The Reporter qua Intellectual

This post has been written by Vipul Vivek during the lecture series taken by U.S based journalist Robert Jensen.

Vipul can be reached at huppuguga@gmail.com

How Robert Jensen harked back to Gramsci at Asian College of Journalism, Chennai

Nobody has internalized the post-modern paradigm of the momentary, the specific and the disjointed better than the modern professional journalist. For her, the story is over once it’s out. She moves on to the next story in her beat. She moves on as if they were all ahistorical pebbles that made no distortion whatsoever on the time-space fabric. She moves on with a seemingly innocuous belief that the grand histoires were best left to university departments, or at least, moved out of newsrooms.

For Robert Jensen, a former journalist and currently professor of journalism at the University of Texas, Austin, this is a more important reason why mainstream journalism in the US is in a crisis today, more important than the failure of an unsustainable business model that the media, especially the print media, deluded itself with for almost two decades, until the World Wide Web shook their complacency.

He was at the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai to give a series of lectures critiquing foundations of journalism in the US from March 15 to 19, 2010.

A journalist’s paradigm is one of a storyteller’s. He observes the world without, makes an impression within and then narrates those observations for an audience or a readership/spectatorship. But a journalist’s paradigm is different from that of storyteller’s insofar as he has a greater commitment to truthfulness, in fact, a sacred commitment.

But truthfulness of what?

First, of course, an accuracy of facts is an indispensable attribute of a journalist’s story. Unfortunately, Mr. Jensen deplores, the idea of factual accuracy has been frozen in the US media to mean information handed out by ‘official sources’, i.e. the government and corporations. Though there are practical reasons why journalists don’t question this convention – it’s easy, cheap and protects them against libels, they are only one part of the story.

Journalism has come a long way from being perceived as a working class job in the late 19th and early 20th century to a ‘respected’ profession today. Journalists claim to serve the masses but are increasingly detached from their social realities. They conform more to the Gramscian notion of a traditional intelligentsia – which Mr. Jensen alluded to when he characterised journalism in the US as having “risen above the world”.  They have risen to become a part of the technocratic class of lawyers, bureaucrats and executives. Class allegiances having changed, a change in metaphysical outlook – and hence, values – becomes ineluctable.

 

At the same time, he loathes journalists becoming partisans; in his paradigm, she is “independent” in her critique and maintains an arm’s length distance from all political establishments – dominant or subversive. 

But, as they say, it never rains, but pours. A random sample of news reports on any issue in the US betrays the sad fact that they are generally found wanting in a structural explanation, let alone critique. And this is not because reporters lack a sense of  historicity and sociological context. The malaise results from an accepted norm of being ‘non-ideological’.

The norm is rooted in the hallowed claim of ‘neutrality’ and ‘objectivity’ the dominant institutions of media often make as being central to the definining attributes. Mr. Jensen finds it hard to understand ‘objectivity’ as  

1.      if we accept their common sensical meanings, i.e. not cooking up stuff and keeping an open mind, then there’s nothing special in the claim. It holds for one and all. How is it definitive of the media?

2.      and, if we accept their scientific meanings of being rigorously well-defined, then they lie outside the domain of journalism.

 

The only way journalists can, and should, understand ‘objectivity’ is in the sense of independence – having independent sources of information and being able to critique the conventions of journalism independently.

And here begins the problem.

In a corporatised structure that is largely dependent on advertising, it is difficult to unseat the ideological agenda of capitalism that the rational self-interested profit-maximising firms set.

And here is the nub of the problem.

For capitalism is not only accepted by journalists – liberal or conservative – as natural but also intrinsic to the land of exceptional freedom that is America. To compound it is the faith and belief that Uncle Sam is on a Holy Mission to purge the earth of all that is evil and replace it with capitalism and liberal democracy, the way Americans understand them.

That, Mr. Jensen self-abnegatingly analyses, is what reporters need to tell in plain words, i.e. objectively. But for that she will have to dispense with her conceit that philosophical, historical and sociological ways of thinking about the greater narrative based on and in which the journalistic narrative works can be left coolly to intellectuals out there. 


Photo credits: americanswhotellthetruth.org

Dinner

"Outside the restaurant, the two girls felt the hot wind blaze against their bodies. It hadn’t been just another day." Parul Shankar recounts an incident and wonders about the realities of patriarchy as internalised by women and as exerted by men in our society. Parul can be contacted at dreamsnlife@gmail.com 

The lights dimmed further and the record took a stronger flavour of country music. Closing one’s eyes, it felt like an American cowboy hangout on a cold, grey evening. It was only when the eyes were open and the world not in a whirl that one could distinguish the setting to be much more sophisticated and urbane – a modern-day restaurant that had to its credit the exclusivity of a beautiful glass-panelled bar, a fibre floor flooded with coloured light, LCD screens telecasting a live cricket match and walls and a ceiling customized to create the ambience that the name of the restaurant promised. One smiled coming back to this privileged world, realizing that the chill only signified a comfortable air conditioning meant to keep out the stubborn heat of mid-March in this tropical part of the country, greatly distanced from the American cowboys in both time and space.

