Dispatch — May / June 2007

Style Over Substance

Despite India’s media boom, its journalism is shrinking.

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Before moving to New York in August 2006, I met with fellow journalists and writers in New Delhi. The conversations always veered to an irritatingly familiar topic: Where is the space in Indian journalism for serious, detailed reportage? It is a bizarre conversation in light of the tremendous expansion of media in India. The economic liberalization in the early 1990s produced scores of nonstop television news operations and a number of new newspapers and magazines. Marie Claire now has an India edition; Time Out Mumbai and Time Out Delhi, even Scientific American India are all new additions to the country’s newsstands. In 2005, Random House launched its India operation. Foreign Affairs, Time, and The Economist have all recently published cover stories on the ”rise of India.”The opinion pages of leading Indian newspapers talk about the twenty-first century being the Indian century, about imminent superpower status.

But as in the U.S. and elsewhere, an expanding media market is no guarantee that it will be filled with the best journalism. Young television anchors and reporters breaking news to millions of Indian viewers in their faux American accents try hard to ape Fox News and cnn. Pamela Anderson’s silicone implants, Paris Hilton’s escapades, and sexiest-people lists are mainstays in the daily fashion and entertainment supplements of the leading English-language newspapers. Last year in a town near Delhi, a child fell into a well and soldiers from a nearby army base came to rescue him. TV news broadcast the drama live for two days, hyping what their marketing folks tagged the ”Prince of Life.”The story was on the front page of most newspapers.

Meanwhile, there is another side of the ”rise of India.”It is a darker side, brimming with complicated stories that demand detailed reporting and space–in print or on air–to be told properly. In the rural areas of India, for example, thousands of cotton farmers have committed suicide after falling hopelessly into debt. It is a continuing tragedy, which has yet to find its James Agee and Walker Evans. With the exception of the detailed reporting on the subject by Palagummi Sainath, the rural affairs editor of The Hindu, a Madras-based English-language daily, the story has been largely ignored. The effects of the industrial expansion on traditional, tribal-dominated rural areas are invisible in magazines and newspapers; they are mostly not interested in such grim subjects.

The unwillingness to allocate resources and time for deeply reported, long-form writing is visible even in the Indian press’s coverage of the new economy, business, and the fast-growing Indian fashion and movie industries. There are news reports on the rising number of billionaires in India, about businessmen-turned-legislators flying in private jets to gatherings of the Indian parliament, Indian girls being crowned Miss World or Miss Universe, about the Indian stake in the call-center industry, or the burgeoning ranks of Indian software professionals in America and elsewhere. But for a handful of exceptions–such as Tehelka, the crusading Web site that became a print magazine in 2004, the biweekly Frontline magazine, and an English-language daily, The Indian Express–there are no outlets that attempt to map, contextualize, and explain these billionaire public servants and peripatetic techies–and through them the journey India is making.

I have experienced this frustration firsthand. After the December 2001 attack on the Indian parliament by a Pakistani militant group that operates in the disputed region of Kashmir, India and Pakistan almost went to war. Three men from Kashmir, including a Delhi University lecturer, were arrested and charged under a controversial law, the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which allows a suspect to be detained up to 180 days without being charged; the burden of proof is on the accused, the identity of witnesses is withheld, and confessions made to police officers without a lawyer present are admissible as evidence.

Most leading newspapers and magazines described the lecturer as the ”mastermind”of the attack. I covered the trial for a news portal called Rediff.com. Except for the day the three men were sentenced to death, only a few other reporters–none from TV–joined me in the courtroom. The attack was described as the Indian 9/11, and most newsrooms, in the grip of a strong nationalist sentiment, chose to ignore the trials of the accused.

I wanted to write about the trial in some detail, but Rediff.com is basically a daily news site that doesn’t publish longer, explanatory articles. Through some London-based journalist friends, I got in touch with the editors at the Guardian’s Weekend magazine; they liked the idea and published a detailed piece titled, ”Victims of December 13,”in July 2003. A few months later, in October 2003, a higher court acquitted two of the three accused in the attack, including the university lecturer.

