Why India’s ‘Godi Media’ Spreads Hatred and Fake News
How the leading players in the Indian media, loyal to the governing BJP-RSS combine, have been openly peddling fake news, hate and bigotry targeting religious minorities, especially India’s marginalised and dispossessed Muslims and why they have been getting away with murder all these years
GODI (lapdog), bikau (venal), dalal (agent) and bharkau
(inflammatory). These are some of the labels with which a major section of
India’s mainstream electronic media is identified by a majority of Indians,
especially Muslims and low-caste Hindus, as well as the remaining section of
the national media.
This chunk of the media, which consists of nearly a dozen
24-hour national and regional TV news channels are infamous for biased
reporting and fanning communal hatred in society. Their journalists and anchors
routinely engage in spreading fake news and causing hatred towards the
country’s 200 million Muslim community and Islam. They, in fact, nourish
Islamophobia. As someone rightly remarked, “the Indian media is not doing journalism
but waging a jihad (holy war) against Muslims. It acts like hyenas”.
On one hand, these channels demonstrate a clear bias against
the country’s low-caste Hindus, the poor, and less privileged and weaker
sections of society. On the other, they promote the agenda of the Hindutva
forces including the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), its ruling political
wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its National Democratic Alliance (NDA)
partners in the government, as well as their leaders. They also favour the rich
and powerful and promote their interests.
Prominent among these pro-BJP/RSS news outlets are English
television channels Republic TV, Times Now, India Today and CNN-News18, and
Hindi TV channels Zee News, ABP News, Aaj Tak, India TV, Sudershan News, News
Nation and News24 (India). All the above-mentioned titles fit these channels
for one reason or the other.
The term “godi media” was coined for these channels by Ramon
Magsaysay award winner journalist Ravish Kumar of NDTV. He inherently spoke of
the lap of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and its lapdogs.
Besides these channels, there is much more news and at
least 18 Hindu religious channels in regional languages across India that
promote the agenda of the Hindutva forces to establish a Hindu Rashtra (nation)
and impose Hindi as the national language all over the plural, multi-religious,
multi-cultural and multi-lingual country of 1.37 billion people.
Among the key reasons why these channels and their anchors
so aggressively support the BJP, RSS and Modi, as well as the rich and
powerful, are:
1) An absolute majority of the BJP-led NDA in Parliament and
its government at the centre and in many states, and growing irrelevance and
inconsequentiality of a largely obliterated opposition;
2) Hindu viewership by the BJP’s 100-million-plus primary
members and their massive support for the party and government, and the cult-like following of a “monolithic” Modi;
3) A high TRP achieved because of the majority of Hindu
viewership. (TRP, or target rating point, is a metric used in marketing and
advertising to indicate the percentage of the target audience reached by a
campaign or advertisement through a communication medium);
4) Funding by big business houses, which might be chummy
with a particular party which supports their growth and in return they support
that party;
5) Ownership or stakes of certain BJP and RSS leaders, MPs
and supporters in some of these TV channels;
6) Owners’ political connections or affiliations with the
BJP and RSS;
7) A huge revenue earned from government advertisements
which these channels receive in return for their pro-BJP/RSS/government
policies;
8) Commercial interests of these channels as business
entities rather than as social service non-governmental organisations;
9) Government advisories/directives and restrictions on news
presentation;
10) Fear of being targeted by the government for failure to
toe the line.
Read Also: Why Farmers of Punjab & Haryana Protest?
Godi Media News Channel List
Godi Media Anchors or Godi Media News Anchors
Let’s take a close look at what these Hindutva TV channels are, who owns or runs them and what are their policies.
English networks
Republic TV — This news channel was co-founded and is
majority-owned by a 47-year-old Assamese, Arnab Ranjan Goswami. He is also the
channel’s editor and news anchor. Earlier, he was the editor-in-chief and a
news anchor of Times Now and ET Now.
The channel is infamous for its brazen support for the BJP
and RSS. Arnab is noted for his opinionated reporting in favour of the BJP and
RSS and their Hindutva push across a wide spectrum of situations, including
uncritically reproducing government narratives, avoiding criticism of BJP/RSS
figures, and presenting their political opponents in a negative light. He very
clearly, cleverly and shamelessly shows his bias. No one can beat him in
spreading hatred and fake news.
Arnab is the son of Manoranjan Goswami, an army man who
later joined the BJP, and a maternal nephew of Siddhartha Bhattacharya, who is
a BJP MLA and minister in Assam’s state government.
Launched in 2017, Republic TV was partly funded by, among
others, Asianet News (ARG Outlier Asianet News Private Limited), which was
primarily funded by Rajeev Chandrasekhar, then an independent member of Rajya
Sabha with intricate links with the BJP and vice-chairman of the NDA in Kerala.
