Activist turned politician Arvind
Kejriwal in his recent stint of revelation of corruption in high places have
caught hold of the links of the corporate world and the government. Even though
corporate-government ties have already been exposed during the 2g scam. Now
reliance industries is on the dock and kejriwal alleges that subsequent
governments at the centre have favored them. NDA and the UPA governments both
have favoured the reliance group in various ways. These were the revelations
made by IAC president Arvind Kejriwal.
In an day and age when media
earns revenue from the corporate houses and many corporate houses owning media
outlets, it is important to analyze how media reacts to a story where a
corporate house is involved. Interestingly in an interview of Manu Joseph of
Open Magazine by Newslaundry he admits having suffered loss of advertisement
because his magazine carried the famous(infamous) Radia Tapes in which
heavyweight corporate were also involved.
In this article an analysis of
the articles published in the various national dailies is presented. The
analysis discusses the space devoted to the story along with the tone and tenor
of the story.
The Indian Express :
The Indian Express carries the
story in the front page just below the main lead. The story is written in a
balanced manner carrying the statements from both the sides, i.e. the Arvind
kejriwals allegations and the statements made by the Reliance India limited.The
story mentions that Kejriwals expose was not “pretty big” in his revelation as
he himself had promised that much of it is already has been reported in the
media. More or less the story was balanced. But what is interesting is that
along side the story Shekhar Gupta’s interview with Anna Hazare’s interview is
carried with prominence. The interview is titled as “Anna’s advice
for former protege:‘Don’t attack too many together’ where Anna Hazare advises Kejriwal
to excersise restraint while attacking personalities restraint while targeting personalities
one after theother, without taking any case to its logical conclusion.
The Times of India:
This newspaper carried the story as its main lead on 1st
of November. The whole story comes in three pieces written differently.
In the main story the
allegations leveled by Kejriwal are discussed in details. The story was detailed
in its description of the allegations and also in describes the press
conference in details. The article was written in simple words and would be
intelligible to an ordinary reader the economic terms used by the activist.
Times of India seemed to speak from Kejriwals side. The same story carried
issues like Gas pricing and kejriwals call for a total against the loot of
public money. The main story only presented the side of the IAC and
clarification by the RIL was carried separately in a small box along with the
main story. The main story also came with a sub-heading saying: Chaotic
Conference where they mentions how a former Congress worker Jagdish
Sharma shouted slogans and tried to hurl a shoe at the stage. He was
overpowered by IAC supporters and led out.
The Hindustan
Times:
On the publication of 1st
November,2012, the paper (The Hindustan Times) brought out two stories related
to the Reliance/Congress affair. The first was found to be on the front page as
the lead story, that occupied 3 columns, and the rest was continued in the 6th
page. The other story was seen to be in the 10th page of the
edition. After having a brief analysis on the stories covered by the said newspaper,
one can easily recognize that the tone of the paper on the issue was more or
less biased towards the U.P.A government.
The First story headlined, “Now,
Kejriwal fires old ammo at Mukesh”. By having read the story, it can be clear
with whom the newspaper stands. The tone of the story tends to tilt more towards
the ruling government. The story starts it’s sentence with, “After taking on
the Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra and B.J.P
president Nitin Gadkari…”. The paper also used certain phrases like “anti-corruption
activist turned politician Arvind Kejriwal…”, etc. By such phrase, the paper
tries to show Kejriwal’s shift from an activist to a power hungry politician,
which may seem very critical in nature.
The other thing that sounds more
convincing about the biasness is the use of a sentence “The press conference
also witnessed high drama when a Congress worker wanted to question Kejriwal,
but was 8i87heckled by the camerapersons and I.A.C volunteers, and was forced
to leave the venue”. The sentence clearly tries to state that Kejriwal and
his fellow mates were not ready or were afraid of the question that was about
to be put before them by the Congress worker.
Though certain details were also found regarding the matter, it was
found to be limited and in brief. The evidences of the allegations provided by
Kejriwal were given only in the 6th page. The readers have to be
very interested inorder to reach the continued page. The most important part about
the story is that, the story is more of just what Kejriwal said and had alleged.