It was supposed to be a normal get-together with friends on an equally normal day. Nothing could have prepared the two young girls for the chance that this dinner could make them question and bring about a chaos in the way their education and upbringing had shaped their perception of the world.

Too excited to have finally managed a dinner, and with it the possibility of a meaningful conversation in the midst of strict deadlines in college, X and Y could barely keep their voices low despite the classic charm of the place. Their faces slightly flushed with the effect of the cocktails on the dark wooden table, they talked of how events had shaped since college began and the extent to which they might change by the end of the academic year. Educated in the social sciences, their conversation was loaded with ideological analysis of all that they saw and discussed.

They had just kept the glasses down when they noticed a middle-aged man slouching against the counter behind their table. He looked harmless enough, one of the many faces one comes across each day. It was peak meal time and the tables around were slowly getting occupied, mostly by office-goers and a few college students. Everything seemed fine until the man muttered some words directed towards them which neither X nor could Y discern in the busy hum of the restaurant. Only when they could understand his words did they notice that the restaurant hardly had a single table which was occupied by unaccompanied women.

The words “Are you available?”  did much more than spoiling the girls’ evening or making them speak up against what offended them, which they did, much to the surprise of the silent spectators sitting around in the restaurant, and unsettling them to a great extent.

The incident reaffirmed the feminist argument that despite the surface agency allowed to women there are public spaces that remain denied to them. It made clear the message that women who cross these defined boundaries deserve to be punished. It rendered illusory the idea of selfhood and the image of the independent urban women depicted in the broader socio-political discourse.

Significantly, the incident also brought to fore larger realities that do find mention in the syllabi of our elite education system but often go unrealized in real lives. The feelings the event generated in the two girls clearly reflected a fracture in the understanding of the internalisation of patriarchy by women. The justified anger to an offence was accompanied by a sense of shame, where the offence seemed personal and the shame public – despite the awareness that the personal is the political.

Outside the restaurant, the two girls felt the hot wind blaze against their bodies. It hadn’t been just another day. They wondered if the cowboy theme wasn’t so fictional after all. For the first time could they see both themselves and the larger world on the same platter of patriarchy – and the cowboy world of male chauvinism continued to be a reality.

F1 IN THE TIME OF NO FUEL ERA

This post was written by Jithin J Krishnan for Asian College of Journalism.

Jithin can be reached at jixxedout@gmail.com

2050, or thereabouts, will be a very tough time in mankind’s tenure on planet Earth. If experts are to be believed, that is the time by when the Earth’s resources will run out. By then, if we do not manage to colonise two other planets in space, then we are all apparently in for a very hard time.

Complacency perhaps, is the biggest threat facing us. We have facts, figures and experiments by very capable scientists everyday that helps us stare at truth in its face. And yet, here we are, standing on the sidelines, barely 40 years away from Earth-exhaustion, cheering on colossal wastes of exhaustible resources such as F1 and motor sports. An alien race looking down on us would surely think we’re daredevils of some sort. Daredevils know the risks involved. We do not.

F1 is arguably the most popular motor sport in the world today. Reportedly, a whopping 600 million people tuned in per race during last year’s F1 season. Italy and Britain are among the world’s biggest markets for F1 TV broadcasters. This year, figures are reported to have jumped up to 9 million for some races.

20 cars; 300 kilometers and nearly 225 liters of fuel spent per car. 4500 liters spent per race; 20 races in a season; hence 9000 liters of fuel spent. And this is just one among the host of motor sports that are consuming fuel at break-neck speeds.

This, is in no way the first time this argument has been posed. Responses to a call for an F1 ban have been meted with such responses as ‘footballers travel in cars too’ and ‘look what F1 has contributed to the world’.

Yes, footballers travel in cars as do cricketers and laymen. And yes, F1 has contributed several key technologies to the world that has bettered efficiency, speed and safety of many engine components. Engineering marvels have arose out of F1 that cannot be paralleled. Yet, have we forgotten to ask at what cost all this comes?

F1 as a sport is interesting, exciting and thrilling. But it’s harmful. There are two sides of the debate and there is only one possible middle ground. And that involves F1 shifting from exhaustible resource based fuel to renewable resource fuel.

But, yes, there is no such technology available today that will drive F1 cars as fast on renewable sources as it does on non-renewable ones. But at least an effort and a sense of urgency should be induced to start work to that end. If we wait another 40 years to get work done regarding this end, we’ll end up driving electric F1 cars on the moon.

Eidgent Meets Shial: Part Umpteen

This post is written by Jithin Krishnan for Asian College of Journalism.

Jithin can be reached at jinxxedout@gmail.com

(Jithin writes: I feel I should add an intro to this. Our assignment in writing class was to discuss in a group of 6 which of the following two ideas were true: ‘We’re all bonded to society’ or ‘We’re all free agents running around doing what we want to do’. At the end of the discussion, this is the piece I wrote. Thanks to my illustrious group mates for providing the inputs.)



