What were the most trending news on the National Media in the last two months or so?
- Beef Ban
- Dadri Lynching
- Award Return by Intellectuals
- Meet Ban
- Satya Nadella Wiping Hands
- Zuckerberg pushed by Modi
- Tricolor allegedly defiled by Modi
- Indrani Mukerjea
- Sardesai’s open letter
- Lalu Yadav
- Nitish Kumar
- Owaisi
- Mahesh Sharma
Now let us analyze how many of these were of national importance? Well many of these are. Now let us analyze how many of these require full week airtimes on national media? Very few of these. But what actually happened?
The National Media made us believe that Beef Ban is the only burning issue in India. That the award return episode represents India’s anguish and resentment against Modi. That Dadri Lynching is the first of its kind and the only one in a very long time. That Satya Nadella secretly detests Modi and Zuckerberg was intentionally insulted by Modi. That Indrani Mukerjea concerns everyone in the nation and Sardesai’s open letter is an artifact of national importance. That Nitish and Lalu have disconcerted the NDA and Owaisi has disconcerted Nitish and Lalu and that every word that comes out of Mahesh Sharma’s mouth needs to be broadcasted immediately.
Now let us also look at two trifle news items.
- Sanjiv Bhatt had lodged a petition in the Supreme Court seeking a court -monitored SIT probe in relation to the two FIRs against him that is forcing his subordinate to file an affidavit in a 2002 riots case and hacking the email of a law officer. The Supreme Court demolished the propaganda of the Sanjiv Bhatt and it exposed how the Congress Party and NGOs with vested interests have used pawns like Sanjiv Bhatt to trap Modi
Read: Sanjiv Bhatt wanted to trap Modi, ended up getting owned by the Supreme Court
- A PIL was filed in the Supreme Court in 2004 alleging corruption in purchase of rockets and snow shoes during Kargil war. These allegations collectively dented the image of otherwise clean ABV government. However a Supreme Court bench headed by Justice TS Thakur delivered a verdict on 12th October 2015 after being informed by the CBI counsel that it could not establish the guilt of any accused in the said scam. This cleared the remaining blemishes of the Coffin Scam on NDA.
Read: Coffin Gate: The Scam that wasn’t one!
Were these stories worthy of a prime time story or a week airtime on National Media?
Well certainly yes. Sanjiv Bhatt’s affidavit was important because it was the first ever direct evidence against Narendra Modi in the 2002 Gujarat riots, the same riot, ranting about which prime time news traders like Rajdeep Sardesai, Barkha Dutt and Sagarika Ghose have made a career. These fellows are famous for giving a “2002 Degrees turn” to any news piece but sadly when a news favouring Modi comes out, these fellows observe a stoic silence. Rajdeep, who generally is hyperactive on Twitter, tweeted about it a full day after the news went live.
Now, imagine if the SC had upheld Sanjiv Bhatt’s petition, what would have been the scene?
Rajdeep and people of his tribe would have gone into an overdrive. Beef and Dadri would have been chucked and stories of how Modi, the corrupt dictator of a realm called Gujarat slaughtered Muslims by Thousands and sacked honest cops. Those who know the National Media, know that I am not exaggerating.
And Coffin Scam? What about it? Now that it has been proved to be a lie created out of thin air, doesn’t National media need to criticize Sonia Gandhi, who herself took charge to protest against this alleged scam. Every time George Fernandes rose to speak in parliament he was quelled down by chorus of ‘Kafan Chor’ with Mrs. Gandhi leading the choir.
I am all for bias in media. It is an industry after all. There are friends and enemies and frenemies in every industry and Media is no exception. But what disturbs me is propagandizing in the name of “Unbiased News Reporting”. Thankfully we have the social media now. National Media needs to understand this.