On Friday, I felt elated when a federal judge ruled that the White House reinstate CNN correspondent Jim Acosta’s press credentials after the Trump administration had withdrawn them. The federal judge, Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, delivered a tight slap across the face of the world’s powerful political office and the man who occupies it. The CNN lawsuit had set the media world talking on how the strongest democracy in the world behaves with the press, particularly those critical of the way Trump rules, even going to the extent of video-tampering to malign the gutsy reporter.
As a journalist, the judgment made my day. It showed that the media has indeed the nerve and the guts to fight President Trump who repeatedly admonishes the media as “enemy of the people.” USA’s media is divided as much as the country is divided. The rise of the Far Right and those on the Left, including the Far Left, have resulted in a virtual war in the public sphere as well as in the mediascape.
If USA is in the throes of a war between Trump and the media that he hates, India isn’t lagging behind. The Indian media too has been sharply divided on the Right and Left. Some media outlets openly support PM Modi and some are deadly against him. Some TV channels like Republic and Times Now show overt favouritism to the PM and the BJP in many ways, while some other channels try and balance their newscasts and TV debates. Calling some TV channels or newspapers as publishing “fake news” to harm the President is absurd. The ship of presidency, unlike other ships, leaks from the top.
In the same way, the BJP spokespersons spew half-truths to attack the Congress and those that find the BJP’s overbearance just too hard to swallow. It’s no wonder that a voracious supporter and virtually the mouthpiece of the governing party, often degenerating panelists who contradict his views, Arnab Goswami, has been catapulted as a member of the prestigious Nehru Museum and Library. It pays to be on the government’s side.
I still remember how Modi, when Chief Minister of Gujarat, walked away from the Karan Thapar interview instead of facing and answering the pointed questions bravely regarding his image after the Gujarat riots. Such behaviour undermines the office that he holds and the responsibility that goes with it. His conduct unbecoming of a PM of the world’s largest democracy, just as Trump’s rude behaviour and insults not just against the press and some of his political rivals, particularly Democrats. The BJP is all-consuming and spares no one or party that stands in its way.
As parties gear up for the general election next year, the spouting of political bullshit will be ever more. I borrowed the words “political bullshit” from a book I am reading, The Effective Citizen — How to Make Politicians Work for You, by Graham Steele, who was a provincial legislature and a minister in Nova Scotia, Canada. He says sorry for the “crude words” but provides a footnote that “in 1986, philosopher Harry Frankfurt published an intellectual essay called simply ‘On Bullshit,’ in which he gave…. a troubling phenomenon that he thought all-pervasive in modern culture.” He gives an example of Laura Penny’s book, Your Call is Important to Us: The Truth about Bullshit. Steele says that those he quoted are “serious people writing seriously”. As the date for the next election nears, Indians will hear such political bullshit.
Since I began with the politicians and the press, it must be understood that they both need each other. In recent times, it’s the politicians who have the upper hand. Therefore, one can understand why Modi doesn’t do press conferences, just as Canada’s ex-Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a die-hard conservative, didn’t want any “scrums”, which in Canada, means “spontaneous interviews” or “impromptu press conferences” with PMs or Ministers outside the legislative houses.
Even the ex-Liberal PM, Jean Chretien, didn’t get along too well with the press, but the current Liberal PM, Justin Trudeau, seems to handle the media his own charming way. He recently said at a Press event in Paris that “a free-thinking, robust media” is one of the bulwarks of a democracy. He realised that the media is under stress.
As much as the politicians need the media, the media too needs the politicians. In media jargon it’s called “feed the goat”. In this age when the media universe is shrinking, especially the print media, the media needs the politicians more. The rise of social media has taken away the need for mainstream media. Trudeau himself is a creature of social media, but he has warned politicians not to use social media to raise fear. I think Trudeau’s warning must be heeded by politicians in India who fan the flames of hatred and raises fear of unwarranted issues relating to religion or extraneous circumstances relating to social and cultural inter-relations in a pluralistic society.
(Eugene Correia is a senior journalist who worked for The Hindu and the Free Press Journal)
