by Dr Bhargavi D Hemmige 18 August 2020
When words become bullets and civility takes a back seat, when the spokespersons are made to have verbal battles and are consumed by theatrics in the guise of prime-time debates, the result can sometimes be a heart attack.
This refers to the recent death of Congress Spokesperson Rajiv Tyagi, who collapsed and died immediately after his assignment as a panelist in the debate of Aaj Tak on the recent incidence of violence in Bengaluru allegedly over a post on the Ram Janmabhoomi, which he took part from his residence in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad. According to news agency PTI, immediately after the program he complained of chest pains and fell unconscious and was rushed to the Yashoda Hospital where doctors tried unsuccessfully to revive him.
According to cardiologists, one of the reasons for Angina Pectoris, which is a precursor of a Heart Attack, which is also called ‘angina’ can be a participation in a verbal debate or intense emotions that stem out of emotionally charged situations. One of the symptoms can be a person experiencing an increase in heartbeat. He participating in these high decibel debates must have induced stress in Mr. Tyagi. These prime-time debates of late have been reduced to shouting matches filled with personal attacks. It really looked like “Dangal as the show was called, like a wrestling match where the Anchor Sadhana Rohot and Sambit Patra verbally fired personal attacks calling him Jaichand (traitor) repeatedly and Patra even teased Tyagi for applying Tikka on his forehead. And the sad part was the News Anchor failed moderate the panelists.
TRP and News Channels: In the rat race to better the TRP which is released by BARC these channels seem to have forgotten the tenets of gathering the news. The news anchors and the channels who clearly take positions in most of the cases, act like spokespersons of political parties have forgotten objectivity. Being objective covers being fair, factual, and nonpartisan. They don’t seem to understand the meaning of Neutrality in journalism. In fact, most of the time they add fuel to fire to attract TRPs. The Managing Editor of Columbia Journalism Review, Brent Cunningham is of the opinion that journalists or reporters are biased toward conflict because it is more interesting than stories without conflict. Perhaps, the Propaganda model given by Edward S Herman and Noam Chomsky helps one to understand the political economy of media, Concentration of media ownership patterns, dependence on advertisements. As first stated by him in his Manufacturing Consent (1988), media has forgotten its main Societal purpose and has become businesses that sell a product rather than give the news to the public.
The channel Aaj Tak defied all ethics of Journalism when they uploaded and marketed this video titled “Dangal” with the insensitive caption, “watch Rajiv Tyagi” just hours before his death.
Debate on Twitter: Aa a knee jerk reaction hashtag campaign to arrest Sambit Patra was seen trending in Twitter and they attacked the media for its insensitivity and lack of ethics. Senior Congress MP Ahmed Patel tweeted, “It is high time TV channel owners, editors and anchors introspect on how some in the industry have reduced news debates into a meaningless, poisonous and potentially fatal activity. At times words can have the same impact as bullets.”
Senior Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala took to Twitter to complain about “poisonous debate and venomous spokespersons” and the “TRP business”. “How long will the poison of Hindu-Muslim division continue to engulf the soul of this country,” Surjewala asked.
Gaurav Pandhi, the national coordinator of the Congress party’s social media wing, described Patra as a Jaichand. Pandhi tweeted, “Sambit Patra @sambitswaraj accused Rajiv Tyagi of being a traitor. We all know who are the traitors…”
One Twitter user Ashish Pachory compared this mentality of channels to Roman’s idea of entertainment where they cheered Gladiators as they killed each other.
Former Information and Broadcasting Minister in a video message on his Twitter handle asked the Television channels to revisit their format of presenting news only designed for TRPs that resembled WWFs matches and polluted social and political atmosphere of the country and called for the cancellation of such channels licenses which contravened the program and Advertising codes laid by the Cable TV Regulation Act of 1995
“The purpose of journalism,” according to Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel in their famous book The Elements of Journalism, “is not defined by technology, nor by journalists or the techniques they employ.” Rather, “the principles and purpose of journalism are defined by something more basic: the function news plays in the lives of people.” Hence, to protect the sanity of the civil society these news debates should be telecasted with disclaimers that these Shows show extremely insensitive, violent content which may encourage others to commit violent acts reach out to a law enforcement agency immediately if anyone is in danger and caution the viewers on the related effects on their mind and body after watching such intriguing content.
Its time that TV channels maintain neutrality and lays proper rules for participation and encourage inclusive debate where the questioning the establishment needs to be encouraged, whether it is Corona Management, economy, or migrant issues, instead of polarising on communal lines. Whatsoever the reason for Rajiv Tyagi’s death and the abusive, toxic verbal attacks should be condemned by one and all.