This tendency showed its ugliest best during the recently concluded US presidential elections. There the MSM started preaching to the people whom to vote, and obviously, said not to vote for Donald Trump. Almost all the major surveys by them showed Trump is losing but later the reality turned out to be different. This episode was a clear indication that the so called SMS has utterly lost the touch on the ground and don’t command any sway over the masses any more which they used to enjoy in their good olden times. We have already seen the same pattern in the far distant country India where Narendra Modi has been a constant target of the malicious campaign by the SMS for decades. And in both cases, both the figures who also have a greater coverage in the social media are today the rulers of their countries respectively and SMS stand utterly lost its credibility.
When we look more closely at the media world in India we can see one more category other than SMS and SM which we can call the propaganda media. This is a shadowy world of Medias comprising a host of magazines, online news portals and channels who do the job of spreading lies, twisting facts, getting things out of context and then blowing it out of proportion etc. They do it for their political master against their political opponents and in that they are least bothered about the journalistic ethos. As a result of this there came into being another set of Medias in the same genre in the opposite camp also in order to counter the first one. Hence, this becomes a murkier world of parallel Medias.
Being the bed partners of the ruling political class for decades this shadow media has become a part of the establishment. Whoever threatens the establishment they will have to face the ire of these Medias. Being ruled India for decades Congress is the establishment here. And the so called shadow media is always ready to protect the political interest of its master Congress. BJP is the only power which poses a serious threat to the establishment. Media campaign against BJP and especially Narendra Modi ever since 2002 Gujrat riots for more than a decade were kept alive in the national main stream by the earnest efforts by these shadowy media only.
Tehelka is the front runner in this category founded by Tarun Tejpal , who is already exited disgracefully for being a sexual predator for his co-workers, famous for its innovative ‘sting operations’. If one verifies the so called sting operations Tehelka had conducted, other than their first one which was about the match fixing in cricket, one can see that their target was always the BJP and the other Sangh Parivar organizations. When the Congress-led UPA Govt. ended up being the most corrupt regime India ever seen the credit of exposing them went mostly to the CAG and opposition party BJP and none to these ‘sting masters’. So it was evident that neither the moral values nor journalistic ethics were the driving force for them.
Later a new host of such medias joined Tehelka in its service to the Congress and like-minded parties including AAP and Left in their common fight against BJP like Jantakareporter, naradanews, newslaundry, catchnews , scroll etc. Once BJP has beaten the establishment very comprehensively in the general election of 2014 the attack on it by these guys has increased manifold. With Modi Govt. leaving no chance for any corruption or nepotism and, much to the frustration of his opponents, no communal riots either, these Medias had to resort to their usual dirty tricks. There had been a flood of lies, twisting the facts and badmouthing by them throughout Modi rule till date. And the results are a host of trivial things ranging from Rs. 10 Lakh suit, 15 Lakh in accounts etc. While the first one was a blatant lie the second one was misquoting of what one has said in actual. Then there were a Dadri and followed by an ill-conceived award wapasi. This was an example of picking up a stray incident nowhere related to the central govt. and blowing out of proportion with the sole intention of creating a vicious communal atmosphere in the country in the hope of making the life difficult for Modi Govt.
What was done a few months back by the pro-APP propaganda portal Janta-Ka-Reporter in their eagerness to shame those who opposed Amir Khan in his intolerance statement was a fitting example of how deep some of our media has plunged in their reporting standards. And it is also a classical example of how this nexus work. On 18th April 2016 they carried a report of Amir Khan adopting 2 draught hit villages in Maharashtra. Soon other national media started reporting the same and it became prominent headline in no time. Some started trying scoring points publishing articles titled such as “How ‘Anti-National’ Aamir Khan shames ultra-nationalists” etc. Later when Amir Khan denied this it turns out that it was originated as a random person got a message on WhatsApp, which he tweeted out, which was picked by some random journalist, which was blindly trusted by a media portal like Janta ka Reporter, which was further picked by almost every National media house, and possibly even some International media houses! One Whatsapp message, and a breaking news story!
During the recent unrest in Kashmir valley after the Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani got killed on 8th July 2016 by the Indian Army a propaganda portal Cobrapost did a report on 16th July 2016 in which it used a 5 year old footage of an encounter of a top Jaish-e-Muhammed terrorist Ahsan Bhai faking it to be a recent one and of a common Kashmiri muslim being killed by Indian Army. The timing of the article shows how sinister their plan was in swaying public opinion against the Indian Army in the valley.
Quite recently a leftist propaganda portal Scroll published few articles saying that there is a divide in BJP on demonetization as it says it is quoting 'the sources' from BJP, as has been their practice always, very conveniently no names, of course!
It was the same case in the news that a BJP MLA has beaten a police horse and broke its legs. After creating enough outrage the same media house who break the news with headings like the BJP MLA “breaking the horse’s leg”, “caught on camera” etc. they later hesitantly reported that the horses leg was stuck in an iron railing. It was in its attempt to remove its rear leg from this iron rod it got injured. But by the time, all the blame was successfully planted on the MLA because he was from BJP and he was wielding a lathy at that time by chance.
There is a pattern in this game. Such incidents were first picked up and spread in the social media by these propaganda-medias. Once it gathers steam then it will be resonated by the main stream media. Later when MSM leaves it behind for latest news the propaganda media do the job of keeping it alive in public consciousness as they are not worried about the TRP ratings as they are paid by the political masters. They report a milk society election result in any deep corner of the country if BJP is losing it but will avoid reporting the impressive victories of BJP in the local body elections in almost 5 to 6 states which went polls during the difficulties of demonetization at its peak.
There are numerous examples for the same which can't fit in an article like this. Maybe a book itself will be required if one decides to record all those which the social media has routinely exposed. News of Christian churches under attack at the time of Delhi elections, a BJP leader owning a meat factory during Dadri, 10 lakh suit of Modi, 15 Lakh will be deposited in everybody's account, reporting Sadhwi Prachchi as a BJP MP while she has nothing to do with BJP, relating all sorts of deaths across India to demonetization, when ND Tiwari's son joined BJP it was published as Tiwari himself joined BJP are just few to name from the list.
All these portals and medias are now the part and parcel of the dirty trick department of then anti-BJP establishment. Prime Minster Narendra Modi had once rightly said these media’s are always in lookout for filth and carry it with them and polluting wherever they go and eventually they became filth themselves.