Son of an air force officer, Chandrasekhar, however,
resigned from the Asianet board after he officially joined the BJP in April
2018 and was elected as a BJP MP.
Republic TV has been accused of propagating fake news and
running several news items based on the defamatory tweets posted by certain BJP
leaders. It has also been convicted of breaching telecommunication regulatory
and news broadcasting rules, leading to censures and subject to a high-profile
defamation case by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.
The channel is described by experts as a “noisy, chaotic
place where coherent debate without shouting, screaming and name-calling is
impossible”. Its shows have been dubbed a “battle of babble”, judgmental, brash
and hawkish.
It has even been compared to North Korean media for its
extreme pro-government affinity and muzzling of dissent, and America’s Fox News
which practises biased reporting in favour of the Republican Party.
Prominent among these pro-BJP/RSS news outlets are English
television channels Republic TV, Times Now, India Today and CNN-News18, and
Hindi TV channels Zee News, ABP News, Aaj Tak, India TV, Sudershan News, News
Nation and News24 (India). The term “godi media” was coined for these channels
by journalist Ravish Kumar of NDTV. He inherently spoke of the lap of Prime
Minister Narendra Modi’s government and its lapdogs
Times Now – Owned and operated by The Times Group (Bennett,
Coleman and Company Limited), this channel always wants to go with the winning
horse. Previously generally neutral, it has turned pro-BJP since the election
of the Modi government. Anchor and managing editor Navika Kumar froths and
fumes each time someone is critical of the BJP, but loses her interrogating
prowess whenever given the rare chance to interview Modi or Home Minister Amit
Shah.
With Arnab, the channel was ultra-BJP and ultra-nationalist;
after he left it, it has become a lot more ultra-nationalist and outright BJP
supporter. One wonders if this change of stance is because its chairperson,
Indu Jain was awarded Padma Bhushan by the Modi government in 2016.
India Today — Owned by Living India Media Group (India Today
Group), the channel was launched in 2003 as a sister channel of the Hindi news
channel AajTak. It is one of the four news channels from the TV Today Network
stable, the other two being Tez and Delhi AajTak. Aroon Purie is the group’s
chairman.
Top journalists associated with India Today TV channel are
Rajdeep Sardesai and Rahul Kanwal. While Rajdeep is anti-BJP, Rahul has tried
to lean a lot to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Although India Today is a
“fence-sitting” channel, in the last one or two years it has clearly tilted
towards the BJP.
Rahul and his India Today team had severely lobbied against the BJP and its students wing Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP ) over the Shaheen Bagh and Jamia Millia Islamia shooting incidents. He was also quick to point fingers at BJP leader Anurag Thakur and claim that Delhi was sitting on a powder keg.
CNN News 18 is owned by billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance
Industries, considered close to PM Modi. The channel was originally owned by
Network18 Group, which was taken over by Reliance Industries in 2014. The group
owns as many as 65 channels
In an apparent punishment for his “biased” reporting in
favour of AAP, Rahul was sent on a “sabbatical”. Since his return, he seems to
have dropped his determination to follow in the footsteps of Rajdeep and joined
the bandwagon of the godi media anchors.
CNN-News18 — This channel is owned by billionaire Mukesh
Ambani’s Reliance Industries, hence no words are required to explain its bias
against Muslims and the less privileged Hindus. This channel was originally
owned by Network18 Group, which was founded by businessman and investor Raghav
Bahl in 2011 but was taken over by Reliance Industries in 2014.
The group owns as many as 65 channels: one national English the news channel, one national Hindi news channel and 14 regional language news
channels; three national and one regional business news channels, three Hindi
entertainment channels, two Hindi movie channels, two youth channels, four
English and Hindi music channels, four kids English and Hindi entertainment
channels, four factual entertainment channels, two shopping channels, 14
regional entertainment channels, and 10 upcoming regional news and other
channels.
Hindi channels
Among the most biased and anti-Muslim and po-BJP/RSS Hindi
TV news channels and their anchors are:
Zee News — This is one of the several Hindi, English and
vernacular news channels owned by the Essel Group. The channel’s owner, Subhash
Chandra became a Rajya Sabha member with the BJP’s support. Hence, he
definitely needs to give something back to the party by promoting its Hindutva
agenda and launching an anti-Muslim tirade.
Sudhir Chaudhary is the channel’s editor-in-chief and the
anchor of its prime time. He is the Hindi version of Republic TV’s Arnab as he
openly supports the BJP, RSS and Modi. A few years ago, Sudhir was arrested for
allegedly trying to extort one billion Indian rupees (approximately US$23
million) from the Jindal Group. Since then, some people call him Sudhir
“Tihari” because he was lodged in Delhi’s maximum-security Tihar Jail in the
extortion case.
Zee News has been involved in broadcasting fabricated news
stories on multiple occasions. Most recently, it aired an unverified and false
report on the coronavirus and linked it to Tablighi Jamaat, and later expressed
regrets for running the false report.
