Not many Goenkars would have heard of the British American motivational speaker Simon Sinek’s take on news. He mused, “More information is always better than less. When people know the reason things are happening, even if it’s bad news, they can adjust their expectations and react accordingly. Keeping people in the dark only serves to stir negative emotions.” This is why we tell bad news. This is why you need to hear bad news. This is how democracy gets empowered with bad news.
One of the State’s most iconic activist Kashinath Shetye rues after winning a landmark demolition case that “Although, I don’t think that the structures will be demolished. Earlier also two similar matters have been still held in abeyance”. It is he and a handful of such people who keep the bad news factory of Goa running with their targeted Public Interest Litigation that stops the State government and many influential individuals breaking the law, in check. Then there are dozens of popular people’s uprising Rainbow Warriors, Goencho Avaaz, Goa against CRZ, Goa against PDA, Goa against Coal and an endless list of people who have been tirelessly fighting battles against government’s anti-environmental, anti-statutory, unethical megalomaniacal projects. Projects that were branded as people’s projects but without people’s sanction. So if government has a point of view but people have another, is that bad news?
A budding young journalist, a new initiate into the profession asks why should she report a tainted banker and leading trade body leader promoting his book when her conscience does not get convinced that all the wisdom that his book extols does not quite sync with his character. Her challenge is to forget the bad story and to paint a good story of him. Does telling the truth and clearing her moral dilemma and her commitment to giving the people constitute bad news?
Goa like the rest of India is going through some questionable times. Every idea is well packaged with digital marketing style branding, a friendly press is summoned (with no room for deviation) and people are given dope of development to make them feel good. Anyone who doesn’t fall in line with the ruling dispensation’s point of view is dubbed a fear monger and even an extortionist. Truth by the powers that be is My Way or the Highway. India got fooled every day every moment for the past four years as Acche Din left India Shining – stunned for a moment by its sheer packaging but shocked at its horrendous aftermath as India’s stock plummeted worldwide and the Centre would want us to believe otherwise. Goa has been no different.
German playwright Bertolt Brecht once said He who laughs has not yet heard the bad news. Those who want us to believe that Goa’s ruling ministers are in the pinkest of their health to complete their responsibilities or those who want us to believe that our pothole roads are all right as we are getting four-lane concrete highways or that the flooded streets of Panjim have nothing to do with the capital being a smart city or that formaldehyde is fine for human body just because it is within permissible limits; they are living in an alley of denial.
The bitter truth is that this government, despite its television news byte and newspaper column hogging endeavours, is fast losing its scripts. If it had just focused on delivering to the people than playing with their cronies and coteries, they would have been more worthy of the people’s respect. It would be better for the media icons of this government to win people’s confidence by engaging in dialogue with civil society, listening to what people want and break away from their cheerleaders. The ruling dispensation could well get this straight into their heads that one year or four is too small a time in history to be forgotten. And Goa is too small a place for this government to get away with its wrongdoings.
