PaRCha - JNU - All Organisations - 2011 ID-51893
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-.
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To Mark ofthe Release ofthe book #Colour ofGratituc!e is Green" authore~ by former JNVSV President and noted .
journalist Amit Sengupta .
. . .
JOin .
Public Meeting .
.
PEOPLE'~ IAOVEtAENT&. .
1¥.\EO>'llA AND Tl\iE .
POLITIC& OF \HOPE .
.
Prof. Abhijit Pathak .
.
CSSS, JNU .
.
A111it Sengupta .
former JNUSU President(1989-90),.
.
15.2.1o· Godavari Mess 9.30pm .
notedJournalist, presently with Hard News .
The Iraq War waged by US-UK military forces introduced the concept of the 'embedded' reporter to the world. These reporters, who accompanied the US Army at every stage of the war, gave the Pentagon in Washington extraordinary control of war reports back home, and also allowed the military to quietly contain those journalists who wanted to report the war independently. A direct result of this embedded journalism: the myth of the 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' went on unchallenged for a long time in the mainstream US media. Civilian deaths, injuries and the chaos in the streets were carefully swept under the carpet, and the American people were told that the 'grateful' Iraqis really saw the invaders as their 'messiahs'! .
Embedded journalism might not exist in the same crude form in India. But the fact of the matter is that almost all the major newspapers and television channels are owned and controlled by huge corporate houses and more often than not function as th~ unofficial mouthpieces ofthe powers-that-be -whether it is the government and various state agencies or corporate houses. The media coverage of Parliament House attack in December 2001 (an event which even after so many years of 'investigation' raises more questions than answers) was ample proof of this. Within hours of the attack, all media channels and newspapers were faithfully parroting the Delhi Police's version of the event as 'incontrovertible evidence'. For instance. with a shameful disregard for facts or for unbiased reporting. DU Prof. SAR Geelani was subject to a public trial and immediately convicted by the media as a dreaded 'terrorist'. It took a long and sustained campaign to prove that there was not a scrap of evidence against Prof. Geelani (who was subsequently released). Prof. Geelani's ordeal is no exception. Almost immediately after every bomb blast, the media enthusiastically nails the 'culprits', who often tum out to be completely innocent. .
.
: The mainstream media's coverage of people's movements against displacement and corporate land grab, or of state-sponsored terror campaigns like the Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh similarly reeks of a shameful bias. Take for instance the 'Operation Green Hunt'-the recent military offensive launched by the UPA government on the tribals living in the mineral-rich areas of the country. This offensive comes close on the heels of similar (and still continuing) Salwa Judum experiment in .
Chhattisgarh, which has been described as the 'biggest grab oftribal lands after Columbus' by nothing less than the 'Committee on State Agrarian Relations and Unfinished Task of Land Reforms' of the Ministry of Rural Development. Even after the Operation Green Hunt is clearly underway -with several arrests, detentions and deaths-ALL the major newspapers and media channels report (with practically NO skepticism) Home Minister Chidambaram's pathetic and shameful 'denial'! As facts on the ground challenge this 'denial', the mainstream media lets Chidambaram get away with blatant lies. .
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Nor have we forgotten how many major newspapers (the Indian Express in particular) decided to practically run campaigns in favour of the Sardar Sarovar project and its corporate sponsors even while thousands of dam-displaced people thronged the streets of Delhi protesting against their displacement and non-existent 'rehabilitation' (compensation and rehabilitation for those displaced was incidentally mandated by a Supreme Court directive). Whenever there are massive protests in Delhi, and thousands of people arrive in the capital demanding justice, the'newspapers think it fit to report on the massive 'traffic jams' caused by the protesters, and the 'inconvenience' caused to .
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.
.
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PaRCha - JNU - All Organisations - 2011 ID-51893
.
-.
.
To Mark ofthe Release ofthe book #Colour ofGratituc!e is Green" authore~ by former JNVSV President and noted .
journalist Amit Sengupta .
. . .
JOin .
Public Meeting .
.
PEOPLE'~ IAOVEtAENT&. .
1¥.\EO>'llA AND Tl\iE .
POLITIC& OF \HOPE .
.
Prof. Abhijit Pathak .
.
CSSS, JNU .
.
A111it Sengupta .
former JNUSU President(1989-90),.
.
15.2.1o· Godavari Mess 9.30pm .
notedJournalist, presently with Hard News .
The Iraq War waged by US-UK military forces introduced the concept of the 'embedded' reporter to the world. These reporters, who accompanied the US Army at every stage of the war, gave the Pentagon in Washington extraordinary control of war reports back home, and also allowed the military to quietly contain those journalists who wanted to report the war independently. A direct result of this embedded journalism: the myth of the 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' went on unchallenged for a long time in the mainstream US media. Civilian deaths, injuries and the chaos in the streets were carefully swept under the carpet, and the American people were told that the 'grateful' Iraqis really saw the invaders as their 'messiahs'! .
Embedded journalism might not exist in the same crude form in India. But the fact of the matter is that almost all the major newspapers and television channels are owned and controlled by huge corporate houses and more often than not function as th~ unofficial mouthpieces ofthe powers-that-be -whether it is the government and various state agencies or corporate houses. The media coverage of Parliament House attack in December 2001 (an event which even after so many years of 'investigation' raises more questions than answers) was ample proof of this. Within hours of the attack, all media channels and newspapers were faithfully parroting the Delhi Police's version of the event as 'incontrovertible evidence'. For instance. with a shameful disregard for facts or for unbiased reporting. DU Prof. SAR Geelani was subject to a public trial and immediately convicted by the media as a dreaded 'terrorist'. It took a long and sustained campaign to prove that there was not a scrap of evidence against Prof. Geelani (who was subsequently released). Prof. Geelani's ordeal is no exception. Almost immediately after every bomb blast, the media enthusiastically nails the 'culprits', who often tum out to be completely innocent. .
.
: The mainstream media's coverage of people's movements against displacement and corporate land grab, or of state-sponsored terror campaigns like the Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh similarly reeks of a shameful bias. Take for instance the 'Operation Green Hunt'-the recent military offensive launched by the UPA government on the tribals living in the mineral-rich areas of the country. This offensive comes close on the heels of similar (and still continuing) Salwa Judum experiment in .
Chhattisgarh, which has been described as the 'biggest grab oftribal lands after Columbus' by nothing less than the 'Committee on State Agrarian Relations and Unfinished Task of Land Reforms' of the Ministry of Rural Development. Even after the Operation Green Hunt is clearly underway -with several arrests, detentions and deaths-ALL the major newspapers and media channels report (with practically NO skepticism) Home Minister Chidambaram's pathetic and shameful 'denial'! As facts on the ground challenge this 'denial', the mainstream media lets Chidambaram get away with blatant lies. .
.
Nor have we forgotten how many major newspapers (the Indian Express in particular) decided to practically run campaigns in favour of the Sardar Sarovar project and its corporate sponsors even while thousands of dam-displaced people thronged the streets of Delhi protesting against their displacement and non-existent 'rehabilitation' (compensation and rehabilitation for those displaced was incidentally mandated by a Supreme Court directive). Whenever there are massive protests in Delhi, and thousands of people arrive in the capital demanding justice, the'newspapers think it fit to report on the massive 'traffic jams' caused by the protesters, and the 'inconvenience' caused to .
.
.
.
.