I generally don’t like to cover current events and blog about them. I like blogging about the same event twice even less. But since there are so many interesting examples of spin available and I have some free time with me, I cannot but blog about it.
In my earlier post, I had talked about media playing a partisan role, especially channels like NDTV. here are some samples of how Raj Thackeray’s press conference was reported.
Rediff.com: talks of Raj Thackeray saying "My good time will come". As one reads, one realizes that Raj T has clarified his position, saying he is not against religious festival(s), but against using these as political platforms and as events to do a "show of strength". However, rediff.com has by far the most balaced reportage amongst the sampled news sites.
NDTV.com: "Pressure on Maharashtra Government, Raj remains defiant" screams the headline on this site. Under the headline, there is an interesting sentence about Raj Thackeray defying the court order and conducting a press conference. The exact sentence is:
"Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray has addressed the media in defiance of a court order banning him from making any public speeches."
When you click on the link, way down in the 10th and 11th paragraph, the site says:
"The court order against Raj’s speaking in public was issued last week, shortly after he was arrested for the violence unleashed by his party workers on north Indian candidates who had come to Mumbai for the Railway Recruitment Board exams.The police had given him permission to hold the press conference but was there to monitor what he said."
Notice the subtle fact that Raj T was not really doing illegal? (well, at least that’s what NDTV.com admits to saying) Of course, the screaming byline insinuates that he is doing something quite illegal and in contravention of court orders.
So, where is the defiant part? The defiant part is in the first paragraph, where he defends the Mumbai Police and State Government for the action taken against Raul Raj, saying that RR was shot not because he was Bihari, but because he was dangerous. The only people he is contradicting are some of the Bihari politicians.
Aajtak.com: the Hindi online version does not seem to feel the need to cover the clarification made by Raj T. I did not find it even after some diligent search. The focus of the coverage seems to be on people like Kalraj Mishra and Amar singh criticizing Raj T.
IBNLive.com: The headline only says: "Learn Marathi, Raj tells migrants in mumbai"…again, no coverage to his comment about not being against Chhat Puja or supporting the shooting of RR in the headline. The same news report, once you click on the headline, tells you about his views on unauthorized slums etc. There is enough coverage to his remarks on Chhat Puja in the article, but just a passing reference to learning Marathi. And guess what gets highlighted?
Sify.com: Talks of how the upright servant of the downtrodden masses, world famous psychiatrist, (Dr.)Amar Singh, compares Raj T to Hitler and comments how Raj T is mentally ill, just like Hitler in the past. The same headline is seen again on in.yahoo.com.
Interestingly, mid-day.com has probably quoted Raj T correctly about his views on RR’s death, apart from rediff.com:
”I do not like violence and am not happy at anybody’s death. Maybe only Bihar leaders can be, and play politics over somebody’s death,” he said supporting the police firing at Rahul Raj (23), the Patna boy who tried to ‘hijack’ a BEST bus a few days ago saying he wanted to kill Raj Thackeray. Rahul died in the encounter. ‘Rahul had a loaded revolver and he fired first at the police and the passengers,” Raj noted.
rediff.com also says:
"Thackeray justified the killing of Bihari gunman Rahul Raj stating that had he killed innocent bystanders or some policeman had died in the fracas the media would have blamed the police for not taking quick action."
mid-day.com has a much more factual headline. "Raj: no politics over Chhat Puja". Is it any wonder that Raj T and people who follow news with some interest get disgusted with the biased slant of news channels?
