The Factivist

I think journalists should just bring facts to the knowledge of people and not be judgemental on govt policies and be mouth piece of a particular political party. Neutrality of fourth state is most important and the watchword. People are aware of everything and let them be judge on what journo,s bring up to their knowledge.

Beauty of the Democracy is that rulers will change with majority support and the decision of majority to elect the govt be respected irrespective of party elected journalists no exception.

Conceptually I agree with what Shekhar wrote on this topic. However, the viciousness with which media is against Modi is something unprecedented. Modi on his part too, has ignored media with disdain it deserves. Media, under the garb

of asking tough questions, has been extremely biased and it appears it’s only objective is to bring down the current government by creating atmosphere of chaos, confusion and hopelessness. Media may be necessary in a freely functioning democracy but media professionals have feet of clay. Modi has a new interesting term Khan Market mafia to describe these forces but taking cue from Indira, he should have known how to cut them to size and cripple them perhaps for ever. Though Modi is called a dictatort, there hardly anything he has done to control or muzzle the media

“vast majority of Indian media which dotingly supports him today” , really? LOL!! Mr Gupta must be living in a parallel universe. I have never seen so much vicious and unrelenting criticism and derogation of any other Indian Prime Minister as that meted out to Narendra Modi. There may be a few friendly / sympathetic journalists in less watched channels but make no mistake virtually the entire lot of the substantive electronic and print media and “intellectuals” cannot stand the notion of Modi as a PM. I do not ever remember Rajiv Gandhi, in spite of his role in the Sikh Pogrom of 1984, being treated with a fraction of the bile reserved for Mr Modi. Nobody in the establishment requested foreign countries that he should not be granted visa for travel abroad! Nobody in the media expressed outrage that an elected Chief Minister not proved of any allegations could be stopped from getting visas from major countries at the behest of the dynasty! Rajiv Gandhi never faced the court of law. Mr Gupta can protest as much as he wants to but there are clearly double standards at work, not least in the media. I am not going to make any judgments as to whether this is because they belong to the bought media class (better knows as “presstitutes”) or their ideological pretensions coincided with the dynasty but when there was any critique it was measured, restrained and respectful. So please, Shekharji, spare us your sanctimonious defence! The world knows it differently from the record you may wish to paint. Thank God for the Internet and Social Media that the likes of us can have a say and intervene in this elite monologue!

Khan Market has showrooms of expensive brands. In that sense Mr Modi himself belongs to “Khan Market gang”. Doesn’t he patronize expensive brands himself? He possibly thinks he’s a writer, just the other day he was talking on TV about some poem he wrote “just today”, but how many writers can afford to, and more important CHOOSE TO, write with a Mont Blanc pen? If this is not an elitist bent of mind, then what is?

Journalistic Neutrality
Mr Gupta
I read with interest your article on the criticism of media by PM. The problem with the MSM (especially English) is their extreme bias in favour of the Family party no 1 and against Modi.
How can you forget the vilification campaign against the man for 2002 riots, calling him mass murderer, merchant of death etc. and all these without a shred of evidence that he supported the culprits. The parliamentary committee formed by the UPA (Ulta Pulta Alliance) findings on 2002 Gujarat riots :
790 Muslims and 240 Hindus killed in riots and nearly 100 Hindus killed in Police firing. Further within 48 hours the CM (Modi) called for the Army support.
Mr Gupta you’re a senior journalist and you know Gujarat better than an Aam Aadmi like me (not from Gujarat).
Please recall the Gujarat riots in 1969 and 1985. The 1969 riots were used by our terrorist neighbor to ensure we didn’t become a member of OIC and India was humiliated in the inaugural session. And what was the duration of the riots in 1969 & 1985 compared to 2002.
In one of your articles you had quoted that the India Today (Gujarati edition) had to be discontinued soon after the IT published a very strong condemnation of Babri Masjid demolition.
With such a background in Gujarat the kind of reaction after the Godhra incident was not the creation of Mr Modi. Still he was painted as a villain and continued to be so even after SC acquitted him. If you people – (neutral journalists& Lelis) had evidence should you not have furnished the same to the SC and got him convicted. After all it was your favourite, Utterly Pathetic Alliance was in power. You have done a great disservice to the nation by allowing a mass murderer to continue as a CM of Gujarat for 12 years and now as PM for the last 5 years.
Now coming to the other side – you people have been very soft on the Family party no 1 and other SINO (Secularists in Name only) parties. A leader gives some statement that he / she and their party stand for the downtrodden, minorities etc he / she and the party is certified as Secular and no questions (inconvenient) asked.
What is the record of these SINO parties – with respect to the welfare of the minorities or general performance. A few years back Dr Amartya Sen released book on the plight of minorties in WB and lamented on the same. As you are aware WB is one state which is ruled only by the SINO parties. Have any of you neutral journalists raised this issue. You people will only talk about plight of minorities in BJP ruled states, Why?

Coming to the SINO party no 1
(being the GOP they get all the credit – Family party no 1 / SINO party no 1, as they’re the pioneer and guiding light for all the family and SINO parties in the country).
The complaint from people like us is that they’re never subject to serious questioning. For example what your colleague Karan Thapar did in his shows – Devil’s Advocate. He did it with Modi and others like Jayalalitha. Wonder why no such sessions with the family or even the senior leaders of the party.
With Sh RG (Junior) also he’s being handled with kid gloves and that brings me to the most important approach by the English MSM – manipulation of news and manipulation of views.
With RG I’ll tell you about news manipulation.
On the Doklam issue RG has been critical of the Modi Govt. But his response in one of the recent inter-actions during his trip to Europe was baffling, to say the least.
When one of the viewers asked how he’d have handled the Doklam crisis, Mr RG says I don’t have the details of the Doklam issue.
A leader who wants to take up the highest position in the Govt, is so casual about an important issue on relationship with a major neighbouring country and doesn’t want to get to know the details.
It’s all the more baffling for the following reasons:
 He’s a member of the parliamentary committee on External Affairs. This committee had interviewed the External Affairs secretary, Defence Secretary and the Army chief, among others on the Doklam issue. If Mr RG was too busy to attend these meetings, the least he could have done is to go thru the minutes of such meetings, which he’d have definitely been provided with as member of the parliamentary committee.
 Further at the height of the Doklam issue, as per media reports, he met the Chinese envoy. (his party initially denied and then accepted that the meeting took place). So what did Mr RG discuss with the Chinese envoy during his meeting, if not the Doklam issue?
Don’t you think the neutral media should have raised this issue. On the contrary this news never made it to the MSM. Why?
This is just one issue. There are scores of other such issues.
You highlight Modi’s goof-up on cloud cover and rightly so, but what about RG – probably you thought everyone knows about and there are so many that it has become the routine and newspapers like HT’ll have to have a separate section – RG’s Goof-up corner.
Still it’s worth quoting a few :
 Connect all MRI machines for improving health care
 Aisa machine lagaoonga – ek side aaloo doosri sidese Sona
 45000 Crore acres allotted by Modi to his friend.
Despite all this RG’s you-too campaign against Modi is atrocious to say the least. You-too campign on Rafale- he’s trying to tell the world that Modi is also corrupt like almost all the constituents of the Useless Procrastinating Alliance. By repeating this RG feels he’s on level playing field with Modi.
What I’ve quoted above is only the tip of the ice-berg.
Now on manipulation of views. This pertains to your favourite media network – NDTV.
There was an article by LDF leader on their govt’s handling of Sabarimala issue – how secular, ensuring implementation of SC order, women empowerment and the usual stuff.
I had commented on 2 points :
1. If the LDF govt is so nice and ensures that the SC orders are implemented, how come an order of the SC passed in 2017 on a dispute between 2 groups of another community was not implemented. It was submitted to the SC to keep it in abeyance as it would create law & order issue!
2. Ms Gowriamma a senior leader of CPI(M) – who was a member of the Left govt headed by Nampoodripad, was denied becoming CM in 1996 – was it because she was a lady or because she was from the Ezhava community.
To my surprise this was blocked. Why?
Why NDTV doesn’t run a Reality Check or Truth vs Hype show on the 2 royal constituencies. I throw a challenge – if an unbiased team does a survey of these 2 constituencies and compare with any of the constituencies in South India, I’m sure which would be better. Anybody from MSM willing to take up this challenge.
Sorry Mr Gupta it’s got longer than what I intended, but I hope it alteast gives an idea of why not only Modi, many of us Aam Aadmis feel that the English MSM is absolutely and undoubtedly biased.

If, after five years, the unbiased consensus is that much better use could have been made of the sterling mandate, a lot more could have been achieved at home and abroad, the Report Card could have been an impressive document, one missing piece is the relationship with the media. It should have started with the appointment of a Media Advisor, someone of the stature of Shri Shekhar Gupta. Some system of regular, on record briefing like the White House, or even the MEA, does, although it need not have been a daily affair. A group of journalists being present on Air India One, covering print, electronic, national, regional. A formal Vigyan Bhavan style press conference at least two or three times a year. One on one interviews possibly once a month. A way could be found to talk to journalists while visiting different parts of the country. All this interaction would not only get the government’s point of view across – of which there has been a surfeit – but allow for genuine journalistic scrutiny / questioning / grilling. As the dilution of the RTI Act shows, candour and transparency are no longer considered either virtues in themselves or an obligation of accountability in a democracy. All of this would have kept the government on its toes, nimble, striving to improve. What has happened to an immense swathe of the media is a tragedy. Naming names would be invidious, there are compulsions and constraints. But lots of people are doing their dharma, may their tribe soon greatly grow in percentage terms.

Mr Gupta, your are wrong at least mostly! As a regular reader of most papers on line, I can see most of the newspapers (and probably the TV channels too) are pretending to be “democratic” and “liberal”, but generally anti-BJP and particularly anti-Modi. News items as well as most of the opinion columns are extremely pro-Congress and anti-BJP. Under the circumstances how you wrote this column is illuminating my point above !