The typical cover story in an Indian news magazine does not exceed 2,000 words. When President Bush visited India in March 2006, op-ed and editorial writers celebrated the U.S.’s acceptance of India’s nuclear energy program. Stories of the ”Indo-U.S. Nuclear Deal”dominated the print and broadcast media. But no one was writing, for example, about the unusually high rates of cancer and birth defects among the people working in and living near India’s biggest uranium mine at Jadugoda in the northern state of Bihar. I told my editor I wanted to write about this. But Tehelka, where I was working by then, had a small staff and meager resources and could not spare a reporter for such a story. I never went to Jadugoda. Nobody went there. About two months later, I left the magazine and resumed freelancing for some British and American magazines.

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Comments

Milind Kokje

Wed 13 Jun 2007 09:37 AM

Mr Peer has rightly projected the current dismal condition of the Indian media but has not analysed the causes and reasons.
Fault lies with both the media managers and the messege receivers.
As James Fallow narrates his American experience of media in the preface to his book "Behind the News", the controls of the Indian media too are no more with the professionals or tecnocrats (in this case real professional journalists). They are with managers (finance and marketing people). In modern days (during the last few years) they call the shots and not journalists and editors as the entire profession (or mission) is turned into business of readership, market share and profit. One possible reason for this is that the Indian media barons are worried over the possible impact the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) will have on their investments and hence trying to make maximum money in minimum time of prior to the FDI comes. Despite their resistance for the last several years, they all know that FDI is inevitable. The question is of only how much time it can be prolonged. (Particla FDI has already allowed). This is the scene on the management side.
On the receivers' (readers and viewers) side, unfortunately number of readers and viewers interested in serioud issues is dwindling fast. In a choice of torture issue or farmers' suicide on one side and Aish Abhishek wedding on the other, audience is opting for the latter, which was obiously clear from the Television rating figures for the event. Collective TV rating for all news channels for Ash Abhishek weeding was the highest till now. We all from India media who are worried aboout the non serious attitude of the media should give a serious thought to this emerging phenomena. A news channel showing completnly unscintific programmes like ghosts, black magic etc. recently secured second position. How do we explain this and how we are ging to face this challenge which has been posed not by thw channel, I feel, but by the viewers, who are opting this type of unscintific content.
The TV journalism is facing one more problem. Sheerly by its age of around 10 years, it is not yet in its matuered age. Secondly, barring a few exceptions, in the initial phase of TV journalism, experienced and matuered print journalists never opted to go in news channels. As a result the vaccum of higher, decision making positions were filled by relatively junior new comers, who directly ventured in to TV journalism. Due to their only TV experience (of whatever years) and particularly non print experience their only focus appears to be on visuals rather than issues, subjects and debates. Mostly, they appear to be more from production line than journalism. (Even Ted Koppel of NBC feels that live telecast of visuals is no journalism. Journalism involves selection and priortising, which is not there in live telecast of mere visuals.)
All this put together Indian media is passing through a very bad and frustrating (for serious journalists) phase. Governmetn has already started talking about Code of Conduct. If media itself does not take corrective step, it will be harmful for it in the long run and it may have to give up its freedom with government imposing code of conduct.
Better they come out with their own code and adhere to it than handing over ther freedom to officials.

Milind Kokje,
Outreach and Networking Fellow,
Asia Media Forum

Abhi 2.0

Tue 26 Jun 2007 10:44 AM

Well argued piece and largely true. However by the author's own admission, a publication like Tehelka could not afford to send him for a serious assignment. Publications such as Tehelka, Indian Express and Frontline have done stellar work but its of little use if hardly anybody is watching. As Dow Jones is learning the hard way in the US, there's no faster way to compromise good journalism than to run out of money.
I found a number of inconsistencies in the author's world view. On one hand there is the subtle mocking of TV anchors apeing those on American Telly and on the other examples of NY publications being the only platform for long form stuff. American and British media outlets will continue to be benchmarks for other English media around the world..

It IS a young industry and is currently experiencing classic "bubble" symptoms - lots of action, money and hype with little substance. Things, I hope will stabilize and the good long form stuff could soon become a diffrentiator. There are too many people right now in the industry who don't see themselves as career journalists ( the previous comment was mentioning "production" types) and they probably won't hand around for a decade. Maybe once there's more gray hair around, the journalism will get better.

