Reflections of Passions

Geeta Seshu, Columnist, The Hoot In subsequent hearings, Google India maintained that it was not a service provider but was a subsidiary of Google Inc. Moreover, it was a separate entity distinct from its holding US-based firm. Advocate Rohatgi agreed that articles that may seem objectionable do keep cropping up on the Internet. "There are probably billions of articles and it would be difficult to filter them all. But, if you do have a grievance, under the amended Information Technology Act, 2000, there was a procedure for registering abuse and making a complaint to all social networking sites about the matter that may be "objectionable", he felt. "Some solution can be found but this remedy is far worse than the disease," he said, adding that he had never seen any government so proactive on any issue. Google India, he had explained to the court, was only a subsidiary and did not have the werewithal to provide filters or block content or sites. In crimina...

Geeta Seshu Columnist, The Hoot  A whole host of issues, from the definition of "offensive" content, the procedures to take down content deemed offensive and the responsibilities and jurisdiction of intermediaries are all at stake in the ongoing case against Internet Service Providers (ISPs) Google and Facebook. However, the crucial issue is how exactly a civilized society must tackle content that is seen to be "objectionable" at sites that poke fun at holy cows (political leaders included) and utterances or material that seem to be derogatory to different religions or castes or mischievous and defamatory, violative of privacy or hate-filled content that incites violence.  Print media has had a long history of battles over content that is problematic, with the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression being tested at every turn. In broadcast media, the struggle over self-regulation by the broadcast industry is still an open one, as the Indian gove...

Markandey Katju, Chairman, Press Council of India Bol ki labh azaad hain tere bol zabaan ab tak teri hain ( Speak out for your lips are free, Speak out for your tongue is still yours)                                   --Faiz Ahmed Faiz Recently, a journalist asked me about my opinion on journalists in India. Instead of asking me, I told her, she should ask people selected at random the same question without disclosing that she herself was a member of the tribe. The truth is, the majority of opinions may not be very palatable to journalists. In a panel discussion on television, the senior journalist Madhu Kishwar said that journalists in the country are "bribable" and "manipulable" through freebies involving land, accommodation, etc. I don't agree entirely with Madhu. There are many honourable journalists doing th...

Padmaja Shaw, Columnist, The Hoot  The year drawing to a close should be declared the Year of Free Speech, not just in India but across the world. The world has witnessed people's movement for democratic rights on an unprecedented scale. Starting with the elections in Iran, through Tahrir Square in Egypt, to the "Occupy" movements all over the world, individuals have chosen to wrench back the initiative from the oppressive governments and predatory corporations and they have done this primarily through those genuine marketplaces of ideas: the social networking sites. A few years ago, at any conference on media, Indians could be justly self-righteous for the apparent freedom we enjoyed for free speech even as in our neighbourhood as every nation-state was still grappling with dictatorial/theocratic governments. Indian democracy may well have been an inspiration for some of the uprisings in the world.  Then, in the last quarter of this year, two influential voices ...

Padmaja Shaw, Columnist, The Hoot  There is also a relentless process of mergers and acquisitions in the media industry which is resulting in large corporations straddling print, television, radio and new media and consolidating further. In the latest news about such mergers the multi-national corporations are making inroads into the regional space rapidly. So far, even though the nature of ownership, working conditions of the employees and the content left much to be desired, ownership in the regional space was dispersed. Beginning with the acquisition of Asianet in Malayalam, this process is picking up pace.  Without going into the much-debated issue of media monopolies and their implications for democracies, it is interesting to see that there have been no regulatory growls from either the government or other media entities such as the Press Council of India on these kind of issues. What role does the Competition Commission of India have in such mergers and acquisit...

Anup Kumar, Columnist, The Hoot While there are no special privileges granted to journalists that are different from those enjoyed by ordinary citizens. The right of free speech and freedom of the press come from the same Article 19 (1A) of the Constitution. From a strict constitutionalist perspective every citizen, including those who hold power, is a potential journalist--an ideal that has come to its fruition with blogs and the social media. But it would be also naive to suggest that the news media do not have power, like the government, rather they have immense power to shape public opinion, which is a powerful thing. However, as the power of the news media does not come from exclusive privileges and discretionary provisions, regulating the media would also mean regulating the liberties guaranteed to the citizens by the constitution.  Importantly, the company laws already regulate the corporations that own the news organizations and journalists come under the purview of...

Anup Kumar, Columnist, The Hoot   Contemporary journalism is significantly different from the past when very few could read and most of the journalism was produced for and by the highly educated class. Although no specific empirical data on news consumption is available for India, yet the size of the Indian public sphere does suggest that an overwhelming part of the population is watching and reading the news on a daily basis. The news media's main role is to give fact-based information, which does not necessarily require great intellectual abilities. I think majority of journalists do not have the desire to be intellectuals, which is perhaps why they have chosen this profession. Most of the consumers of the news have basic education and in some cases, they are not even literate. In order to stand true to the democratic credentials, journalists working for thousands of newspapers and hundreds of news television channels have to produce and present news taking into consideratio...

Anup Kumar Columnist, The Hoot Is the freedom of the press under threat in India? Not really. Some would argue that it cannot be a mere coincidence that the calls for stricter regulation of the media are coming at a time when the news media have been highlighting corruption in the government such as the 2G Scam and the graft in the organizing of the Commonwealth Games. The media advocacy, often questioned by some, for the movement led by Anna Hazare against corruption has also attracted criticism from the ruling party. Morever, it seems that the criticism of the government on social media is also making some in the government uncomfortable. A few days ago, Kapil Sibal, the minister for Communication and Information Technology, called for stricter regulation of the chatter on social media sites to check hate speech and protect national security. Earlier, Justice Markandey Katju, the chairperson of the Press Council of India, in his widely reported interview with Karan Thapar and...

Sevanti Ninan Columnist, The Hindu  There is no denying that 2011 has been a noisy year. It brought us Justice Markandey Katju, who alarmed, appalled and amused us in turn. To begin with, he was appointed as the Chairperson of the Press Council of India in the last quarter of the year and has been making himself heard ever since. His latest views, put out last week, relate to Internet offences. Before and after him, TV anchors have harangued and heckled and now it is Kapil Sibal's turn to utter first and ponder later. What do we get in response to his call for proactive screening of the Internet? More noise, unsurprisingly. A rising crescendo of free-spirited protests, though some of the offences can hardly be defended.  The noise has been at one level and succeeded at hogging attention while the action has been at another level. Two murders of journalists, 14 attacks on them over the year in different parts of the country, one Home Ministry circular asking for withdrawa...

Arun Jaitley The chairman of the Press Council of India, Justice Markandey Katju, lost little time after his appointment to make known his contemptuous views about the Indian media. The obvious danger of talking out of turn in order to crusading is that one ceases to be objective. You only have to tabulate the weak points of the target institution and emerge as a reformist yourself.  While doing so Katju overlooked the fact that despite many weaknesses, the Indian media is a key protector of our democracy and does not need to be regulated. The argument that every institution in a democracy needs to be regulated is not a valid one. It is this mindset that produced the Indian Emergency of the mid-1970s. Has anyone dared to suggest that the Supreme Court is unregulated and hence needs to be regulated? This "control" psyche is destructive of democracy. The media, both print and electronic, is today judged by the readers and viewers. It is for this reason that some newspape...

Sevanti Ninan The Hindu Last fortnight, a new documentary screened in Delhi had a packed hall in thrall. Called "Brokering News", it glided effortlessly through a succession of sound bytes and TV news clips to suggest a range of unethical practices prevalent in the media. The existence of election-time paid news, of complicity between stock market experts and the TV channels that feature their tips, of cosy deals that enable each newly released film to get varying degrees of prime time pre-release exposure, of increasingly political ownership of channels, of seductions to journalists, abundant "reviews" of new gadgets and automobiles and so on. This documentary has been made by Umesh Aggarwal for the Public Service Broadcasting Trust and will be shown on Doordarshan, which will doubtless be delighted to air it. It was a brisk film built largely on circumstantial evidence and assertions of a general kind. Business journalist Sucheta Dalal saying for instance that: ...

Simon Jenkins The Guardian Britain has gone mad, or at least the tiny patch of Britain round Westminster. The Pentagon would call it a cluster-fuck , an all embracing, uncontrollable chain reaction that appears unable to cease. The new ecstasy theorists call it "whooshing" when reason loses out to passion and thought to imagination. As after the death of Princess Diana, every politician and commentator cried: "The world will never be the same again." The world usually is. On Tuesday, Rupert Murdoch and his son were summoned before Parliament and gave an eerie performance as an ageing father who had vaguely heard his son had done something regrettable in the family woodshed. Meanwhile British Prime Minister David Cameron was forced to return from a foreign trip, like a tottering dictator called home by the politburo. The country's top policeman and top counter-terrorism cop were forced into resignation. Two government judicial inquiries have been set up. Two Comm...

Why can't you be like her? You want me to dye my hair flaming red? No darling, not like Rebekah Brooks, but like Rupert Murdoch's wife Wendi Deng. You want me to be 38 years younger than you? But you're just 40 years old yourself? Oof! All I'm saying is that you've never defended me like Wendi defended her husband on Tuesday when she sprung to action and landed a blow on the foam pie attacker. But I come to your defence! Remember that day when you banged against the car in front... Yes, dear, you did shout at the driver but maybe you could given the chap a left hook. But unlike Wendi, I never played volleyball. Now you're just looking for excuses. Never mind. I shouldn't say anything. Don't be silly. You must be just stressing over your bhujiya empire going through some problems. Yes, that must be it. Sorry. So can we now watch that scene again from Kill Bill Volume 1 where Lucy Liu as the vicious gang leader O-Ren Ishii chops the head off a dissenting m...

