Bharat Rakshak

We have the go-ahead from the moderators to start this new 'Media Watch' thread that will be in the Strat forum. Please use this thread for

- Tracking news relating to media outlets, ownership of media firms and movement of media personalities
- For identifying political / social / economic /geopolitical biases and slants of specific media outlets and journalists
- Discussion on the media business and means of addressing perspectives in mainstream media that largely remain unaddressed currently
- For discussion on any specific threats to freedom of expression being exercised by the media

While the focus will largely be India - discussion relating to major international outlets / personalities and media scenario in other major nations should also be kosher.

Media here refers to print, TV, radio and also purely web-based outlets.

PS: Posts that analyze specific articles for 'psy-ops' will continue to go under the other 'Psy-Ops and Media' thread in GDF. Please use discretion in language and nature of content when posting in this thread in the Strat forum.

I think the first step in proper media analysis must start from the following details:
a) who are the owners, major share-holders, star journos and sponsors of a particular media outlet?

b) what are their relations with political parties and business establishments? What are their personal biases for/against various ideologies and religions?

c) what is their background? ie their family(including extended relatives), their friends, their religion, social conditions(and contacts), their business investments.


With these details, one can better understand and analyse the actions of the media(or any Org.).

The Rotten State of India’s Media

Some good observations in this WSJ article, but the recommended solutions need to be thought through in more detail..


While I largely agree with the author, we have to be clear that what India does NOT need more of is competing perspectives in mainstream media that are antithetical to the key ideas, values and status of India. Non-mainstream media are welcome to publish any and all views, including the more heretical viewpoints.

However, the single biggest lacuna in terms of viewpoints is that mainstream political opinion as represented by the right-wing in India barely finds representation. It is the Congress view that is largely carried by most outlets - and this is what needs to change.

On November 28, 2011, Ajai Shukla authored an article for the Business Standard titled Technology transfer, supply of assemblies hit Russian stonewall and shared much of the content on his blog as well. It had one key paragraph:

The rebuttal from a "Russian defense industry source" was in the form of an article on November 30, the second working day after the Business Standard article was published, in RIA Novosti titled Russia denies allegations over Indian T-90 tank contract. The key paragraphs suggest that it took 7 years to iron out the transfer of technology criteria to the satisfaction of both parties.

The map of India that RIA Novosti chose to publish discounts Jammu and Kashmir as a part of India:



This error was highlighted in a comment below the article on the same day:

No action has been taken in the two working days since the comment to rectify the error.

Russia and India consider each other strategic allies.

But foreign media like WSJ is not the kind of news agancy which is fit to report on Indian media,
They dont have a say in the internal matters of India

Also the days of map aggression on India by outside powers is over. Old psy-ops to trigger insecurities among DIE.

ramana ji, that doesn't mean we allow anyone to portray the map of India in any way they like. If anything, the days India stayed quiet and meekly accepted such portrayals should be over and what must now be considered is tit-for-tat portrayals, i.e. we too can show half of Russia being in China, or a diplomatic demarche leaked to the media.

A little too pessimistic on the Indian media by Ajit Mohan. He forgot to mention all the discussion and debate programmes(Times Now, The Big Fight,IBN live et al) , where 'dissenting' or differing perspectives can be heard, as well as the vernacular press. Also, he didn't point out any developing country where the state of the media is superior than India. What is it like, in say, the Philippines, Brazil, Mexico or even South Korea in terms of diversity, quality and integrity?

As a poster mentioned, there should be no problem with consensus and even uniformity, on core issues that relate to the values of India. A few of these are India's sovereignty and territorial integrity, Kashmir, nuclear autonomy/autarchy etc.

Varoon, I don't think the developing countries you mention should be the benchmark. India should be compared with the state of the media in places like the US, Canada & EU.

You are right though, that Ajit has been too pessimistic. At the same time, lets not gloss over two key weaknesses of Indian mainstream news media:

1) The quality and sophistication of analysis leaves a lot to be desired. There are enough examples of sophisticated analysis in non-mainstream publications - just that we don't see enough of this in 24/7 News channels as well as in the popular daily newspapers.

2) While consensus and uniformity on core issues is not a problem (the US is a good example where core issues are never tampered with by mainstream media) - it is important to acknowledge that right-wing thought has been completely sidelined by mainstream media in India which largely adheres to a 'left liberal' POV. This needs to be set right.

India asks Google Facebook to screen user content

Unbelievable...!!! Kapil Sibal and INC rapidly descending into fascist lunacy !

Only the first step my boy, only the first step

Besides BRF did it first

Has anyone noticed that the mainstream international media( the most notorious being the 'wire service' Associated Press), has played up the Veena Malik controversy, but did not even bother to mention the subject of Pakistani textbooks teaching hatred of Hindus. Really, which is the bigger, more important story?

