Holier Than Thou Journalism

24th May, 2010

Around a decade back while working as Assistant Editor of a monthly newsmagazine I came up with some fancy ideas to revamp the overall look, feel & content of the magazine. While some of the ideas were appreciated by the management, I still remember the dirty look by the consulting editor, an industry veteran, when I proposed the byline mentioned with the position of the journalist. The idea, as a matter of fact, was not original one and the leading newsmagazine, India Today already had that style sheet during those days.

The disapproval of the editor was not confined to his overt gesture; he did not mince words to say that a serious newsmagazine should not be a self glorified pamphlet for the journalists. When I see all the mainstream English dailies in the country being redesigned, with glorified promotional campaign suggesting international designer giving it a global touch, I feel there is anti-thesis of what all has been taught to us in the good old school of ethical journalism. The mug shot pix of reporters along with the bylines overtly suggests that the newspapers are brand ambassadors driven and not content driven.

Five or six photographs on a single sheet of newspaper often makes it difficult to identify whether it is a news page or the advertising supplement where these reporters are IIT or Medical toppers and the coaching institute wants to make the best out of this publicity campaign. If this is the reality of today’s leading English dailies, anything said about the vernacular newspapers would be stating the obvious. And the semi nude photographs, which proved to be the calling card of regional dailies like Punjab Kesari has moved from city supplements to main newspapers, even getting page one positioning off and on.

The holier than thou variety of journalism, the print media is facing an identity crisis today and certainly is not far behind their television counterparts when it comes to shouting at the rooftop with their perceived achievements. It seems the glamour of television journalism is a cause of complex in the print media and they strive to catch up fast on that given scale. No wonder, following the footsteps of television news channels the leading dailies do not forget to remind the readers that this newspaper was the first to report on the given issue. Worse even, HT Impact or Times Impact of the news reports are glorified like never before.

I, Me, Myself syndrome is all pervasive in today’s print journalism when it comes to credit share. Print journalism, as a matter of fact, has always been plagued with this I, Me, Myself syndrome with individual journalists’ deep-rooted belief that they are god’s gift to the profession. My Story, my byline, my scoop, my expose…..it could never become a team job. No wonder, barring a few exceptions journalists could never specialise in team handling or man management. Snob value it seems gives a cutting edge to the editorial profile and everybody is found bitching up and down the editorial chain.

However, this inherent weakness in the nature of the business was always overshadowed by an intellectual clout where commitment to the news and profession remained more or less unquestionable. Personal glorification and personal graft remained that only…. personal. This is despite of the fact that most of the journalists in good old days of journalism were poorly paid and many of them even died in acute poverty.

However, the advent of TV channels brought about a sea change in the overall economy of the business. The new generation of print journalists landed up in their respective jobs with relatively comfortable salaries. Unfortunately, more money failed to raise the standards of journalism, nor did it contribute to the commitment or the integrity of the individual journalists. The only difference was visible in the lifestyle choice of some journalists and they appeared more corporate in their appearance and attitude than newsmen.

More money also initiated a greed driven economy in the print media and the line that bifurcated in the collective consciousness between editorial and marketing got blurred. Of course, the nature and character of the newspaper owners had also changed to the extent that the leading English daily in the country started overtly proclaiming its edition as “Made in Delhi”, and not published. Once newspaper became a product, like any other product, for the management, the marketing folks took the center stage and quality of editorial content nosedived like never before.

Barter deals (Ad for Equity) between the corporate groups and newspapers became the new market mantra and editors started getting notes from higher-ups to protect the reputation of barter deal clients. In such a win-win deal for both the newspaper and the company, the mediator advertising agencies were also laughing their way to the bank and the job of PR pros too became easy. The quality of editorial content remained nobody’s agenda.

Today’s print journalism is not dependent on right kind of sources for news, PR industry has mushroomed like anything to offer them readymade releases, features and what not. And somewhere in this evolving economy of journalism personal integrity has seen its rock bottom. Triple Cs of modern marketing (Concept, Contact & Corrupt) works in tandem and some of the PR agencies discuss three picks of the day (read three overtly paid stories) in their routine morning meetings. Needless to add, PR pros are always on prowl for such journalists who are available for moonlighting.

