Meher Qadri
January in India hauled out a news anchor from his pompous studio, made him a news item, after his WhatsApp chats over several important issues concerning National Security was exposed by the Police in Maharashtra. From ‘We won the attack like crazy’ to ‘People Will be Elated’, the chats with BARC CEO Partho Dasgupta created widespread anger.
Seemingly angry and anguished Goswami in the aftermath of the 14 February 2019 attack in Pulwama, when more than 40 paramilitary men were killed, used the hashtag #IndiaWanstRevenge. ‘not condemnation, we want revenge’, ‘attack has to be avenged’ were some of the catchlines used by a visibly sad Arnab, the same drums of avenge and revenge were being drummed across the sections of Indian media.
But it was not just seeking revenge, the news channels were manufacturing consent for a political campaign.
In Manufacturing Consent Noam Chomsky and Edward Hess state how propaganda works in mass media. The model tries to understand how the population is manipulated, and the way the social, economic, political attitudes are fashioned in the minds of people through propaganda. Herman and Chomsky mostly concentrated on the American population and media for their research but this theory is universally applicable.
A propaganda model focuses on this inequality of wealth and power and its multilevel effects on mass-media interests and choices. It traces the routes by which money and power are able to filter the news suitable print, marginalize dissent, and allow the govt and dominant private interests to get their messages across to the public”.
Throughout India, channels endeavor to acquire crowds, claims of TRP manipulation erupt time and again, recently the Mumbai police official held a public interview expressing that channels were paying watchers to say they were watching them.
Among the individuals who were blamed were the advertisers for Fakt Marathi, Box Cinema and Republic TV. The last had been running a mission against the Mumbai police chief and the Maharashtra government drove by Uddhav Thackeray about the Rajput examination.
The channel expressed that the domain was retaliating, that Arnab Goswami had nothing to do with any TRP trickeries. Yet, the police power picked him persuasively from his home and detained him for seven days.
In the recent past, we have seen a sharp rise in media preliminaries that genuinely meddled with the Justice, legal process, often reducing to the usage of negative terms against groups or while referring to people in higher offices and “the absence of due constancy” that hurt the reputation of several individuals, however at the crux of all this, lies an undeniable truth, the Government is the master funder to most of the news organizations.
According to the ‘Manufacturing consent,’ the media operates as a business that sells its products (readers and subscribers) to other business entities that do their advertisements in media, instead of performing the function of disseminating news for the general public. Here the news is being misshaped and reformed from its original form. Herman and Chomsky call the factors which misshape news as filters. The news is being filtered by each of these factors before they reach its audience or the general public.
The media today, fails to remain mere neutral observers, instead of exercise heavy influence through their analysis and reporting. What we often mistake for reality is nothing but a constructed reality. This constructed reality is simply what media houses want us to understand, and believe.
Every coin has two sides, but the media only shows us the side they require us to see; one which is most convenient for them and works in their favor. So in this ‘New Age of Media’, what’s the exact role of the media in influencing public opinion? For that, it’s important to understand what leads to the suppression of truth, and also the factors that affect the reporting and analysis.
In May 2020, an editorial published on Dubai-based Gulf News 2020 May accused the ‘toxic Indian media of spreading Islamophobia and furthering vitiate atmosphere throughout the country.
Gulf News in its editorial urged authorities within the UAE to ‘take action’ against channels- the “preachers of hate”, specifically Republic TV, Times Now, India Tv, Zee News and ABP. “They should not be allowed to vitiate the social atmosphere of Gulf countries wherever tens of legion various ethnicities and spiritual background work and live peacefully.”
The smear campaign against Kashmir and the identity that saw a massive upsurge since 2014 may have its roots in the deep fantasy of Kashmiri to a ‘Guest-welcoming guide, a boatman, a dancing woman, or a Shikarawala. The post-Pulwama attack hatred that was manufactured on mainstream media led to various attacks on Kashmiris in various parts of India.
The most recent victim of the vilification campaign run by media against a targetted group a Kashmiri Journalist, Baba Umar who is currently working with an international news organization in Turkey, TRT world.
Baba said that a baseless article, run by Greek times was amplified by Zee News and other Indian channels without fact-checking or seeking the version of Baba, the KPC said in a statement.
A few days ago Zee News had run a piece in the name of Manish Shukla wherein he claimed Umar had been interviewed by Pieter Friedrich, however, Baba said that he was never interviewed by Friedrich as claimed in the article.
The use of fake news, morphed images, outright fabrications, and lies all fit into an established pattern of Islamophobia, deployed during previous elections, the demonetization, the withdrawal of Kashmir’s autonomy, and most recently the Delhi riots. Identical tactics have been deployed during the pandemic.
As India was attempting to come back to terms with the spike in COVID-19 case, a global gathering of Tablighis in New Delhi’s Nizamuddin in March 2020, became the focal point with sections of media blaming them for the outbreak. The channels coined some new and extremely intolerant terms: ‘Tablighi Virus’ and ‘Corona Jihad’. Media channels conjointly superimposed to the panic and blaming by incorrectly linking the Jamaat to unrelated and recent stories.
What appears to be a brand-new tactic at this juncture is taking a chunk of genuine reporting and repurposing it in an anti-Muslim light, often by adding fake elements.
ANI in 2020 misquoted Noida police and tweeted that residents of Sector 5 Harola in Noida had to be quarantined after they came in contact with Tablighi Jamaat members. Noida police called out the wire agency on Twitter and said they were spreading fake news.
On 24 February 2021 ABP News ran a news item of Cricketer Manoj Tiwary joining Trinamool Congress ahead of the West Bengal Assembly elections, ABP news cropped a part of the larger photograph and displayed the part of the photograph depicting a dress Muslims are seen wearing on festivities.
In other words, seeding an enormous roll in the hay a kernel of truth. Many state governments, irrespective of which party is at the helm, have perfected the art of targeting the media that’s not pliant to them. Some are brazen and prepared to face opprobrium as is the case with Maharashtra. Others like the government in Odisha make less noise, mindful of avoiding a national uproar.
These incidents are only diagnostic of the larger problems that a certain section of the media has propagated against minorities within the country. This kind of reporting results in violence against racial and religious minorities and may lead to communal disharmony.