Barkha Dutt For those of us who still believe in the political process and the idea of India, these are lonely times. On one hand, sundry and smarmy interlopers have hijacked the political discourse and trivialized it with their hyperventilation. But on the other side, the absolute surrender of the robust, honest leadership by the government--and the fact that it appears to have totally lost its way--has thrown open the highway for freelancers and self-styled Robin Hood figures. The problem now is that no matter who you hitch a ride with, you end up in a place that isn't your choosing. So yes, while we can--and do--cite the huge voter turnouts in the recent Assembly elections to make the point that the sweeping anti-politician sentiment is still an elitist, urban phenomenon, the bare truth is that the UPA has not done anything to restore the country's sense of confidence. So, if you an Anna Hazare acolyte and you are exasperated by the lethargy of this political leadership, who...

Janine Gibson The Guardian Since she was made editor of the News of The World 11 years ago, there has been almost no briefing against Rebekah Brooks. Before she got the big job there were some attempts to dismiss by reducing her to ambitious woman cliches but afterwards the shutters came down. She was tight with everyone, everyone wanted her favours and she circled every administration, every agent, every rising star, every imploding career. That is, until Thursday (14th July 2011), when her close friend Elisabeth Murdoch was quoted telling friends that Rebekah had "fucked the company". Rebekah Wade, as she then was, was Elisabeth's friend from the moment she arrived in London. They holidayed, worked, played and networked for more than a decade. News International is an empire built on personal loyalty and clannish defiance. As an indication that it was all over, it was brutally efficient. By now plenty has been written on Rebekah Brooks, her hair, her hippie-like charm a...

Sevanti Ninan The Hindu The last fortnight has been a fresh learning in why media morality and media power have become progressively incompatible. It has seen a reinvoking of the famous Citizen Kane fable. Two media scandals unfolded in different parts of the world--here a Minister resigned after the Central Bureau of Investigation said they had enough evidence on how he had used his office to help his family's media empire. In London, the Murdochs, father and son, tried hard to contain the damage after their hugely successful tabloid News of The World stood accused of sustained criminal activity--hacking private telephone records. They shut down the newspaper. Can morality afford to matter for a big-stakes media player? You do not become really big, influential and seriously wealthy by being a stickler for rules and regulations. At least not in a business like media where tickling the popular imagination is your ticket to success and the bigger your canvas and the more daring the ...

Much has been written about the inevitable and impending demise of the newspaper, " News of The World" , especially in the West. None of those oft-repeated reasons for going out of business will, however, apply when the 168 year old News of The World shut down after its last edition on July 10th. A weekly tabloid whose infamy and fortune have always depended on its muck-raking skills, the Britain based newspaper sold 2.6 million copies every week and was generally regarded to be the parent company News Corporation's most profitable venture. The end of what was undoubtedly a dream run, given these tight times, came from the newspaper's rapacity for bolder, raunchier scoops that led its journalists to outsource the hacking of voicemail messages on mobile phones to a private investigator. The revelations of the identity of these targets shocked all: a teenage girl who was murdered in 2002, relatives of British servicemen killed in Afghanistan and Iraq and survivors of th...

Rajdeep Sardesai Editor-in-chief, CNN-IBN 24 x 7 media is an amoral beast and the camera is Shiva's third eye. It sees the positive and the negative and it doesn't blink; it is indeed a double-edged weapon. Television magnifies sound and images, but it can also be used to completely distort them. An artful government will recognize the power of the media, but will harness it to its advantage. An under-confident government will allow the media to dictate the agenda, petrified by the media's power and then merely react to it. The UPA-II is a prime example of what happens when television becomes the Pied Piper and the government then desperately plays to catch up. Ubiquitous TV images will show up an absentee government in high definition every day. In recent weeks, as the images of Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazare have played out relentlessly across television screens, the government has appeared to panic. Four cabinet ministers rushed to the Indira Gandhi International Airport, N...

Rajdeep Sardesai Editor-in-chief, CNN-IBN We live in the age of institutionalized corruption. From politicians to judges, from senior bureaucrats to policemen, from corporate tycoons to petty officials, everyone it seems has a price. As journalists, our profession demands that we enquire, interrogate and expose corruption. So, when an A. Raja resigns we rejoice that the resignation came about due to media pressure. When an infotech czar is punished we're hopeful of improved standards of governance. But what happens when the camera turns inwards, when news itself has a price tag attached to it? A corrupt politician can be jailed, so can a business leader. A former chief minister can resign, a bureaucrat can be tried under the prevention of corruption act. But what happens to the editor and the correspondent who brazenly endorses cash for news? The recent controversy about "paid news" since the Niira Radia tapes became public that is undermining the very foundation of journ...