Print journalists love to ridicule television and most of the newspapers have a dedicated media page to evaluate the counterparts in television. I wonder how many times that space has been used for self introspection. I remember it was around 1995-96 that the media page of Thapar-owned newspaper Pioneer used to evaluate Media with feature stories on print media as well. At least I have not seen that kind of integrity or honesty with the print media of late.

I always suggest to my print journalist friends that the next time you mock at TV news, must remember that conventional wisdom suggests that those who live in the glass houses should not throw stones. But then one wonders whether wisdom has its way in the big bad world of journalism.

It's TV Stupid

18th May, 2010

Ever since James Murdoch’s recent India visit the speculation is rife that Fox News is all set to enter the country. Murdoch has already met three key players in the Indian media market, including Shobhana Bharatiya of Hindustan Times and Vineet Jain of the Times of India for a possible tie-up. It is believed that the global media moghul is unhappy with the Anand Bazaar Patrika run Star News in India and the FDI cap of 26 per cent leaves him with no choice but to look for other partner in the region. Industry grapevine is that Fox News will start a news channel in English, followed by a Hindi news channel.

This sounds like an impeccable business strategy where the Star-Fox combine can control the business of news channels in the country with their own channels competing against each other in the top slot of the TRP and the ad pie. However, a cursory look at the Indian television news market gives confused and baffled signals. India TV has also announced to launch its English news and business channels. News X has only recently been relaunched and a couple of other players have big plans in the Indian television news business.

Media analysts are apprehensive that whether there is any room for more news channels in a cluttered and over crowded market where every other channel looks like the replica of another channel. The resource pool in terms of technicians and trained quality journalists also seem to be on short supply. So, where is the need and space for all these new channels to accommodate?

However, I personally feel there is not only room but urgent need for serious News Channels in India, since all the channels in the name of news are into business of triviality. The country is perhaps yet to see what a serious news channel should be. It seems mediocrity flows from top to bottom in the business and it went to dogs when a news reporter of a leading television channel asked the then Home Minister of the country, Indrajit Gupta as to what was his name.

This debate just reminds me of the outburst of a friend on the quality of newsmen in business. A journalist-turned-corporate affairs professional he recently remarked that in the world of intellectuals, journalists are at the bottom of the pyramid. He was reacting over a news anchor asking in the live news to the reporter on the spot of a fighter jet crash as to how many passengers were there on board. But this …OOPS Syndrome is a repetitive reality of today’s TV news rather than an exception. A news channel popularly known to lower the standards of journalism and scaling up the TRP ladder ran a story where voice over said the army chief will take the oath of office. It seems the television news channels in the country have grown horizontally than vertically.

In the rat race of TRP (the biggest racket in the business of TV news) the grammar, sensibility and ethics of TV news goes for a toss and an English news channel in its sting operation on changing face of prostitution goes to the extent of asking a sex worker as to what is her rate, per night and per stroke, and then airs it unedited. May be the promoters of the group of channels were calculating their bottom lines on those scales only where hundreds of employees were sacked on the basis of productivity report of an outside agency.

This marketing research consultancy agency had no media or news background and the productivity report was hence quantitative. More the number of bulletins you produce with lesser salary, the more productive producer you are. Poor journalists who focussed on the quality stories, and for a change knew the difference between breaking news, news flash and news update were declared non-productive. If a bulletin producer is so good with producing volumes of programmes, who cares for his linguistic skills. He can even translate an english copy suggesting two chief ministerial claimants to hindi as two chief ministers being installed in the state for the first time.

No wonder, if an anchor is available for overtime and presenting more bulletins, she is a better asset for the channel. One such anchor recently asked the CPI leader D Raja as to what is the take of CPM on the issue. The decency in the left leader made him say that his party CPI believes that……But every body is not found to be that decent. The President of International Tennis Federation was taken aback when an Indian television reporter asked him as to what should India do to make this rich man’s game to common man’s game. He bluntly put a counter question as to who is he to suggest what falls in the domain of Indian authorities.

It seems being dubbed as the Idiot Box, television news channels are determined to turn the tables and make the audience feel like idiots. Does anybody still have any questions as to whether there is any room for more news channels in India?

Media and Twitter

16th May, 2010

Ever since my last post about Twitter and its overuse/misuse as a defacto public address system http://track2media.blogspot.com/2010/04/we-twitter.html, dated 22nd April, I have been flooded with extreme reactions. While some of the followers and friends from the online community agree that its use as a public address system by people in public life, like Lalit Modi and Shashi Tharoor will undermine the sanctity of democratic institutions, there is another set of people who have vehemently condemned the view point. “Don’t blame the medium for human follies,” is the argument in general. Actually one of the friends from the online community wrote a blog post on the issue with the same title and started a discussion thread on the Linkedin.
The series of arguments and counter-arguments had gone unnoticed had I not sensed a profile fixation in the thought process on the subject. While those who supported the theory of twitter role being confined to sharing and expressing professional info belonged to various professions, most of the die-hard tweet community was from media and communications. It seems to be a revolution of sorts in a country where the advent of computers in the mid ‘90s led to a number of journalists getting axed out of the system since they could not adapt to the new technology.
Coming back to the core issue of Twitter being overused/misused, do media and communication professionals give the devil more than its due? I have already analysed on this blog last year, July 17, as to how over reliance on social media only reflects strategic communication dilemma http://track2media.blogspot.com/2009/07/over-reliance-on-social-media-reflects.html. It seems the uncensored nature of the medium is something that is driving the new breed of media and communication professionals crazy for the medium.
The industry facts and ground realities are actually hilarious, to say the least. Last year the PR head of an Agency was replaced by a less experienced, and arguably less competent, person on the merit of his tweet knowledge. The management may have been awed by his tall claims of changing the way they used to function through the use of new age technologies, like Twitter. The tech savvy professional who tweets more often than even some of the celebrities promised to work on the expectation management of the clients as well and shift focus from the traditional media coverage. That appeared too fancy and tempting to an Agency that had been at the receiving end of clients for poor media coverage and lack of quality exposure. However, the clients were not amused by the tweet head of the Agency and his shelf life could not be more than a year.
Another practitioner of Brand Strategy and Management was recently caught off guard in a presentation where he emphasised the need for the use of new age communicational tools like the Twitter. What this smart operator had failed to realise was that the corporate house had their own internal team for the purpose of online reputation management. When they did a google check on his credentials, before inviting him for the formal presentation, they found out that he had a healthy follower list of five.
Some of the PR professionals are regularly into the habit of tweeting before every press conference. However, I have often noticed that none of their followers are actually the beat reporters for whom it has been tweeted. That points to the core issue as to whether Twitter is to express or to impress. For the new breed of media and communication professionals it seems to be a tool to impress. They are probably compensating for the failure of their previous generation to adapt to the new age technology with computer. And that is something I find quite funny. Isn’t?

TRACK2MEDIA-Shukrawar teenage Sex Survey

11th May, 2010

For teenagers life revolves around sex, so it seems. Home, schools, colleges, public places- here, there, everywhere. Lack of privacy and opportunity may deter them but definitely not the morality or the much-hyped sex education programmes. Yet, sex and sexuality remains one of the most enduring topics on growing up that is shrouded in mystery, intrigue and fantasy. The advent of technology may have added fuel to the fire, but the teenagers from small towns with relatively less access to the modern tools are no different. While the parents and teachers seem to have failed to become friend, philosopher and guide, sharing and caring comes with the peer group on sexual fantasies. Still, sex, or discussing sex, continues to remain a social taboo with a generation that attains early adulthood with sky high aspirations. In a country with great tradition of storytelling where children listen with rapt attention tales of gods and kings who had several wives and sired many children, it sounds like an oxymoron.

A comprehensive survey on teenage sex by TRACK2MEDIA Consulting for weekly newsmagazine Shukrawar in ten cities-Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Patna, Kanpur, Allahabad and Indore—has thrown up interesting results. The survey results have important lessons for parents, educationists and social scientists as paradigms have changed. If earlier it was pre-marital sex, today it is about teenage and pre-teen sex as with early puberty comes the risk of early adultery. It is all about the rush to attain adulthood in an age of information explosion where pressures of keeping up with peers are immense.

Facts suggest more about the teenage sexuality than what collective consciousness is ready to believe. 36 per cent of the 2000 teenagers polled for survey claimed to be sexually active. Among the sexually active teenagers 69 per cent teenagers actually had it by the time they were 15 years of age. More boys than girls experienced any form of sexually activity. As against 46 per cent boys, it is 26 per cent girls admitted to be sexually active.

In many instances, it is often a case of ambition getting ahead of a child’s physical and emotional growth. It is a syndrome where the children’s world revolves only around fantasies of the glamour world. It is a growing and dangerous social phenomenon. The survey showed that among the sexually active teenagers 69 per cent teenagers actually had it by the time they were 15 years of age. The survey showed that nearly half of the teenagers who got into sex had no proper place for the act. Only 12 per cent teenagers feel sexual intimacy before marriage is immoral, 6 per cent withheld their opinion, while 82 per cent are comfortable with pre marital sex. A substantial 33 per cent of the teenagers believe sex is fun and it is ok even if the couple are not truly in love.

With both parents working, youngsters are given a lot of money to make up for the lost time. With money to spend, company to be sought, teenagers and easy access to free content in Internet has only led to a sharp rise in early teenage sex as fantasies run wild. These young adults are, however, not apologetic about such casual sex and seem to be much more practical than earlier generations. The teenagers are not just asking them to be allowed to have a choice, they are making the choices too; often behind the parents’ back when not being allowed to. There are obvious pitfalls of such early hormonal rushes too, and in some cases scars are forever.

Most of the teenagers seem to deplore obsessive love and 65 per cent don’t think one should be seriously involved to have sex. A substantial 68 per cent teenager is not at all possessive about their partners. The minority 10 per cent who are extremely possessive about the girl friend/boy friend and often hit the headlines for sex related crimes are fast learning the ways of the world.

The survey showed that friends are also the ones to share sexual fantasies and boasting sexual encounters. While 68 per cent share sexual fantasies with friends, 77 per cent even lie to boast of their sexual encounters. It reflects that sexual encounters are the parameters to judge ones standing in the peer group. But 52 per cent of the teenagers blame peer group for manipulating them into sex.

Boasting of fake sexual encounters has also become common, lest somebody feels left behind. 77 per cent teenagers across the cities admitted to boast of their sex lives. This is one result that parents, teachers and social scientists worth take note of. Among the sexually active teenagers 35 per cent are not sure about birth control, and 65 per cent had unsafe sex at least once; even though 79 per cent of them are aware about sexually transmitted diseases.

But how relevant are the schools’ sex education programmes? Prevention is better than cure. But this may not be the best formula for a country with a high incidence of child marriages and teenage pregnancies. One of the most acute problems that India is facing or rather struggling with is that India has as many as three million cases of patients suffering from AIDS or have tested positive for HIV and out of them a considerable number of cases are in the age group of 20 to 30 years.

This startling fact not only burdens us with the problem of redeeming them from the maladies of AIDS, but also entails us with the additional problem of preventing the spread of this dreaded disease to the other sections of the society.
Sex education has been introduced in many states, but success has not been anything to drive home about.

Given our relative ignorance of matters sexual, the benefits of a nationwide comprehensive sex education programme are immense. In the survey 91 per cent respondents said they are not comfortable discussing sex related matters with parents, and 88 per cent say they would not confide in parents if they have a sex related problem.

About three-fourth respondents felt that children should be warned about “Good Touch and Bad Touch” by the age of 12. While 82 per cent teenagers feel sex should be considered a normal part of life, 77 per cent advocated open discussion on the issue within the family. Importantly, 72 per cent think modern living any way lacks privacy and sex lives of family members are all too obvious. Only 12 per cent of the respondents felt sexual intimacy before marriage is immoral, while 82 per cent are comfortable with pre marital sex.

As much as 68 per cent treat of the survey’s respondents treat sex as important or very important part of their lives, and 55 per cent have no qualms about sex with an older partner. Early sex or no early sex, the fact is that 92 per cent are not ready to accept that these sexual encounters ruin their career prospects or future married life. And 79 per cent of the teenagers admit to have fallen in love with their teachers. Stories of students having a crush on a teacher are not uncommon. Remember Shah Rukh Khan in Main Hoon Na?

There are others who would not mind sleeping with an older partner as commercial transaction. If you thought teenage sex was limited to glitzy urban metropolises, think again. Among the sexually active teenagers 39 per cent of the respondents were from tier-II cities, 34 per cent from tier-I cities and 27 per cent from tier-III cities. According to the survey sexual activity is the highest in Ahmedabad (47 per cent) and lowest in Kanpur (19 per cent).

With children being no longer uncomfortable about sex, it is only natural that parents are getting nervous. As the survey shows, its time policy makers, educationists, medical practitioners and the larger society wakes up to the emerging realities. The reality, however, is that the educationists themselves lack quality education as far as dealing with the teenage sexuality is concerned.