{"id":121544,"date":"2021-12-26T16:51:41","date_gmt":"2021-12-26T23:51:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=121544"},"modified":"2021-12-26T16:51:41","modified_gmt":"2021-12-26T23:51:41","slug":"losing-goodwill-assam-medias-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/12\/26\/losing-goodwill-assam-medias-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Losing goodwill: Assam media’s way"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Nava Thakuria<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Public\nreactions against a news item in any newspaper or news channel may be usual in\nIndia, but public outrages in digital platforms against the mainstream media\noutlets for not covering a particular issue is definitely an unusual\nphenomenon. Far-eastern Indian State of Assam witnessed such a public fury\nagainst some of the editor-journalists for avoiding the press conferences by\nopposition political parties where they targeted the State chief minister for\nhis family\u2019s alleged land scam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\norganized public uproar in the alternate media was so intense that the\ncelebrity editor-journalists of Assam did not dare to clarify their positions.\nThey preferred to avoid the debates killing time. Shockingly, no media worker\u2019s\noutfit, civil society groups or reader and viewers came forward defending the\notherwise glamourous editor-journalists, when they faced the abusive social\nmedia posts for many days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Assam in\nnortheast India today supports over 30 morning daily newspapers in different\nlanguages along with a large number of Assamese periodicals and magazines.\nGuwahati also hosts eight satellite news channels (most of them are in free to\nair category) with hundreds of news portals. Their cumulative quality\nreadership (and viewership) may reach 3.5 million, but the number of social\nmedia users in the State with over 30 million population should cross 4.5\nmillion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ncontroversy started with a breaking (and elaborate) news, presented by TheWire<\/em>\nand TheCrosscurrent<\/em> in the first week of December 2021, where both the\ndigital media outlets alleged a land grabbing scam against the family of State\nchief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. The content indicated that a real estate\ncompany, founded by the saffron leader\u2019s wife, illegally occupied around 18\nacres of government land meant for landless farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on\nthe specific media contents, three political parties namely Asom Jatiya\nParishad, Raijor Dol and the Congress had organized separate press conferences\ndemanding proper investigations into the alleged land scam by the CM\u2019s family.\nFor reasons best known to the editor-journalists of Guwahati-based newspapers\nand news channels, they did not cover the issue and simply killed the news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The issue\nshould have died naturally after some time. But a sudden outbursts of\nanti-media posts in the digital platforms surfaced in the morning hours on 9\nDecember. For almost three days, most of the editors were named and shamed for\ntheir silence over Sarma\u2019s land grab issue in social media. News channel\u2019s\nlogos and photographs of some celebrity-journalists were made viral with\nabusive words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon the\nState legislative assembly began its winter session on 20 December and as usual\nthe first day\u2019s proceedings were interrupted by the opposition legislators over\nthe issue. They wanted the assembly to discuss it, but speaker Biswajit Daimary\ndid not allow it. Later the opposition MLAs staged a walkout in protest. But\nshockingly the development was not prominently published by most of the\nnewspapers and news channels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Assam\nCongress president Bhupen Bora dared Sarma to clarify his stand on the issue.\nAll the opposition political leaders demanded a probe by the Enforcement\nDirectorate and Central Bureau of Investigation over the alleged land grab by\nCM\u2019s family. They claimed that Sarma for his personal interest handed over 18\nacres of government land worth crores of rupees to his family members without\nfollowing any rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\noldest party of India also organised a press conference in New Delhi, where\nsenior Congress leaders namely Gaurav Vallabh, Jitendra Singh, Ripun Bora\n and Gaurav Gogoi alleged that Sarma set aside all rules to offer\ngovernment lands to his family. This time, the issue got national coverage by\nmost of the metro-based morning dailies. At least two news agencies also\ncovered the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nCongress leaders (where Bora  and  Gogoi from Assam) asserted that\nall unlawful land transfers to the concerned group must be cancelled and the\nalternate land to those deprived landless families should be offered. CM Sarma\nhas not clarified his stand over the matter yet, only alleged that the\nconcerned digital media outlet is Left-aligned (read anti-BJP).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reluctance\nfor covering such issues by the majority of Guwahati-based mainstream media\noutlets can be guessed from their dependence on government advertisement\nrevenues for survival. They are lately facing a serious financial crisis since\nthe Covid-19 hit the country. The pandemic resulted in abrupt loss of\ncirculation for newspapers and also commercial advertisement revenues. The news\nchannels also lost their quality viewership drastically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, most\nof the newspaper managements today cannot go against the government policy even\nif it becomes necessary for sustaining its credibility. Thus, slowly they have\nturned out to be official organs of the ruling party (read the aggressive\nchief minister). They are not even confident of getting adequate support in\nneed from their valued readers across the State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the\nquestion that arises is, why would the readers believe in these media outlets,\nwhen most of them run their media business enterprises for selfish interest\nonly? They have made it a habit to create news out of nothing even though it\nmay go for character assassinations of many individuals. Moreover, when the\naffected parties try to clarify their positions, the editor-owners prefer to\nignore their views, as if the media fraternity is no way accountable for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Personal\ncorruption of some well-known editors also added complications to the\nsituation, where public goodwill towards the media fraternity continued to\nerode. A senior Assamese journalist, who has been in the profession for more\nthan three decades, recently made a sensational social media post claiming that\nat least seven editors (of city-based news channels) possessed more wealth than\nactually they can earn legally from their jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking\nto this writer to confirm about the post Dipankar Devsarmah lamented that\nbecause of some greedy editor-media owners the media industry has lost its\ncredibility (whatever left). Talking about naming the editors in the post,\nDevsarmah asserted that it may be unpleasant for many, but it’s true. He even\nmade a declaration in the post that all details about the said editors\u2019\nproperties and luxury vehicles are with him and would make it public in need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Motivated news is also synonymous\nwith many Assam media outlets. The readers-viewers could remember\nthat a dramatic news item was circulated among the Guwahati-based newspapers\nand news channels in March 2020 narrating a fake story about an outgoing\nsecretary of a journalists\u2019 club burning down many documents. Amazingly, the\nconcerned secretary was present on the occasion when the so-called burning took\nplace, but no reporter dared to ask him for reactions (they definitely knew\nthat it was a fabricated item).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Probably,\nthe readers-viewers\ntoo did not believe in the content. Hence, even after it was published by most\nof the newspapers and news channels from Guwahati, the secretary faced not a\nsingle question when he roamed around a city\u2019s crowded market next morning. His\nrelatives, friends and well-wishers remained indifferent to it. So, the issue\ndied naturally. Nonetheless,\nthe media\noutlets tried their best to defame him. Now the question that arises is, if a\nseasoned journalist can be targeted by the media in such a way, would they\nspare an ordinary citizen!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Nava Thakuria Public reactions against a news item in any newspaper or news channel may be usual in India, but public outrages in digital platforms against the mainstream media outlets for not covering a particular issue is definitely an unusual phenomenon. Far-eastern Indian State of Assam witnessed such a public fury against some of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nava-thakuria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121544\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}