Why Rajdeep Sardesai is deeply disappointed with Indian TV journalism

He’s one of the most followed and revered TV journalists in India and his verdict is perhaps the most scathing. Rajdeep Sardesai, the name once synonymous with India’s television news revolution, says that the TV news is out to devour Indian journalism now, offering sensationalism over sense, and news that isn’t strictly in public interest but in the mad pursuit of TRPs.

Sardesai delivered the Venkatesh Chapalgaonkar Memorial Lecture in Pune on Saturday last, in honour of the late Marathi journalist with whom Sardesai didn’t have a chance to work himself. However, in the lecture, Sardesai said he’s not sure anymore if Chapalgaonkar would have found TV journalism today worth his calling at all.

On Chapalgaonkar, Sardesai said:

“What stands out are his basic commitment to the profession: honesty, integrity, and a passion for news. In normal times, these would be seen as the basic attributes to be a journalist. These, however, my friends, are not normal times: honesty was once a qualification to be a journalist. Today, intellectual and financial dishonesty is probably a qualification for some to be a journalist. Sense has been replaced by sensation, news by noise, credibility by chaos. This is probably more true of television than print.”

He added:

“In fact, I don’t know how journalists like Venkatesh would see the profession today: would they be able to survive and flourish in a profession where news is no longer necessarily about what is in the public interest, but about what will give ratings, where news is no longer about facts but about opinion, where studio debates matter more than stories from the ground, where a reporter is often only a bite gatherer or a guest coordinator.”

There’s a deep regret and disappointment, which is apparent in Sardesai’s lament for the dying throes of true journalism in Indian television media. Sardesai, being one of the pioneers of the TV media revolution, breaking off from the staid, heavy-handed and preachy tone of the Doordarshan to the jostling, rambunctious and piercing gaze of the new private TV cameras and their swashbuckling, fearless editors, is clearly nostalgic for those days.

As Sardesai breaks down the “crisis in television news journalism”, here are the key issues he mentions in his wonderfully nuanced and deeply disenchanted talk.

‘Ravana school of journalism’

Sardesai says:

“We are now in an age of what I call the ‘Ravana’ school of journalism: one day we will have 100 heads peeping out of a television set, each one shouting and arguing with each other even as the anchor shouts the loudest.”

This is an accurate diagnosis of what’s ailing primetime TV news. Instead of presenting hard-hitting fact-based reportage, or asking questions based on the stories that have been painstakingly put together to take the government to task, we get talking heads ranting from 10 different boxes from the TV screens, and stories are determined by what’s trending on social media, most of which are paid, or carefully organised trends, anyway.

Yogi over Kishori Amonkar

It’s with heartbreaking helplessness that Sardesai mentions the Yogi-over-Kishori Amonkar quagmire in news media. In the mad rush for ratings, the living legends are forgotten even in their deaths, while communal rabble-rousers, newfound poster boys of Hindutva brigade, hog the TV time.

Sardesai says:

“We exist in a news ecosystem where a Yogi Adityanath sells, which is why we track him 24x7 as if he is a pied piper of Lucknow, but will not even have space for a decent obituary on someone who was a living legend. Of course, the Yogi makes news as a public figure, but do we need to monitor his bowel movements with a hawk eye?”

But what Sardesai didn’t mention, and something even he’s guilty of, is the “Finance Bill, 2017 versus Yogi Adityanath” clash that unfolded on March 21-22 of this year. With one of the gravest of legislations that were bulldozed through Parliament, that was the biggest test of India’s TV media in which it failed absolutely and utterly.

Jallikattu versus skull protest

Another interesting example that Sardesai provides us is the difference between the high-octane, 24x7 coverage of the Jallikattu agitations in Chennai’s Marina beach compared to the next to nil space given to the skull protesters of Tamil Nadu.

While the weeks-long protest of the Jallikattu saw an ordinance to overturn even the Supreme Court order, and eventually the controversial sport was unbanned over heated discussions and round-the-clock reportage from the spot, where is the TV time for the drought-ravaged, debt-ridden farmers of Tamil Nadu – the very same state that got the maximum coverage upstaging Delhi for days at end?

That’s the irony. Jallikattu’s glamorous ability to rouse passions and its spectacular impact on TRPs got the sanctions from the TV media owners and news editors, who decided Chennai was going to be the prime story. This was also true during Jayalalithaa’s death and funeral, as well as during the OPS-Sasikala battle for the Tamil Nadu CM’s throne.

Yet, the fact remains that sensation over sense got precedence at these instances, even as the state battles with one of the worst ever climate failure, compounded by a debt-crisis spiraling out of control, forcing many helpless farmers to take their own lives.

Drama over content

Sardesai says:

“For the last one month, farmers from Tamil Nadu have been in the national capital, agitating in Jantar Mantar for their farm loans to be waived off. They have even brought the skulls, or replicas of the skulls, of their fellow farmers who have committed suicide, in the hope that someone will take notice of their plight. The skulls of farmers made for good dramatic pictures, which is why the story was finally covered by the national TV media for at least one day. Otherwise, like so many anonymous kisans who are committing suicide across the country, the plight of these farmers would have been easily forgotten. After all, the kisan is just a face in the crowd and anonymity has no place in our star-struck lives.”

It is with great distress that Sardesai says that the onus to direct TV media’s attention towards the plight of the ordinary Indians is now on the latter, as the burden of self-dramatisation falls squarely on those who are already under extreme duress.

Sardesai’s diagnosis is spot on:

“TV today is primarily about drama. If you need a story to make national headlines, you need to have sufficient dramatic quotient.”

He adds:

“In December 2015, there was massive flooding in Chennai, half the city was under water, yet the story barely made it to the national headlines. I was in Chennai to report the story and was accosted by angry people who said to me: “Why did it take you so long to report our story, do we not matter to you?” Their anger was justified. If there is minor flooding in Delhi or Gurgaon, it becomes instant breaking news. If even the drain outside the head office of most news channels in Noida begins to overflow, it could become a national headline. In Chennai, it literally required the water to reach the wall of Jayalalithaa’s house in Poes Garden for us to wake up to the crisis affecting the citizens of one of the country’s largest cities.”

Neglecting the Northeast

Whether it’s floods in Assam, economic blockade in Manipur, or any other crisis, the national media hardly ever wakes up to its urgency.

Sardesai says, “Are we then surprised that so many people in the Northeast feel a sense of alienation from the national mainstream? I call it the ‘tyranny of distance’: it effectively means that the further you are from the national capital, the less likely your story will be told.”

Sardesai gives a very tragic example, in which protesters in Manipur had to resort to an extreme step in order to make the story dramatic enough for national media coverage.

“In August 2015, I was in Manipur to address journalists in Imphal. I was met there by a delegation of tribal groups who had been agitating over the killing of tribal protestors as part of an ongoing agitation for greater tribal rights. Imphal and large parts of Manipur, in fact, were under curfew at the time: the price of an LPG gas cylinder was over Rs 2,000 in the black market and petrol was selling at more than Rs 400 a litre. Schools had been closed for months. And yet, the story had not registered in the national media. What do we do, the protestors asked me. My suggestion to them was: you need to do something dramatic to make your voice heard, else no one will listen to you. I returned to Delhi. Two days later, I was told that the home of a minister in Manipur had been set on fire. I got a call from a protestor: “Sir, now that a minister’s house has been set on fire in the protests, will you cover our story at least now?” I didn’t know what to say, I was shocked, alarmed and traumatised.”

Social media dependence

Another important factor that Sardesai stressed on what the caustic and corrosive dependence that mainstream media – both TV and print – has developed on issues “trending” on Twitter and Facebook, becoming fact-free, loosely opinion-driven agendas of those with vested interests.

From a platform to increase and expand democratic information sharing, social media has become a platform for respective propaganda, or an echo-chamber where lies out-perform truths.

Sardesai says:

“Sadly, instead of democratising public opinion, I am sorry to report that a large part of social media has only poisoned the news ecosystem even further. Twitter, for example, is often used to spread lies, disinformation, hate and propaganda: we now have armies of political operatives who will use the medium to target each other and confuse and corrupt the news environment. Between Bhakts, Congressis and appatards, between Pappu, Feku and Farjiwal, social media has only coarsened the public debate. Abuse is now seen as a badge of honour, defamatory statements are seen as par for the course.”

PM Modi’s following of SM abuse

​Sardesai doesn’t beat about the bush and frankly laments the fact that some of the worst social media abusers, online and offline, have been rewarded by a Twitter follow by none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Sardesai says:

“I was shocked to learn that Prime Minister Narendra Modi actually held a tea reception for some of his supporters on Twitter, supporters whose sole task it is to ‘take down’ in the most abusive terms anyone who is critical of the government. One of these Twitter trolls, who even physically attacked lawyer Prashant Bhushan in his chamber, is now a BJP spokesperson. What can be more shameful? But then, why are we surprised? The prime minister targets journalists who may be critical as ‘news traders’, one of his ministers calls us ‘presstitutes’ and the Delhi chief minister calls us dalals. The Congress, too, has joined the bandwagon: those who were critical of their leader Rahul Gandhi after the recent UP election defeat were accused of being ‘paid media’.”

