Stop watching this trial by media, it's the pits

Shouting matches have replaced dignified debate and to a great extent reflect the new Indian audience that wants audio visual blood and gore

By Bikram Vohra

  • Follow us on
  • google-news
  • whatsapp
  • telegram

Published: Tue 30 May 2017, 9:58 PM

Last updated: Wed 31 May 2017, 12:13 AM

I first met Shashi Tharoor at Bahrain airport when he was hoping to touch the stars and be made Secretary General of the UN. Well-known local journalist Meera Ravi was with me and in my capacity as having been the editor of several papers in that region he wanted to share his blueprint to win votes from the Middle East bloc. His late wife Sunanda Pushkar I met occasionally, just to socially say 'hello how are you'.

Ergo, I don't know them (or didn't) very well except for these minor sorties.

But I would never presume to accuse a man of murder in private or public and certainly not as part of a television talk show. I have no idea whether he is a murderer or a saint, but I would not have the misplaced hubris to take a talking part in the theatre of the grotesque and go on TV or radio to give my assessment of a man's guilt. That is why India as a nation has a judicial system which satisfies the adversarial process.

Let them decide, and if they find him guilty, so be it, make him pay the price. But you cannot pillory him on public platforms without being culpable for slander and even worse.

In India, trial by TV has reached a point where young men and women of no great import, except a bullying tenor anchors panel discussions in which serious and valid subjects are set up like coconuts on a shy and everything and everyone is fair game.

If the Indian High Court admonished the leader of the anchor pack Arnab Goswami for pushing the envelope of indiscretion on Monday it did so with some cause. The desire for 2.6 seconds of fame on TV and the desire to be 'someone' is now so overwhelming that the journalism of responsibility and accountability has fallen by the wayside. Shouting matches have replaced dignified debate and to a great extent reflect the new Indian audience that wants audio visual blood and gore - the harder the high profile are hit the more fun it is.

This dangerous precedent that knows little boundaries, and TV as media has become a law and a power unto itself in which the assassination of character is the integral factor. Add to it the hectoring tone and you have a judge, jury and executor in tandem.

The anchor on one show is almost salivating as he goes on with that revolting lynch mob monotone: we are coming for you Mr Tharoor, we are not going to let go.

Who are these audio-visual moral police and when will they be unmasked as performers of non-journalism. This is not journalism. While Arnab continues an attack that probably appeals to his fan club who see this as a crusade and not a horrific miscarriage of due process, the system gets a battering and Indian values of fairplay and justice are badly bruised.

In a line that never ends come ageing socialites, writers, people of peripheral consequence in the arts and sciences and other somebodies from the professional fields simperingly eager to add their two bits to the destruction of Shashi Tharoor not by innuendo but by willing desire.

To an extent this flirtation and more with the camera has created a quasi government and is also a reflection of the new generation of Indians impatient with due process. The demand for instant gratification is now so strong that finding a scapegoat mandated. From cow protectors killing innocent suspects to get a slice of sour limelight, to four star Generals giving interviews out of line to officers chatting up channel reps on LIVE telly, to complainants coming on air to underscore grievances and then finding protection in their disclosures the cascade of negative increases exponentially.

Were we of another generation all wrong? When we were taught that journalists had a solemn duty to safeguard the interests of the public and be watchdog sentinels and not rabid Rottweilers.

The anchors have gone so overboard and the serious plowmen and women of the fourth estate docilely dispatched to the gas chamber of silence that even when they make a squeaky display of protest or caution they are accused of cowardice and an absence of courage. At best, it is seen as pure envy at the success and wealth of this tribe.

A sociologist might see this delight in other's misery as a symptom of the lives of despair most people lead. Television of such genre is an escape from that anonymity and drabness. It is fun to see people in high places getting their comeuppance as TV becomes a troll.

Since malice is now our fuel, nothing is surprising, not even an anchor last week who pompously offers Indians a solution to the odious crime of rape. All men should be confined to their homes after 6 pm. This grand eloquence is received as sound advice...let him lead the pack and stay home.

Media is becoming asinine. Even at its worst, the Jerry Springer genre or Rush Limbaugh did not sink to this level of inanity. The media even during the trials of O.J. Simpson and Oscar Pistorius were circumspect in that they gave scenarios not verdicts. The readers and viewers yelp in pain if you critique these anchors for over extending their brief.

That could possibly be because they mistake dross for substance and actually believe these men and women are displaying badges of red hot courage. India's fascination for this obnoxious broadcasting makes it no better these days than a white lynch mob in Mississippi stringing up a black slave while passing the bottle around.

Like, is there nobody out there who says, one second in the same time frame that Tharoor sues Arnab Goswami, this saviour goes for the jugular.

Nothing personal, purely a professional coincidence.
- Bikram Vohra is a former editor of Khaleej Times


More news from