Opinion
The Importance of Being
Earnest Opinion Makers
There was a
time when being earnest or sincere was rated as a virtue and it did not
matter very much whether this came with attendant rewards, something akin
to the Bhagvad Gita’s dictum of Karmaniyevadhikaraste mam phaleshu
kadachana… the age-old message of doing one’s duty for its own sake
and never for its fruits. But the times they have-a-changed and what has
become of paramount importance is that of becoming an opinion-maker and an
earnest one at that!
Who but an opinion-maker could influence Britain’s Tony Blair into doing a
complete volte-face with regard to a referendum on the European
Union? After repeatedly saying that he was not for it, Tony has now
suddenly called for a vote on the proposed constitution. And all because
of the clout of one man, Rupert Murdoch, who has the power to influence
opinion through his widely-circulated British newspapers, The Times
and The Sun, as also his stake in Sky TV. Murdoch who, for
his own reasons, has not favored the idea of a united Europe, made it
known in a recent television interview, that Blair could not take for
granted the support from his media conglomerate and that it was capable of
shifting its loyalties to the Conservative party, if the government did
not go along with it. The Sun, which famously took credit for the
Labour party’s landslide victory in the 1997 elections, has been
continuously running a campaign in support of the referendum at the behest
of one man, the Euro-sceptic, Murdoch, who earnestly used his influence to
change the opinion of the British government on an issue of paramount
importance to the whole of Europe.
Closer home, there are many such opinion makers and media barons, who have
influenced, and continue to influence, public opinion through the channels
under their control. The most recent examples of these are the Exit Polls
that have been made public after the first phase of polling. Five
different surveys have come up from five different media sources, leading
the political parties to ask for a ban on these polls, expressing the fear
that these motivated results might influence the next round of voting. The
most interesting suggestion came from a newspaper reader who suggested
that all these media agencies pool their resources to get the most
accurate results in the future!
Putting aside the facetiousness, the issue at stake here is that of the
manipulation of public opinion. With 24-hour news channels holding sway,
more and more people are glued to their television sets (or did someone
wisely name it the idiot-box?!), resulting in them swallowing a lot of the
stuff that is dished out, without really verifying whether there could be
another side to the whole story conveyed so convincingly over one’s
favorite channel.
The Iraq War
revealed to the world the concept of embedded journalism, where
popular opinion was influenced by what the occupying forces wanted to put
out for public consumption. Little wonder then that the public favorite's
alternative became the Al-Jazeera channel, which showed it like it
was, with none of the sanitizing that the American media indulged in.
Contrary to belief, the popularity of this channel has extended beyond the
Arab world to include the West, and many in India have also asked their
cable operators to make this option available. In the case of the present
insurgency in Iraq, it is Al-Jazeera and the work of independent
journalists like Rahul Mahajan, with his dispatches titled Empire Notes,
who are giving the lie to what the American administration would like the
rest of the world to believe.
With the media in the grip of big advertisers and business barons (this is
as true for India as it is for America), it is they who have the power to
make opinions, and even decide if a certain piece of news should be kept
out, if detrimental to the interest of its supporter or owner. One example
of this was one newspaper in Bangalore that kept away from reporting on
the Cauvery riots, which were a disastrous consequence of the then Chief
Minister’s faulty decision-making. The reason they did so was because this
CM had wisely married off his daughter to one of the owners of this
newspaper. A marriage of convenience and one of great benefit to both the
CM and the newspaper!
In more recent times, some examples of big-business backed media are Vijay
Mallya’s UB Group-owned newspaper, The Asian Age (this was the
paper in which the Bofors story was resurrected, just after Rahul Gandhi
made his bid for a seat in Amethi), and the Jain-controlled Times of
India group. Stories are rife about how some newspapers charge a fee
to put in a plug in the form of a lead article in the editorial page of a
newspaper. As this area is sacrosanct and most readers lay great store by
it, this is the most blatant misuse of a respected area.
What could be the alternative? Public service broadcasting, as is the case
with the BBC? But even the Beebs has taken a beating after
what happened with the Kelly affair, and there is every possibility that
Tony Blair may press his advantage when the administration of the BBC
comes up for review. The internet is probably an up and coming option
where writers can write fearlessly without the editor’s ill-motivated
pencil or the publisher’s business interest coming in the way of an
earnest, honest piece of writing!
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