Network TV loves Congress

Having been a keen media watcher, I noticed that 400 odd Indian TV news channels are thriving on opinion based programming presented in the form of debates rather than news. These debates have an anchor who intervenes and interjects to moderate not the conduct of the debaters but the content of the debate and guide the discussion in the direction of the choice of the channel or leave the debate inconclusive when not being successful in doing so; yet never permitting the debate to conclude in a direction which is contrary to the editorial slant of the channel.

A topic of no importance but high emotional sensationalism is taken up for debate. The participants on the debate usually have one spokesperson from the ruling NDA being opposed by two or more spokespersons from the constituents of UPA. Sometimes a sponsored-journalist or a devotee-lawyer or a communist-professor is also roped in to hide the true colours of a partisan set up.

Issues and subjects which are established and facing legal prosecution related to UPA, like the National Herald case, MMS directing banks to fund Kingfisher, NDTV-Chidambaram deals, Citizenship confusion of Rahul Gandhi, MMS not acting on the warnings of RRR on Neerav Modi, or the lies told by Congress President are never ever debated or mentioned but hours of precious viewers’ time is expanded on proliferating a suspicion in Rafale deal, Naseeruddin Shah feeling scared of ghosts that no one else had seen, ‘jumalebaaji’ or the marital status of the Prime Minister.

This turnabout where UPA gets excessive airtime to promote their suspicion of corruption in Rafale but no time is given to NDA to discuss suspicion of corruption by Vadra or Sonia or Chidambaram is striking. What Rahul says in parliament or outside, despite it being conjectures, is played up but the concrete rebuttals based on hard evidences offered by Jaitley or Sitharaman are down played. The irrelevant and naive questions posed by Rahul are amplified but the relevant and serious posers to him are buried alive. Aarushi’s or Jessica’s murder is debated but not Sunanda’s. Procurement of coffins for the Siachen casualties were discussed and debated endlessly but no one debates Augusta-Westland helicopters despite the final adjudication in an Italian court. It’s particularly striking because, in this case, this mismatch is partisan rather than ideological.

It reminds me of nothing so much as the systematic partisan imbalance in prime time TV appearances. Typically, when Congress and its allies are in power, a heavy guest lists to reflect what newsmakers are thinking is fielded but when the same party is under attack for corruption as during 2010-14, the guests lists from the UPA become lighter. But when BJP and its allies are in power, UPA-heavy guest lists are fielded to provide a counterpoint to officeholders.

I’m not entirely sure how to account for this imbalance in the actual coverage decisions. One popular theory is that Congress and its allies have successfully “worked the referees” and led the press to become paranoid about exhibiting rightist bias to the extent that they bend over backward and display bias in the opposite direction.

I think a more parsimonious explanation might be that the key decision-makers in network television (wealthy anchors, executives, shareholders, etc.) benefit in concrete material ways from Congress winning elections, and their conduct reflects that reality more than the private ideological convictions of rank-and-file workers. This explanation gains currency when the unlucky non-beneficiaries of the UPA era are seen getting lucky in the NDA era and are unable to hide their slow but certain leaning towards the BJP.

Independent Media as a pillar of democracy is not found anywhere in the world and continues to remain a great utopian concept. In independent India, media was never independent. Ironically, media was much more independent in the slave-India. The phrase “sold-media” is here to stay in Indian politics.

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