It can be rightfully said that the newspaper had no important role to play in
the story, except the arrangement and the structuring part. It can be seen that
the newspaper had tried to show itself to be objective by giving some limited and
brief details but ultimately it failed to do so.
The second story titled, “B.J.P
to govt: Was Jaipal shifted to benefit R.I.L?”, was a bore because the
entire story talked about what Jaswant Singh said, Likely, Singh said this, was
said by Singh, Singh also wondered, Singh further said, etc. By going through
the story, it could be said that the tone of the story was similar as of the
previous one, having been started by saying, “Even as I.A.C launched a
scathing attack on the government over alleged benefits being provided to
Reliance Industries LTD…”. The
word ‘scathing’ seems a bit judgmental in this regard.
It can be just a coincidence, but
it cannot be ignored that Shobhana Bhartia, the editor of the Hindustan Times happens
to be the daughter of the industrialist K.K Birla. Therefore, one cannot forget
the roots and that she may as well have similar views towards corporate houses as
of her father’s. So, supporting another Industrialist or Corporate lobbies may
be expected from her. Also it is well known to all, that, she had been nominated
to the Rajya Sabha by the Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and had also received ‘Padma
Shri’ for journalism, though criticized by many. There have been many claims that,
both the Padma Shri award and the Rajya Sabha nomination, which she received
during the U.P.A government’s regime, were merely the rewards for certain biasness
towards the Congress and Sonia Gandhi in respect to the paper’s editorial
policy. Thus, it is very important to keep these factors in mind and analyze and
as well as have a better understanding of the paper’s approach towards the
interest of the Congress and the Corporate houses.
THE
BENGAL POST, with The Times of India and The Telegraph
Attack
on one of the most prominent and influential industrial giant, Mukesh Ambani by
Arvind Kejriwal is been treated differently by various English language both
national and regional newspapers in India. Started as a regional newspaper from
Kolkata which has been able to capture the reader’s attention in less than 3
years, The Bengal Post considered this story as one of the important news.
Being a regional newspaper, the lead was covered by state news, but even though
RIL (Reliance India Limited) versus Kejriwal story got the place on front page
as a anchor story. The space covered was 14 inches 3coloumns and also continued
in inside page covering space of 18inches 2coloumns plus important points of
press release covering same length and space covering two columns.
The
story doesn’t seem biased to any side, since it has presented every claims and
accusations made by Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan. After reading the
story anyone wil become clear about the issue and can also be able to
understand the background story and more importantly its implications to
general people of India.
From
the headline itself one can make out that RIL is playing biggest role in
functioning of most important political parties of country as well as the
functioning of our government. The headline “Both Congress and BJP in Ambani’s
pocket, says IAC” is forecasting the role of Ambani in manipulating the major
parties. And if we compare same story with the most circulated English
newspaper of India, The Times Of India’, the same story or the accusations of
IAC has not been carried at al whereas with the heading “Both Congress and BJP
attacked Kejriwal” is being published in inside page in same day’s newspaper.
If we go through the pages of the most circulated and popular English newspaper
of the eastern-region covering north-east also “The Telegraph” we won’t find
single story on this particular issue.
The
major portion of population mostly well educated depends upon these English
newspapers for the news or information on current happenings. And after reading
the news stories they discussed it in their offices or any kind of working
places with their colleagues and also in the homes with family members. The
public sphere will be created and newspaper not only become a forum or platform
for discussions and debate but also creates platform for discussions and
debates in open space. But ignoring this kind of story of importance to general
mass and simply keeping major portion of population out of opinion or knowledge
will create knowledge gap and that will be major setback of the national
progress.
Noam
Chomsky’s 2nd filter of his ‘a propaganda model’ from his book
manufacturing consent is relevant in this context. “The advertising license to
do business: the second filter” talks about how the media house is dependent upon
corporate house because of the advertisement. Gradually, newspapers started
becoming dependent on advertising revenue. With the advent of advertising
feeding newspapers and other media outlets many were ceased to exist. “The
advertisers’ choices influence media prosperity and survival” which is rightly
said by Chomsky and become more prevalent in recent time.
Attacking
the industrial conglomerates or supporting those who exposes the misdeeds of
those is directly loosing large scale of money without which their existence
will be questioned. Therefore many newspapers might have ignored the
story.
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