“When ice freezes, all the excrement rises to
the surface. And so, when the dialectic was frozen, all the sacred excrement of
the dialectic came to the surface. When the future is deep-frozen – and,
indeed, even the present – we shall see all the excrement come up from the past.”
(Baudrillard 1994, p.26)
2012 is sliding into history in
the land of Curry Munchers, India. Although the year has been pretty ordinary from
economic, political & social angles but it has brought to forefront a sort
of journalism which had been confined to sectarian-vernacular ghettoes of the media.
I call it Masala [Spices] journalism in TV news-media. Most characteristic
feature of masala- journalism style is preeminence of the style over substance.
It does not matter how insignificant is the event the anchor would make it
point to adulterate the facts with overdose of shrill high pitch voice,
background sound effects & graphics of the screen to grab your
attention. Channels honchos believe that
since majority of Indian watch Bollywood movies full of unrealism so they would
seamlessly connect with shouting screaming anchors.
Mothers do give attention to
crying babies but if a baby keeps crying for hours better take it to a doctor.
The Masala journalism is not an isolated phenomenon but a prevalent malady
afflicting the entire TV News-media in India in 2012. The English language print
media for almost fifty years maintained a distinction between national &
vernacular press. That boundary has been obliterated now with rise of Hindi
journalism. In 80s the largest selling vernacular newspaper was non-Hindi Malaya
Manorama which has been replaced by a Cow-belt Hindi language paper.
So the growth in Cow-belt lead to
spilling over of low cost journos into English media. Traditionally media in
India was notorious for paying very low wages & field correspondents were
supposed to hawk advertising for the publication. This invasion of English
language media by Hindi trained journos brought in new way of thought &
expression into the profession. Unfortunately the Cow-Belt has remained most
underdeveloped part of India with large number of districts caught up in
insurgency. Social conditions shape the personality of people. So these new
journos adopted an attacking slandering style of interviewing people in public
in the way police interrogates criminals in privacy of police stations in
India. These Masala journos will keep asking you same question repeatedly &
at the same time telling you that you are wrong to hold your view. The Masala journos pretends to be educated
than IAS, Senior Execs, professors & the other educated elite.
Arnab Goswami of Times Group once
threatened the principal of India’s premier college St. Stephens Delhi on
public television demanding that the principal must give class attendance to a
student who had not attended the college. The compliant political class
pressured the VC Delhi University to pass the order making an exception in the
case. The principal must have lost his motivation to maintain the tradition of
excellence in his institute. Masala Goswami subverted the Taj Mahal of education
in India & successive generations would pay the price of his stupidity.
There is general agreement in the
media czars in India that electronic media is suited for sensationalism to get viewership.
So they have let loose the marauding semi-literate armies on TV screens beaming
right into homes with kids watching slogans of “Hang them, Castrate the
bastards” & other puerile carefully selected jargon. All this is done to get the attention of the viewer.
These blocks think that minuscule viewership of BBC & CNN in India is because
they haven’t matched the profile of consumer with the offer service. So it’s
profitable to offer highly spiced curries to titillate the masses.
The media managers are rare in
India because the owners want complete & total control. There is an
established tradition in India to hire managers for growth phase of the
business. Once the business has scaled up to an economic level the managers are
often ejected & replaced by a lackey or family. This in media has led to a
unique challenge that editors have come back into power in a capital intensive
business. The editor wants advertising revenue to grow, so a critical level of
viewership would be required to gain attention of media planers. Therefore
instead of creating a business strategy they get distracted by a content
oriented move to lure the masses. Here they spill the curry ! The business cycle for a hindi movie has to
be shorter than a 24x7 New-media.
The media czars have fallen into
trap of Editorial led strategy for a capital intensive News-Media business.”The
Hindu’ commands a brand value much greater & beyond the covered markets. Masala
journalism can increase the TRP but it will completely distract & destroy
the attention of viewers from advertising.
Why would some business advertise on a channel where the audience is always
emotionally charged? There would very
poor recall scores for the advertising message presented to an emotionally charged
audience. Masala journalism is not only
bad business its poor journalism also.
Media must soothe the nerves of low-income country like India instead of
rabble rousing. Look at the Hindi movies, light action based comedies do more
business than others. People want some peace in their life and want to eat homemade
food than spicy stuff available at the street corner.