Reshmi

Tue 26 Jun 2007 12:58 PM

I was most interested to read Basharat Peer's critique of the Indian media. But since I work in a business paper -- India's largest -- I'm always on the lookout for numbers, percentages, quantifiers. So, while I do admit that there is a lot of coverage of Paris Hilton and Bollywood stars, in percentage terms is it all that different from any of the SUCCESSFUL papers in the US? I was also intrigued by Mr Peer's focus on irradiated farmers and tortured Kashmiris. But he has not mentioned some of the other great stories glossed over by this Indian media -- and surprise, surprise, by the vigilant western ones as well. For instance, the ethnic cleansing of the Kashmir valley, with over 360,000 Hindus driven out of their ancestral homes and lands to become refugees in their own country... Or about the inequity of the Indian judicial system, which despite 60 years of democracy has NOT been able to push through Parliament a uniform civil code....
Or about the caste system, which far from being marginalised by modernity as a "Hindu malaise" is now being perpetuated in religions that claim equality before God -- all in the name of reservations in schools and jobs?
Yes, the Indian media has a lot to answer for -- but would the western media dare to remedy this?

Reshmi

Tue 26 Jun 2007 12:59 PM

I was most interested to read Basharat Peer's critique of the Indian media. But since I work in a business paper -- India's largest -- I'm always on the lookout for numbers, percentages, quantifiers. So, while I do admit that there is a lot of coverage of Paris Hilton and Bollywood stars, in percentage terms is it all that different from any of the SUCCESSFUL papers in the US? I was also intrigued by Mr Peer's focus on irradiated farmers and tortured Kashmiris. But he has not mentioned some of the other great stories glossed over by this Indian media -- and surprise, surprise, by the vigilant western ones as well. For instance, the ethnic cleansing of the Kashmir valley, with over 360,000 Hindus driven out of their ancestral homes and lands to become refugees in their own country... Or about the inequity of the Indian judicial system, which despite 60 years of democracy has NOT been able to push through Parliament a uniform civil code....
Or about the caste system, which far from being marginalised by modernity as a "Hindu malaise" is now being perpetuated in religions that claim equality before God -- all in the name of reservations in schools and jobs?
Yes, the Indian media has a lot to answer for -- but would the western media dare to remedy this?

atrandom

Tue 3 Jul 2007 12:15 AM

The trivialisation of content on Indian news channels is a scary phenomenon. This is a debate that needs to be taken up very seriously and honestly by the Indian media . Its true television news is relatively young in the country, but its time to 'grow up' . The ratings game, market share and profits are what drive news channels, but serious journalism can still be practiced despite these constraints . Its a matter of having the courage to aggressively cover real issues like farmer suicides with the same hype, flair and gusto displayed in the coverage of a non event like the abhi - ash wedding . Viewers will respond and remain glued to an engagingly presented story that the channel believes in. Instead of blaming 'market forces' and filling air time with drivel like the a-a wedding (you could see the anchors looking disgusted with themselves), its time for news channels to invest in training television journalists .

Kanchhedia Chamaar

Fri 23 Nov 2007 09:48 PM

According to a letter that “National Knowledge Commission” wrote to the Prime Minister on 10/20/06, “no more than 1 per cent of [Indian] people use [English] as a second language, let alone a first language.” And yet, neither the author, Mr. Peer, nor any of the commentators, even acknowledge the existence of the vernacular press.
Gandhi's Hind Swaraj was written and published in Gujurati, and was banned by the British soon after it was published. Gandhi then published a translation in English, which was not banned for the simple reason that the British knew that they faced no threat from the anglicized Indians. The English press, and the opinions and concerns of the anglicized Indians are no more relevant to the rest of India than they were almost a century ago when Gandhi published Hind Swaraj.
If Mr. Peer were serious about the media in India, he would worry about the fact that the vernacular media is as impoverished as its readers. But then I doubt whether Mr. Peer reads any Indian vernacular, or would admit to reading one even if he did.

Comparisons with the Western media are ridiculous, because no Western society is characterized by a linguistic chasm between the ruling and the ruled. Even after nearly three decades of systematic efforts to destroy the New Deal, there is far more social and economic justice for the underclass in the US than there is in India, and Hispanic immigrants with no knowledge of English have more rights and are treated with greater dignity in the US than are Indians who do not know English in their own country.