I was so horribly wrong when I wrote this post on Cash for Votes scam in our parliament and the sting operation conducted by CNN IBN Rajdeep Sardesai is for sale!! in Aug 08. Its not just him who is up for sale most of the news channels and newspapers are up for sale too. Rajdeep Sardesai did nothing which is not done by the media houses. And I’m not talking about a stake sale in their respective companies. I’m talking about the news content which they carry. Yes, it has been proved beyond doubt now that indeed they do sell their space for money. As luck would have it there were quite a few elections in 2009. First it was the Lok Sabha polls and then state assembly elections in not one but four states. Not too forget many other sources like numerous movie releases, book launches etc etc. And they are all sources of good unaccountable money for our media houses.

Election coverage is generally a sold out affair both for newspapers and the electronic media. It’s news made to order, fully paid up. Don’t believe me? Here’s an excerpt from a write up from Sudheendra Kulkarni, the man who was responsible for managing the publicity part of election campaign of BJP in last Lok Sabha elections, which was published in Indian Express on 15 Nov 09.

“It is an open secret that some of the most successful and perennially self-congratulating “superbrands” in India’s newspaper business sell their editorial space to commercial entities and celebrities, without letting their readers know that the news and features that they read are paid for. But far more disturbing is the recent phenomenon that a growing number of newspapers, magazines and TV channels across the country are selling their election coverage, both at wholesale and retail prices, to political parties and candidates.”

You can read the entire article News On Sale here. Some would say that since BJP lost the elections this is a perfect case of sour grapes. To that argument first I would say that Sudheendra Kulkarni is not in BJP anymore. Secondly, he’s not alone. The Hindu published a similar article The medium, message and the money published on 26 Oct 09 by P Sainath. Here’s an excerpt from this article.

“The Assembly elections (Maharashtra) saw the culture of “coverage packages” explode across the State. In many cases, a candidate just had to pay for almost any coverage at all. Issues didn’t come into it. No money, no news. This effectively shut out smaller parties and independent voices with low assets and resources. It also misled viewers and readers by denying them any mention of the real issues some of these smaller forces raised.”

Still having doubts? Consider this, out of 288 MLAs in Maharashtra assembly more than 180 are crorepatis many times over. In Haryana, the figure goes up to 70 out of 90. It clearly shows that the richer you are more chances you have of getting elected. In fact The Hindu goes on to say that if you are worth Rs 100 million your chances of getting elected are 48 times more than anyone who is just worth Rs 1 million or less. I know spending money on media alone may not have won them their seats but it helps a lot. We are all humans and the more you see, read or hear about a person the more likely you are to vote for him. Its just natural. And off course whatever is being said or written is also made to order with people from the media again extending their helpful hand for a fee. Oh, by the way if you want the media to run down your rivals that is also not exactly a problem, again for a fee. The “packages” can range anywhere from 15 lakhs for a low end one to Rs 1.5 crore for a full coverage highlighting your “era”. To just give an example The Hindu says that a rebel candidate in Western Maharashtra spent good about Rs 1crore on local media alone and went on to defeat the official candidate of the party. Though The Hindu won’t say it for obvious reasons, it is quite likely that this man is Sadashivrao Mandlik who won as an independent from Kagal against NCP’s official candidate Sambhaji Sahu. Please note that Sadashivrao has declared assets of Rs 70 million, which were possibly put to good use here.

Its a fact that media does influence the way we think. Take the case of swine flu wherein our media went absolutely berserk and created a panic like situation in the entire country. People were shit scared to even move out of their homes and schools and colleges were closed because of this. It was only after a diktat from the govt that media shifted their focus from swine flu. Thankfully, though the disease has not been eradicated from this country it is not a panic situation anymore. Similarly in elections the media is used to create an environment wherein people are inclined to vote for a particular candidate. Though we always knew that elections are won or lost depending on the kind of money you spend but this revelation of how our hearts and minds are being influenced in the manner that these people want to is really nauseating.

Take the case of NDTV. Now it is a well known fact that Prannoy Roy is essentially a pro Congress man. You’ll never see his channel running down Congress. Even if Congress does something very stupid it will either be played down by NDTV or will be packaged in a manner that viewers are left confused about the whole thing. Words can always be twisted in a manner to convey any meaning that the channel wants to. And it does. Actually, most of them do. They would really do anything for political parties especially the ruling parties, not for nothing off course. To give you a first hand experience of it all, when Rita Bahuguna of Congress made a statement that she’ll give Rs 1crore to anyone who rapes Mayawati(?) NDTV showed a clipping wherein Mayawati had said the same thing as Rita but in respect of Mulayam Singh’s family. I saw this clipping with my own eyes. Obviously, they scored with Congress on that score. But the clipping vanished all of a sudden and when I sat down to write about it and wanted to embed that video from NDTV I found that it had been removed not just from the channel but from their website as well. Why? Because NDTV’s studio are located in Film City NOIDA. It is from here that they control their whole channel. And NOIDA is in UP, for your information. They wouldn’t dare telecast such things from Mayawati’s backyard. Also, this was the time when Mayawati had just extended unconditional support to Congress at the center. And to top it all Rita Bahuguna is a very small fry for Congress. They wouldn’t mind and they didn’t. You can read this post of mine Politics of Slander here.

The next best source of revenue especially for television channels are the movies and I’m not talking of direct ads of these movies. I’m talking of more subtle ways like reality shows where stars of forthcoming movies are seen talking about their movies. How do you think this happens? Why do you think the channels let these stars come and shift the focus of the show from its original theme to the stars themselves and their movies? Well, no guesses required there and no points for correct guesses either. Same goes for movie reviews. I’m yet to see a movie review by a viewer wherein he or she says that the movie is pathetic. The clipping is made by these channels to portray even the worst movies as being damn good. Most of the interviews of stars which we see just before the release of the movies are also adequately compensated for the channel depending on the popularity of that channel. By extension it also implies that in case you want to be on some show you just have to cough up some serious dough and you’ll be accommodated. There are other ways also of how the media makes unaccounted for money but these two are by far the best bets.

And that’s the way our media beat the recession. And they always will be on top. After all there will always be new bollywood movies being released every Friday and elections somewhere or the other every year. So the next time you hear Prannoy Roy or someone else praising a party or running down another take it with a pinch of salt. The paper or the channel may well have been paid for it. And if you want to beat these guys at their own game watch more channels and read more than one paper before you make up your own minds, especially during elections. I read three papers, Times Of India, Indian Express and Hindustan Times and watch Times Now, NDTV and CNN IBN (though the last two for a lesser duration) to get a complete view of things before I decide to write on any particular issue. I’m my own master and won’t let them mould my thinking in the manner that they want me to. As for you guys I wish you all the best!!!!!!!!!!

Related Post

Politics of slander

Indian media: Misplaced sense of priority

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Posted on November 16th, 2009 India calling • Tags: BJP, Bollywood, CNN IBN, Congress, media, money, Movies, NDTV, Times Now. • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback