Rate the Debate – Research Report
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TELEVISION NEWS IN INDIA 31 DEC 2020 RATE THE DEBATE 1 Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................... 3 Today’s Context .......................................................................................................... 3 The Distorted Media Lens ........................................................................................... 4 Rate the Debate .......................................................................................................... 6 Methodology .............................................................................................................. 6 Appendix A –Anchor Analysis ..................................................................................... 9 Appendix B – Media Trial Analysis ............................................................................ 16 Appendix C – Rate the Debate Team ......................................................................... 24 2 Introduction In a rare conversation in 2012, BCCL Managing Director Vineet Jain told The New Yorker the philosophy underpinning the transformation of the newspaper The Times of India – “We are not in the newspaper business, we are in the advertising business.” There-casting means that readership became the product: deliver a newspaper that attracts subscriptions, and you can sell the readership to advertisers in a variety of ways. It cemented what The New Yorker described as changes in the newspaper initiated by then Vice Chairman Samir Jain – less politics, more sports, more Bollywood, more colour, lower necklines, and few book reviews. This inversion of relationships, in which the product is the readership, not journalism or news, might also explain the transformation of Television News Channels this decade. Viewership is a product, used to drive advertising revenue up. The means, again in Vineet Jain’s words when he described Times Now, of attracting the TRPs that get advertising attention was to make “talking heads argue, not discuss.” Today’s Context This strategy might have paid hand some dividends to the owners of newspapers and news television channels. Over the decades however, it eroded the principles and ethics that one normally associated with journalism. Simultaneously, news channels in India are increasingly owned by organizations and individuals with conflicts of interest – it is now evident that the presentation of news is tainted by the business and political interests of the owners. News Television has always been the medium through which most Indian voters and citizens hear a set of panelists interactively convey their points of view on the issues of the day. This has been undercut in two ways. The issues discussed are no longer the administrative, political, economic, social and cultural developments crucial to the well-being of Indians. One news anchor recently underscored this troubling malaise. A panellist prefaced his comments in the debate – 3 which happened to be on the tragic demise of an actor – by calling attention to the most pressing news that day: the cataclysmic GDP contraction and further Chinese aggression on the LAC. The anchor responded and we quote: “Go read tomorrow's paper... Don't waste your time, the nation's time or my time.” Some news channels also skate on the thin ice of sociallydivisive issues, spanning hyper- nationalism, religion and communities. The facile labelling of individuals and groups as enemies of the state or society has worrying parallels in the actions of media that supported Fascist and Nazi regimes. The second concern is of the anchors taking overt positions on debates and suppressing views that counter theirs. They dominate the speaking time themselves, pack panels with vocal supporters, and constantly interrupt or counter the minority of the panellists who oppose the anchor’s stances. It is not surprising either that most anchors find their views magically mirroring those of the political party in power. Central government spending on advertisements and publicity (Rs 5909 crore over 2014-19) constitutes a significant percentage of news television revenues, not to mention that the owners of several channels also own businesses that can be impacted by government spending and policy decisions. In 2019, the Modi government was accused of using its ad spend as reward and punishment. The Distorted Media Lens Issues of ownership, conflicts of vested interest and the unquenchable thirst for advertising income aside, there are two grave developments that need highlighting. One is some media houses being accused of manipulating the only viewership rating system in the country. Allegations about interference and underhanded techniques to game the measurement framework are not new – competitors had detailed several unfair means by which an English news channel (again in the dock in recent revelations) had gained advantage back in 2017. The gravity of potential malfeasance is enormous – the periodic impressions data provided by BARC are the basis on which news (and other genre) channels decide what to charge advertisers. For instance, during the period currently under investigation, Republic Bharat overtook a rival to take pole position in 4 the Hindi news genre and three weeks later raised its ad rates by as much as 50%. With regulatory oversight on the sector being sub-optimal, it is tragic but inevitable that the judiciary becomes involved. The second development is one that has already reached the courts –the blurring line between “investigative” journalism in the “public interest” and media trials. Civilization has always struggled with mobs and individuals assuming extra-judicial roles of investigators, prosecutors, judges and executioners. The media transgresses too, and the problem is exacerbated by the “24x7” nature of news media which constantly demands new content, the fierce competition to break a story first and the relatively new pressure introduced by the media’s desire to attract attention on social platforms. Events following Sushant Singh Rajput’s tragic demise will still be fresh in the minds of those who read this. The media inexplicably seized upon the death to weave a narrative that had constantly shifting villains involved in the death – mental health, financial difficulties, nepotistic film industry, friends, the underworld, politicians, drugs… but many of them reserved the most vitriol for Rajput’s girlfriend, Rhea Chakraborty. The frenzy had begun as soon as the news became public. A month and a half later, when Rajput’s father filed an FIR in Bihar, some media decided – without any evidence - that Chakraborty had committed a crime of some sort. The result was one of the most sordid episodes of some “news” channels abandoning all pretence at upholding the ethics of journalism. One cannot ignore the larger sociopolitical landscape in which this narrative emerged as the saviour of a beleaguered administration – Indians were asking hard questions about the Chinese aggression, the surging COVID19 case and fatality counts, collapse in economic activity, the migrant workers walking thousands of kilo metres, the floods… The BJP, in power at the centre, had assumed explicit ownership of the political pressure to arrest someone for what authorities consistently called a suicide–using it to attack the government of Maharashtra (a state in which the BJP is the opposition) and to campaign for the elections in Bihar, Rajput’s home-state. This is the broader context in which a small group of people decided that a concerted effort was needed to hold the television news media accountable to generally accepted ethics and principles of journalism. 5 Rate the Debate The systematic subversion of various administrative, autonomous and other institutions in India is compounded by this tacit collusion between the purvey or sofnews & opinions and the political party in government. Most Media, and several television news channels in particular, have combined their profit motive and political leanings to create a servile publicity platform for the people in power. This must change. Rate the Debate is a campaign to hold television news debates accountable to a set of journalistic standards. Begun on 16th August 2020, primarily through the Twitter platform, the campaign evolved three distinct objectives: The first was to provide a focal point to what we believe is a widely held opinion–many news debate anchors are biased, pursue topics not of pressing concern to Indians as a whole and serve as a distracting foil to the central government that is mired in its incompetence. Rate the Debate’s social media presence can harness this opinion into a potentially powerful demand from audiences for news debate formats and themes to change. The second was to present evidence, through qualitative and quantitative analyses, that is irrefutable by the anchor or the news channel. Rate the Debate’s research team has over a brief period of under two months developed a methodology to illustrate debate focus areas and anchor conduct. The third was to make a scientific attempt to define a Media Trial Index – one that could irrefutably conclude whether coverage of a specific event or individual remained within the boundaries of principled and investigative journalism or violated them, becoming a witch-hunt or trial instead. Methodology To achieve the first two objectives, Rate the Debate picked an anchor to evaluate every week. The first part of the analysis concentrated on what subjects