How SM/MSM fan religious extremism

Sardesai is also spot on saying the hunt for TRPs or trends or clicks/shares has pushed the media, particularly TV media, to inane lengths in pursuit of sensationalism, also known as bite journalism. The voices that are more caustic, that are either claiming unequivocal Hindu supremacy or Muslim victimhood, are given prominence in the TV boxing matches. Moderate voices, who make important contributions in Parliament and outside of it, are drowned out in the hunt for spectacle and dangerous titillation.

Sardesai says:

“Swamy and Owaisi are the new prime time warriors: one who speaks the language of Hindu majoritarianism, the other the language of Islamic victimhood. Since they are good orators, they are a made-for-TV couple. But do they really represent the silent majority? Or are they simply playing a role that TV’s format has created for them?”

Polarising the debate

Also interesting is Sardesai’s observation that only extremely polarised opinions get prominence on TV, not only from the talking heads but also from news anchors, whose TRPs are directly dependent of the fanning of the basest of emotions. Hence, the perpetual fronting of the Indian Army, but backtracking when the can of worms within the Army gets partially opened at times.

On Kashmir, Sardesai says:

“Nowhere is the danger of this more apparent than in the narrative on Kashmir. In the contemporary TV format, Kashmir is now about stone-pelters versus Army, separatists versus “true” Indians. As a result, we are no longer willing to explore the nuanced complexity of the situation in the Valley: either you tell the story of the Army jawan who is under pressure to ensure law and order in the Valley, or tell the story of a young boy who has lost his eye because of a pellet gun. If you tell the former, then you are a true nationalist, desh bhakt journalist. If you tell the story of the stone-pelter, then you must be anti-national. What if I tell both stories, my friends?”

The nationalist versus anti-national black-and-white bipolar disorder is what afflicts Indian TV journalism now. The good old days of balanced, fact-driven questioning have given away to hysterical “patriot games”, in which a war of TRP thrones and paranoia over national security have offset simple, piercing journalism. These are the days when liberalism, that hallmark of unity in diversity, is itself a bad word.

Journalists to blame

Sardesai says that the ultimate responsibility for journalism’s great downward spiral is with the journalists themselves, particularly the owners and big editors who define and shape the newsroom in their image.  

Sardesai says:

“We have let ourselves down, and by we, I mainly blame those at the top of the profession. It is the editor who is expected to set the moral compass for a news network, to mentor young journalists, to separate the right from the wrong, to be a gatekeeper of the news, to tell truth to power, to hold those in public life accountable. Sadly, many editors are now news managers, not valued for their editorial skills but for their networking ability. It is proximity to power that matters more than journalistic independence. There are editors who have been caught on camera seeking bribes, sent to jail as a result, and yet, now give sermons to the nation from TV studios on morality. Others call themselves independent, but do not think twice before taking money from political figures to set up their channels.”

Sardesai is unsparing when he calls the present-day TV news editors as news managers, because “access is the key”. Whoever said that access journalism has died under Modi government? If anything, it has only intensified, with a tightly-kept lid on everything really happening in the corridors of power, while a swarm of disinformation engulfs the media ecosystem, distracting and deflecting us from the core issues.

But Sardesai says only journalists themselves can fix this deep moral and ethical crisis within TV journalism now.

“What about us as editors? The fact is, rather than being curious at all times, looking for the next big story, we as editors and anchors are tempted to play god, to believe that we alone know what the nation wants to know: we want to play judge, jury and executioner. We are economical with the truth, but full of ourselves. It is our arrogance that has let us down when humility is what we should be striving for.”

Finding the journalistic spine

Sardesai ends with a cautionary note, saying that the real spine is shown not only when we stand up to national anthem, but when we stand up the powers that be, asking tough questions, the way Venkatesh Chapalgaonkar and his ilk did, everyday.

“Today, when we should rediscover our spine, we find that there is no backbone left. We have let down Venkatesh and thousands of honest journalists like him. The most fitting tribute to his memory would be for us to, at least, learn to stand up straight, not only when the national anthem is played but when we are faced with the rapid erosion in our credibility.”

Also read: Why Rajdeep Sardesai said BJP may win UP elections 2017

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