It’s been two years since the Modi government came to power. In the build-up to the 2014 election, the ‘media walon’ have been subjected to their fair share of mocking. Bhaiyon & Beheno have often been told about the biki hui and biased media who are out to malign Modi’s party and prime ministership.
But two years since the Modi sarkar, has political journalism in the country changed? And if so, how?
The Quint spoke to beat reporters and editors – while some complained, some didn’t, but most chose to remain anonymous. Curiously telling of the times?
Modi’s Media Alert!
Most journalists concur that the dissemination of information is more controlled under the Modi regime as compared to previous ones. Reporters and editors who cover the Cabinet, PMO and key ministries say there is no longer a points person to even divulge basic information like schedules and agendas. This is problematic. A senior beat reporter says:
It is hard to even access the agenda of the cabinet at times. Recently, there was conjecture that the PM was returning to Delhi from his Assam campaign to chair an emergency cabinet meeting to impose President’s rule in Uttarakhand. But there was no clarity on whether that was true and nobody knew who to ask. So these are genuine queries on day-to-day government functioning, and controlling information doesn’t necessarily help in controlling the narrative.
Many reporters say that the government’s strategy towards the media underwent a tangible change post the Bihar election defeat and that it has been a point of contention in the party. However, reporters covering the Ministries of Defence and Home tell a different story. A lot is kept under wraps, obviously, because that is the nature of the beat, but this government has left nothing to chance. A reporter covering defence says:
Specific gag orders were issued on meeting journalists, first that the Ministry of Home and then at the Ministry of Defence. Anyway, you cant walk in, you need permissions and appointments. But by writing it in stone, this government has tried to tie loose ends, there is no press meandering around. The government posturing has tightened things up. There are straight and neat lines that no one will cross.
But Modi On Twitter Is Like ‘Bad Old Doordarshan’?
No longer do journalists go on junkets in the Prime Minister’s plane and unlike the previous governments, no longer does the PMO have a media advisor. He prefers talking to the people directly, be it through his new and improved website, his Twitter outreach, his radio program Mann ki baat, or his recently launched ‘Narendra Modi App’.
The fan-following on twitter is no secret (ask anyone who has ever tweeted something critical of the Prime Minister!), but does it tell the good old story? Senior journalist Praveen Swami says no!
Good or bad, it’s a new world. But the PM needs to understand that social media cannot displace conventional organised media. Social media discourse still follows from the discourse in the organised media. The PM’s Twitter handle is like Doordarshan in the 80’s – it tells you about some ribbon-cutting somewhere but doesn’t tell you a story. Unless you are a fan boy, you don’t want a repetition of an event, you want a critical account of it, you want a story .
Toe The Line Or Be Trolled!
The fact that government critics or adversarial reporting has always rubbed every government the wrong way is no secret and Modi’s BJP government is no exception.
Also read: “R**di TV ki R**d Anchor...”: Barkha Dutt, Trolls & Sexual Slurs
Celebrity TV anchor Rajdeep Sardesai, who has been on the receiving end of the worst kind of hate online, offline and abroad, however ,believes this is not a Modi phenomenon.
This creeping polarisation in the media mirrors society and it didn’t start in May 2014, it dates back to the 90’s, since the Ram Janmbhoomi movement that sparked off a certain kind of toxicity. A journalist can’t just report, but has to take sides and wear his ideology on his sleeve.
While Sardesai says that controlling the flow of information is the choice a government makes, it doesn’t indicate press censorship, it is just a way of operation to restore the primacy of the executive and not give the media a free run.
However, he also says that the current government is guilty of not trying to manage or control the ‘abuse and hate’ on social media.
Social media has become a space to abuse, target and take down any ideas ‘they’ have a problem with, and unfortunately, little attempt is made by those who manage Modi’s social media to control this. It is a noxious chamber of abuse and hate and the tone and intensity has been further aggravated after 2014.Rajeep Sardesai, Author & Consulting Editor, India Today TV
Modi Vs Media: Just Hyperbole?
So Modi doesn’t speak to the media, he speaks to the people. But Manmohan Singh, two-term PM, didn’t do either. But then, the flow of information under the UPA didn’t really follow a chain of command, because as a senior journalist adds, “most ministers in the UPA were leaders in their own right and thus couldn’t be controlled like Modi’s cabinet.”
On issues of national security for instance, there was never a formal channel for flow of information, no spokesperson and no go-to ministry per say. In that sense, those covering internal security say their beat is an ‘outlier’.
But that this government is more ‘opaque’ than the past is a matter of rapport, one that many believe has been discontinued between the Prime Minister’s representatives and the media.
The PMO’s opaque national security advisor is less accessible. There is no professional mode of outreach and this has backfired on the PM’s office more than once, but that is how this PM likes it. So not only is the PM’s office trying to reach out directly to the people, political lobby groups are trained to attack the media and crackdown on reporting that is critical. The days of the gentle letter to the editor is over!Praveen Swami, National Editor, Strategic and International Affairs, The Indian Express
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