Facebok had a kill Obama page
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10425110-71.html

"I don't think the developing countries you mention should be the benchmark. India should be compared with the state of the media in places like the US, Canada & EU."

Possibly, though India is a developing country itself, so it is reasonable to compare its media with that of other developing countries. What is interesting, is that we don't see those thoughtful, critical articles about the state of the media in, say, the Philippines, Brazil, South Korea et al, in the British or American press or its affiliates. India seems to be concentrated on. If someone were to ask me what is the state of investigative reporting, op eds, analysis, quality of language, variety of perspective/viewpoint in the Filipino, South Korean or Mexican media, for the life of me, I wouldn't be able to answer. It's partly laziness, of course, but it's also the fact that such articles dealing with those countries' media, simply don't appear in the Canadian, British or American newspapers, which I(we) can and do read.

Naipaul had made an observation in one of his books about (his view of) lack of critical analysis in the Indian media - it may have been in the 1960s.

But seriously, do you really believe that the media toe the government line in India?

There is, to my mind, something missing in the analysis that Arjun posted in the first post, but I did not say anything because I have been unable to put my finger on it. The media reflect society, and if you make a comment an say "The media are like this" you are essentially commenting on the society.

In India the media need to survive by sales and adverts, so constantly going against the grain of what society in general wants to hear would merely endanger survival of the medium. It follows that the media reflect society. Now if you are "critical" of the media and say that it "toes the government line" but you know that the media cater to society, the inevitable conclusion that you must consider as one possibility (wrong or right) is that Indians are in broad general agreement with the governments they elect over a slew of issues. This may be a boring society, or a non rebellious society or whatever. Call it what you like, but the conclusion that society itself might be generally in agreement with the government cannot be dismissed willy nilly.

If you have "controlled media" that have no bearing on what society wants, then the number of media outlets will necessarily diminish as they cannot all be funded. Clearly that is not he case in India. In fact India is a special case where the print media have a huge circulation and great variety.

Could there be something wrong with the person who believes that media should be writing opinions against the government? I mean look at the opposite side of the story. Everyone is against media that are totally government controlled. The takleef being caused here is the perceived lack of dissent despite lack of government control side by side with huge media penetration. . Why have takleef. There might be something different about India in this aspect too, as it is about so many other aspects no?

One other possibility that crops up is that Indians have still not got used to the idea of using the media as they can be used.

Definitely not. I have never thought that the Indian media toes the government line. It's a question of a broad societal consensus on a number of issues, Kashmir, the nuclear programme, India's general integrity and unity. The media, as you point out, reflects that outlook. The North Korean or Myanmarese media cannot be said to reflect the general societal desire and attitude. And if it does, that's a poor reflection on those people! The Indian media is one of the most diverse and lively in the world, from all appearances and standards.

I just find it curious that we don't see those searching, critical articles about the South Korean, Filipino, Mexican et al media, in Western/International news outlets. Critical, even scathing pieces like Ajit Mohan's, seem to be reserved for India. The Western media is lazy or calculatingly indifferent to the state of the media in those other developing countries. I have my own ideas as to why, but I won't as yet say, because it might be interpreted as on the paranoid side

The fact is that anyone who is willing listen briefly to a person like Noam Chomsky will agree that the so called "critical and independent media" in the west are also equally careful to toe a western official line despite glaring inconsistencies in topics that do not actually demand that the media toe the official line. Attitudes to India through the cold war years, attitudes towards Pakistan and the attitudes to "South Asia" in Britain are examples of how western media, to the outsider mimic the very defects that Indians are accused of tolerating.

It was Chomsky who opened my mind to the concept the the "liberal media" in the west are given a small liberal space to create the parody of debate and contrarian opinions in and establishment that rules the roost. So exactly what is all the takleef about?

Arjun,
Media is a social phenomenon and is part of the communications branch. We need to understand how to crititique it from a sociology point of view and then from an Indian interests point of view for the language of criticism is developed from Western view point.

For starters read the works of a Ducth scientist Van Dijk on Newspapers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teun_A._van_Dijk



Wiki on Critical Discourse Analysis:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_d ... e_analysis

Primer on CDA:

Primer on CDA
and

Critical Science

The above is on the science of criticism.

Once folks go thruogh these they can better understand each other and the other!

Indian media has been mixed with the western sociology applied to Indian society in the last 40 years
THis has created a khichdi and serious social problem

In what ways? What problem?

Naming things is the first sign of wisdom.

this is good. To support Indian point of view we need to know what the Indian point of view is all about.

In the evolution of this view, we will not be mimicking the western evolution but setting up our own scale of evolution so one needs to beware to compare India with concepts which exist in our imagination which may well subconsciously be western inspired concept.

The educated Indian mind has been mixed with the western sociology applied to Indian society in the last 40 years
This has created a khichdi and serious social problem. But that is a different subject.

Kapil Sibal declares war on social media

The situation is much worse than has come to light based on Sibal's latest spat this week. This is a war on social media that has been going on for the last several months.

Some of the statistics is outrageous - India beats both China and Pakistan on the number of requests to international website for removing 'defamatory content' !! INC and Kapil Sibal are on a rampage to murder freedom of speech ... and media / citizens cannot afford to stand idly by at this juncture.

A quote on twitter about this:

from Subramanian Swamy : http://twitter.com/#!/Swamy39/status/144095489200107521

NYT: Chilling impact of India's April Internet rules

As usual policy bunglers don't realize what they are getting into.

I recall seeing an image of media ownership and its link into the PMO office between The Hindi, NDTV. Can some post that image.

The introduction of newspapers in India was hastened by the spreading sense globalization amongst the countrymen who wished to be informed about the recent events in the world. It was during the same time that the first newspaper of the country was introduced in Calcutta (Kolkata). The newspaper titled Calcutta General Advertise or Hickey’s Bengal Gazette was introduced by an eccentric Irishman called James Augustus Hickey during the 1780’s. In the years to come India was to witness the establishment of another newspaper daily in the form of Bombay Herald followed closely by Bombay Courier.

History and Evolution of Indian Newspapers:

Although there was a flurry of English broadsheets during the eighteenth century, newspapers in regional languages made its way much later during the second half of the nineteenth century. First on the list were two Bengali newspapers called Samachar Darpan and Bengal Gazette while the first Hindi newspaper was Samachar Sudha Varshan. The Hindu newspaper which was launched as a competitor of Madras Mail became the first national newspaper of the country. Soon it became the voice of the nation during the establishment period.

The Leader (Oct. 24, 1909 - Sept. 6, 1967) was one of the most influential English-language newspapers in India during British Raj. Founded by Madan Mohan Malviya, the paper was published in Allahabad.Under C. Y. Chintamani, a dynamic editor from 1909 to 1934, it acquired a large readership in North India. His clash with Motilal Nehru over issue of his freedom as editor, meant that Motilal left within a year, thereafter between 1927 and 1936, Chintamani was not only the Chief Editor of the newspaper, but also the leader of the opposition in the U. P. Legislative Council.[Indian National Congress leader, Moti Lal Nehru was the first Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Leader, and the paper remained politically charged through its existence, many of Mahatma Gandhi's writings were also published in it, and it is repository of important writing of that generation.
On February 5, 1919 Moti Lal Nehru launched a new daily paper, The Independent, as a counterblast to the well-established local daily paper, the Leader, which was much too moderate for Motilal's taste.
In the 1950s 214 daily newspapers were published in the country. Out of these, 44 were English language dailies while the rest were published in various regional languages.The total number of newspapers published in the country reached 35,595 newspapers by 1993 (3,805 dailies).This staggering figure indicates how independent the Indian Press had been earlier on.

In British India, broadcasting began in June 1923 with programmes by the Radio Club of Bombay and other radio clubs. According to an agreement of 1926, the private Indian Broadcasting Company (IBC) was authorized to operate two radio stations; the Bombay station began on 23 July 1927, and the Calcutta station followed on 26 August 1927. On 1 March 1930, however, the company went into liquidation. The government took over the broadcasting facilities, beginning the Indian State Broadcasting Service (ISBS) on 1 April 1930 (on an experimental basis for two years, and permanently in May 1932). On 8 June 1936 the ISBS was renamed All India Radio.

The advent of Television in 1959(Doordarshan) brought into sharper focus the policies and views of the government and people started treating newsprint like toilet paper thereafter.Doordarshan had a modest beginning with the experimental telecast starting in Delhi on 15 September 1959 with a small transmitter and a makeshift studio.

Until 1975, only seven Indian cities had a television service and Doordarshan remained the sole provider of television in India. Television services were separated from radio in 1976. National telecasts were introduced in 1982. In the same year, colour TV was introduced in the Indian market with the live telecast of the Independence Day speech by then prime minister Indira Gandhi on 15 August 1982, followed by the 1982 Asian Games which were held in Delhi. The Ramayana and Mahabharata (both Indian mythological stories) were the first major television series produced.

All this stuff I picked up from various wiki and other sources.Hope it is useful to this topic.

Below are some of my observations.

India's First politically famous Family (Nehrus) has influenced India from its pre-independence days, and continues to do so, even to this date.Players have changed, the theme has not.The masses versus the rulers - we the masses, and they the rulers. Although we do have great freedom today in the press, we also have discord, dissonance and chaos in the minds of the aam aadmi, thanks to the rifts within the country's media.
The general drift is" Freedom of speech, sabko bolney ka chance, kuch bhi bolo,sab chalega,entertaining hona chahiye" adding to the din and noise.Is random chaos a state of ultimate stability?
The key point is,I have always felt,to guide the media in the right direction,but which is the right direction,who guides,and how- has never been clear. Whatever constraints have been incorporated in our laws pertaining to the media,are being quite seriously flouted by many business houses that run these media organisations.
Did watching TV eventually de-sensitise Indians in general? We do see people walking like robots, in airports,bus stations and railway stations,to office,in public places. Hardly get to see smiling faces, most are lost in deep thoughts.Few are aware of the moment, few are alert,and very few are really awake.Has the media also failed? Or the content dished out is not capable of awakening the masses? I end with my favourite question-why must I watch TV when I can relate to my PC monitor interactively?
I might be one of the very few who has decided to stay off television, and thus is making a serious attempt to re-sensitize myself, and free my mind from cliched TV messages, which fail to massage my mind (whoever said "medium is the massage" load of crap,at least from my POV). I would any day take time out to see a good movie on TV, but the rest is really not for me.Time to rush out for a walk in the cold winter!

Harvard drops Swamy for Hate Article

I don't think much of Swamy's views as expressed in the original article, but is there anything in that article that merits Harvard's stance ? How does this square up with the US' stance of being the leading nation in protecting freedom of speech through the First Amendment? If the epitome of intellectual achievement in the US - Harvard, is not able to protect its faculty's freedom of speech then what does it say about America's much vaunted freedom of expression ?

Here's the precise argument used by the committee:




The operative phrase out here is 'incitement to violence'. Unless this is proven, the Harvard argument falls flat...

How to wipe out Islamic Terror

The only link that I could find to the original article by Swamy....the link on DNA (where it originally appeared) mysteriously no longer works.

The statement above is the ONLY one that can be construed as being any form of 'incitement to violence' and even here the argument seems extremely thin. If one reads the context, Swamy does not seem to be calling for individuals to take law into their own hands but for the government to take this action.

In effect his view expressed the article is that if Islamic terrorists blow up Hindu temples, then the Government should, in retaliation, remove the masjids that have historically been contested within the precints of existing Hindu temples (such as Kashi Vishwanath). The logic seems silly to me, but the point is it does not satisfy the legal requirement of being 'an incitement to violence' to the masses.

Likely that Swamy has good grounds to contest Harvard's action in US courts.

Amazing really we are climbing down to our socialist past tendencies. A satirical image of Sonia and MMS is causing takleef. Google gets IT notices. Plain harassment. I am very uncomfortable with the fact that there are people in the GOI that really are taking a leaf out of Islamic blasphemy type laws..so many liberals who really should be clamoring for Free speech are speechless spectators and advocates to censorship. Economy headed to pre 91 days, largesse being thrown with no means to finance subsidy allocations..something has got to give way.

Harvards' decision on Swamy was also on the behest of 2 Indians. Incitement to violence. I mean the 'Holy' Koran is replete with incitement to violence on the infidel. But we are to be respectful to that. I know it's a tough task lunatics of all sorts getting offended for all sorts of reasons, but that by itself should be clue there's no end to censorship.

x-post from Hazare thread:

x-post from Hazare thread:

Apparently this is the pic that is causing Takleef to the Kaangressis -

Awesome cartoon !!

And to think Kapil Sibal was trying to deflect attention to 'communal hate speech' ! Clearly his Gods were being blasphemed by the cartoon which could never be allowed..

And Kapil had bleated some justification about Indian community standards being different from the West...He obviously believes in Aman-ki-Asha - that India and Pakistan are one community with similar set of values. Latent Talibani tendencies of this government coming to the fore.

You forgot the most important line in that article

[quote="Pranav"]x-post from Hazare thread:

Apparently this is the pic that is causing Takleef to the Kaangressis -



[quote]
Strange, the lady looks like a man neck down!

^^^^


To me it looks like some one has put the heads of SG and MMS from BENIS thread .
vaguely remember seeing the man with monkey in BENIS

The Indian pseudo-neutral media thinks it is okay to tarnish the image of a nurse, not traceable since sept. 11 in her absence without knowing views from her side, but when it comes to a political heavyweight involved in the same case, the pseudo-neutral media can report hardly anything.

link
Bhanwari Devi was determined to live a life less ordinary

The report was shown on channel NDTV, Prime Time by a senior presenter Amitabh Revi. Published On: November 14, 2011

Also note absence of time display or time stamp as too that there were many reporters working on this story.