India TV – This channel was launched by Rajat Sharma and his
wife Ritu Dhawan in 2004 from a studio in FilmCity in Noida, near Delhi. Sharma
is the chairman and editor-in-chief of India TV, a subsidiary of Independent
News Service which was co-founded by the couple in 1997. During his college
days, Sharma was a member of ABVP. He and the late finance minister Arun
Jaitley were very close friends.
India TV is biased, too. It conceals plenty of news that
would make headlines. It doesn’t show fake news but is selective in its
presentation of news according to its political impact. When Sharma was asked a
question about his channel’s integrity in the United States in view of his
friendship with Jaitley, he got infuriated. An otherwise calm person, he was all
irritated and critical of the person who asked it.
According to tech analyst Amol Raj Pandey, when Sharma “was
ousted from his FilmCity office by Century Comm, his new office was completely
funded by the BJP. India TV kept on working as BJP propaganda unit after that.”
He further says the most important point to show this is — he was awarded the Padma
Bhushan for literature, although he never wrote a single literary piece.
However, he wrote fiction for the BJP during its election campaign.
In 2015, Sharma was awarded Padma Bhushan by the BJP
government for his contribution in the field of journalism. Last month, he was
conferred with an honorary doctorate in of literature by the Nainital-based
Kumaun University. All this explains his unstinted support for the BJP and RSS.
AajTak — Owned by Arun Purie’s India Today Group, AajTak has
some of the most poisonous anchors — Anjana Om Kashyap, Rohit Sardana and Sweta
Singh — known for their vitriolic attacks against Muslims and spreading
communal hatred. The trio routinely indulge in Muslim-bashing, while showcasing
a deferential surrender to anything the BJP does.
A former Zee News and News24 journalist, Anjana has been
engaged in aggressively propagating Hindutva-centred ideologies and biased
reporting in favour of the BJP across a variety of situations. She has spread
fake news via her news shows on multiple occasions. A favourite of Modi, she
was one of the few reporters who were allowed an interview by Modi in the
run-up to the 2019 general election. Rohit Sardana tops the list of the worst
journalists sponsored by the right-wing.
ABP News — Owned by Bengali journalist Aveek Sarkar of the
pro-BJP ABP Group, this channel is the reincarnation of Star News. Earlier, ABP
News used to be neutral, but it turned pro-BJP a couple of years ago. This came
after the Modi government objected to criticism of the BJP by some ABP News
journalists including Punya Prasoon Vajpayee and Abhisar Sharma in their Master
Stroke show. After the channel took action against these journalists, Rubika
Liaquat became the commander-in-chief of its news anchors. A former Zee New
anchor, Rubika joined ABP News in 2018. A Muslim, she is disliked by many for
her angry rhetoric against Muslim leaders called by the channel for debates on
TV.
Sudarshan News — This channel disseminates anti-Muslim
content and manufactures fake news with communal overtones, earning it titles
such as “bigot” and “dangerous”.
Its chairman, Suresh Chavhanke, was a long-term RSS
volunteer and associated with ABVP. He asserts practising ideology-driven
journalism and prefers that the news programmes over his channel be viewed as
opinionated campaigns.
In April 2017, he was arrested for inciting communal hatred
through multiple episodes of a flagship programme. Recently, Jharkhand Chief
Minister Hemant Soren ordered state police to take action against Chavhanke for
his communal hate speeches.
News Nation –– Owned by News Nation Network Pvt Ltd, this the channel’s consulting editor Deepak Chaurasia has an inclination towards the BJP
and is known as a puppet of Modi. Portuguese politician and political scientist
Bruno Macaes compared Chaurasia’s journalism to Fox News, which has often been
criticised for being extremely vocal in its support of the Republicans and
President Donald Trump.
India 24 (India) — Owned by B.A.G. Films and Media Limited,
this channel is promoted by Anuradha Prasad, sister of BJP minister Ravi
Shankar Prasad, along with her husband, Congress politician Rajeev Shukla. Its
anchor Amish Devgan has modelled himself on Republic TV’s Arnab and routinely
indulges in Muslim-bashing.
All the above channels are pro-BJP because they need government advertisements for revenue to operate. And most of their anchors and journalists are enamoured by Modi’s “superman image ” created by his online fans. As they aren’t bold enough to go against this fan club fearing trolling and reprisals, they find it easy to ride with the wind.
In this media environment, can Muslims expect to be heard and their case to be pleaded by these biased media houses? They have to either put up with this or mull over-focusing on creating their own media giants. There’s no dearth of financial and other resources, technical expertise and journalistic talent in the community. All that is needed are sincerity, will and resolve to start own TV news channels.
Read Also: Punjab & Haryana Govts will strict on Stubble Burning
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment