> BTW, can this thread gently drift back to the topic I originally > started? It's easy to beat up on individuals and their reporting > style, but I was hoping there'd be some debate on the larger issue at > hand. >
My 2-paise worth on the 'larger issue', that of media today being a slave of the corporates. First, the definition of media here is the English media in India. This media, which includes newspapers and television channels, serves a particular class of English-speaking people. In turn, these media houses are run by advertisement revenues and not by their subscription fees (if you take the example of newspapers). Hence, they are bound to serve the interests of the masters who pay them, to be quite dramatic :). This issue of media in a democracy being a propaganda tool for the ruling elite, which comprises alternatively either the corporates or the Government, is argued nicely in Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent. In the Indian context, the scenario is quite interesting. Consider the 80s where the Bofors scam was broken. It was the watchdog media doing what it should be doing -- exposing Government inadequacies and informing people. Now consider Tehelka's Operation West End. There are some parallels. (Yes, yes, there's a lot of debate on whether a sting operation has the same moral legitimacy as a piece of investigative journalism. If that is set aside, then there are parallels :)) The difference in the reaction of the 'People Like Us' (middle/upper middle class, English speaking population in India) to both these events demonstrates the effectiveness of the Indian media then and now. There are some explanations proposed for this. In a nutshell, this is what some theories which consider liberalisation as a turning point say: After liberalisation, the Indian Government lost a lot of money in trying to woo international investments. Less money meant less social spending. The amount of investment in agriculture and the corresponding growth of agriculture is an eloquent indicator. So, the idea of the Government being the 'mai-baap' who provides started eroding in the minds of people. When the Bofors scam was exposed, people felt betrayed. The 'people like us' thought Rajiv Gandhi could do no wrong, and he did. As the Government had legitimacy in the minds of the people, such a Government doing wrong was condemned. Now, the Government has lost that legitimacy because it is no more seen as an instrument capable of change. Who is then capable of this change? People aren't very sure. This fuzziness leads to confusion, and hence, there's no easy way of saying who is right and who is wrong. So, what happens when a case of corruption is exposed? Worse, what is the reaction after Operation Kalank ( the Tehelka expose on the Gujrat pogrom). People don't care. If the Government does not have this legitimacy, who does? Simply put these theories say, it is capital.Whoever has capital has the acquiescence of media. Who has capital? Monsanto, maybe? Prabhat Patnaik's lecture elaborates this theory nicely : http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/fline/fl1915/19151280.htm
