphere where everyone – including armies of highly organized political trolls – seems outraged most of the time, farmer suicides don’t gain popularity, but a raucous debate over a fountain will. almost certainly.
Postscript: Business mogul Harsh Goenka, who has a reputation for creating buzz on Twitter with his hard-hitting tweets, recently warned that corporate advertisers are being hunted by those who feed off hate speech on TV. So, will Mr. Goenka lead by example and expose news anchors and programs that “regularly profit from hate”?
Rajdeep Sardesai is a senior journalist and author Opinions expressed are personal