my 2 cents on this: (kind of lenghthy all of the things I say below but LOLS
I am just a common hindi man with a lot on my mind)
Well, as is clear, this issue not just strikes chords in Mrathi hearts but all over the country, and we have a similarity here, all we can get from witnessing what ppl like Raj do is a feeling of melancholy because……… well I dont know, its maybe that we do know that a) the problem is real,
b) Raj Thackeray doesn’t have a solution. In fact what he is doing is very very horrific and c)contemplating solutions, one can’t think of what to do…
1 The entire media,
2 Intelligentsia like yourself speaking out, writing editorials in the papers,
3 The aam admi speaking out everywhere, on the streets, blogs and forums being filled with hate msgs
4 Small politicians first and then political heavy weights from Bihar/UP and the belt giving it all they have and giving it together couldn’t thwart “VOTEBANK CONSIDERATIONS”
A man like Raj Thackeray can get atrocities done, spew venom and get away, while the bigger badass whose story you recalled-his uncle has been on lungi’s back first and then has been the cause of the loss of the lives of so many Muslim Indians and we are forced to f*****g call him a great man, even Amitabh Bachchan,, in public,, has to go excessive and say how larger than life Balasaheb is, that Balaji is family and other shit which really stinks …. this is India man and we f*****g have to live with this…. a million F***S!!
Dont dream of action against him go and watch Heroes to see our filmy heros saying patriotic things or see Golmaal returns and just forget it chill…
Man, don’t forget that we (the people of Bihar cum UP) are the f*****g cream of this country when it comes to education, getting in to high posts through competitions, in top education institutes like IIT’s n IIM’s, go look anywhere, marketing, journalism, technical fields, any-f*****g-where, you will find us at the top. Don’t f*****g underestimate us… the culture n religion of this country spawned from our lands n we ruled this f*****g country till now and will continue to do so, we control the media, politics, entertainment, whatever!!!
this claiming-to-be-well-read-intelligent-visionary but a cheap wanna be ‘politician’ Raj Thackeray continues to gives fiery speeches, cites examples from history of all over the world but the fact is that he doesn’t have a clue. He tells the frustrated Maharshtrians what he thinks is the cause of all of the problems of Maharashtra. Of course he tells them so because when growing up, ‘politician’ uncle Bala told him so. Of course Bala uncle didn’t have a clue either, somebody in a lungi molested him in his own childhood and he tried taking revenge on all lungi’s when he grew up.
The stupid c**t has made it sound like Mumbai is f*****g Singapore or Dubai and Bihar cum UP are as bad as Africa to the globe, the differences aren’t that bad!! it can’t even be faked!! Its common knowledge that the British developed Bombay city as a port and well, we can thank them and all of the communities in Mumbai since independence who made it the great city it is now. (of course that includes the Marathi community also which has always been here in big numbers) while farmers continue to commit suicide, youth instigated by such netas as Raj himself carry on the violence, the truth is that rural and semi urban Maharashtra has some of the highest number of Rapes and Murders in the country while development just isn’t reaching these inner parts of the state, it’s limited to major urban centers like Puna, Nashik, Mumbai only…
Excellent article Nandan. I congratulate you for being one of the few unbiased people who don’t accept everything that the media shoves down our throats. Especially, the special-interest neo-liberal bourgeois biased English and Hindi media.
@Raj:
I had to blank out all the swear words you used. Request you to not use them on my blog please. If you use them next time on my blog, I will be forced to delete your comments.
“Man, don’t forget that we (the people of Bihar cum UP) are the f*****g cream of this country when it comes to education, getting in to high posts through competitions, in top education institutes like IIT’s n IIM’s, go look anywhere, marketing, journalism, technical fields, any-f*****g-where, you will find us at the top. Don’t f*****g underestimate us… the culture n religion of this country spawned from our lands n we ruled this f*****g country till now and will continue to do so, we control the media, politics, entertainment, whatever!!!”
Nobody’s underestimating people from UP and Bihar.The total population of both these states is 27 Crores. By sheer probability, you will get more number of people who should do well in all fields. But if you say you (as in people from UP and Bihar) rule the country, you are mistaken. No single community can rule India. This is exactly the attitude (which some people from UP and Bihar take) that bothers people from other states. Keep your prejudices to yourself. i do not want to get into a bragging match between how Maharashtra has contributed more than State X and and what not. But believe me, if that happens, you may not find it very easy.
There is no need to abuse Bal Thackeray, keep the discussion civil please.
“…the truth is that rural and semi urban Maharashtra has some of the highest number of Rapes and Murders in the country while development just isn’t reaching these inner parts of the state, it’s limited to major urban centers like Puna, Nashik, Mumbai only…”
I do not know where you got these statistics from so will not comment on them. But even if Maharashtra has the highest number of rapes and murders reported, it is also possible (very probable, actually) that many rapes and murders in UP and Bihar are not even reported. Many human rights activists and social work professionals will tell you about this. So a comparison may not be correct.
this post was written to show how the Media is biased against Raj Thackeray. If he is guilty, he should be punished. But why deliberately twist his story and turn him into a criminal before the court passes its judgment? Why should the media do that? Is it because special interest groups like certain people from UP and Bihar are controlling the media (journalism), like you so boastfully claim?
Excellant article. It was necessary to bring forward the bypocrisy of Hindi media.
LOL I am sorry about this part:-
Man, don’t forget that we (the people of Bihar cum UP)….
….we control the media, politics, entertainment, whatever!!!
The above I had in my clipboard (ctrl+c)and it got pasted here as well by accident. (I was actually responding to this kind of childish posting on a private blog of mine and quoting it)… stupid accident!
As for the rest, I will agree with your post. I too feel very very angered at this twisting and turning of things by the media. This issue is in fact from the start a Frankenstein monster created by the media.
As you point out, sections of media still in an on and off way are indulging in the sensationalizing of whatever he says. But there’s one thing that can be said, it’s a sin being committed with mutual consent.
As we all know, it started when in February this year, they misquoted him and said he was insulting Amitabh Bachchan for loving UP. When in fact he was complementing Amitabh by calling him a great artist, all he was doing was comparing Amitabh’s love for UP with his own for MH. So, he was equal to AB was the statement in a way.
This was the first mildly seductive instigation by the media to Raj. After print media published it and he got a lot of TV time as would happen, he got fairly well criticized for criticizing Amitabh’s love for Uttar Pradesh.
Well, the next day, he courteously even held a press conference and again while calling Amitabh a great artist quoted the exact phrase Amitabh had used that he still is known as the chora ganga kinarey wala and that he also loves Maharashtra so much and etc etc.
The national Hindi-English media (which is what Raj calls it now) could have reported his presentation as is and moved on but it was too seduced too just disengage and kept the same refrain – Raj Thackeray bashed NI’s. The TRP’s got high, this whipped up subdued sentiments, Raj got exclusive TV time. This I believe was frank invitation by the media to… lets call it ‘sin’.
And well, he couldn’t resist and gave in. I respect his Intelligence and shrewdness in that it took him only a few days to make up his mind. It was unethical of course but it wasn’t too unethical for his taste. (Indian politics has seen far far far far worse)
He did not deny, correct or apologize, the media was unable to pull itself away from him and was obsessed with his campaign. By now, the politicians all joined in and played their games, letting Raj & Media fuck it up to what it has become.
And the damage it has done is sad.
As you said, rediff is somewhat unbiased, I found this description very correct [ http://in.rediff.com/news/2008/sep/09guest.htm ] :
Raj Thackeray, no babe in the woods, and in search of a political platform which would yield him his constituency, seemed to have decided within the first week of February that the issue was not only engaging a media which had made up their minds but seemed to catch the imagination of his cadres who would otherwise dump him if they saw no future with him, made the lie his truth. And with good results, too.
There were some voices from bollywood like Nana Patekar, Sajid Khan etc at the time about freedom of speech. But nothing happened.
Now it has snowballed to what nobody ever wanted it to.
And oh yes, previously, I was commenting on the whole issue and the frustration over lack of action against Raj Thackeray even after crimes have been committed at his command by his goons, acknowledged by him. And anyone has to agree, that what has happened in MH recently has been very insulting and damaging to NI’s, we are bound to be angered.
Stop divisive politicians like Raj Thackray. Its too dangerous for India .Please read this :
http://www.induspost.org/blog/2008/12/10/mns-raj-thackray-threat-to-india-as-a-nation/