The rain is pouring down mercilessly on the dimly lit city streets. Two characters are making their way to a meeting spot. One has a spring in his step. His head is uncovered and he puts his tongue out to taste the rain. He is Mr. Fre Eidgent. He is French.  


To an astute observer, the contrast between him and the other man would have been unbearably hilarious. The latter skirts around the puddles almost as if they’d explode on his feet touching them. His head is covered. The rains have almost managed to soak through the first one among the five sweaters he is wearing to brace himself against the weather. He is Mr. Sho Shial. 



“You’re late!” The admonition catches Mr. Eidgent unawares as he steps through the door. Mr. Shial is sitting at the corner booth. The 2 tall glasses filled up to the brim are a welcome sight for Eidgent. He hasn’t consumed since five minutes ago. 


But he catches himself. The sardonic smile on Mr. Shial’s face throws him off. 


“Why did you order for me?” he asks. The gaiety disappears all at once. He can’t believe this is happening. Every time!


Shial is enjoying himself. The very purpose of these “intellectual” fist-fights was to get the better of Eidgent. He knew that he had won the first round. 


“I knew what you wanted. So I took the liberty of ordering for you. You can, of course, order something else. But I’m pretty sure you wanted this brand, this much, in this glass. You can order again, of course, just don’t expect me to foot the bill.”


Eidgent’s face lightens up. He catches himself before he can react aggressively. 


“So? Either the bar will run on a loss today or I’ll wash some plates tonight. As if I really care! I’ll go to sleep tonight, smiling, either way.”


“Many have said that before. They always end up coming back to me. Always.”


“Maybe. But for those few precious days at least, I’ll feel like I stood up to the bully.”


“Bully? And here I thought I was doing all this for you! I provide, I shelter, I clean up after you. And I’m labeled a bully? Is it wrong to look out for someone else?”


“Yeah, it is if it’s unasked for.”

“You sure you didn’t ask for it?”

“Of course!”

“But somebody did.”

“Maybe those who were here before me. Those who needed the comfort of others to live their lives.”

“And you think you don’t?”


“I rather live by my own rules; my own ideologies and my own thoughts. I don’t need predigested ones.”


“Ha! Let’s see how long you survive on your own!”


“Which is exactly what I wanted in the first place if you’d care to remember.”


“But, Fre! I can’t let you do that. I promised your folks I’d look after you.”


“I’m not my folks. And I’m telling you that I don’t need looking after.”


Sho Shial smiles. “Everybody needs looking after Fre. How else did you think that we got so far? We got so far because we came together, hand in hand.”

Fre smiles. “Maybe I like reinventing the wheel.”

He drains his cup in one go and stands up. Sho Shial smiles again. “You can take off, it’s on me.” 

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I know I don’t. But I want to.”


It’s still raining outside as Fre steps out. He feels better for once. No more pestering phone calls or comments. At least for a while. With a sigh of satisfaction he heads out. Sho Shial steps through the door. He’s not content anymore as he looks at the fast fading figure of Fre. “I’ll be watching you boy!”

The Curious Case of Abdul Rasheed

This post was written by Alok Rajiv Deshpande as part of his investigative report on homes for mentally ill in Chennai. 

He can be contacted at alok.fsf@gmail.com

Ambernath is a small town in the Thane district of Maharashtra. Gulabrao Karanjule, then the president of the city committee of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) is the main accused of the Naresh Gaikwad murder case which took place in October 2002. Gaikwad was a Dalit Panther activist and the brother of well-known Republican Party of India (RPI) leader Shyam Gaikwad.

All this makes a very little sense while travelling in Chennai to visit private mental homes. But all of a sudden when Abdul Rasheed, a patient from one of these mental homes, speaking in fluent Marathi, claims that he was the vice-president of that same city committee and witnessed the murder of Naresh Gaikawad, your travel comes to a sudden stop.

Abdul Rasheed claimed that he was originally from Byculla in South Mumbai. His daughter beat him causing serious injury to his hand. He said that since his brain wasn’t working properly during that period, she beat him and threw him to snatch his flat in Mumbai.

Abdul spilled his secrets, as he claims them to be, when asked him about his other family. His sister stays in Ambernath (he gave her address and phone number, but the number was out of service) where according to him he was the vice-president of NCP’s city committee, and was working under the leadership of Gulabrao Karanjule. He also gave his address from Ambernath, mentioning the tiniest details.

Abdul is a mental-patient undergoing treatment in a private mental-home in Chennai. He landed in Chennai with broken hand and wanted to go to Padi, as his friend had advised him. On Chennai Central station he met a lady who offered him biscuit and tea. Later he was taken to an NGO called ‘Dayasadan.’ As per his account, he wasn’t treated on his injury and also the basic amenities were extremely bad. They used to bathe once in three days. There were no proper clothes and medical facilities were not available. He was rescued from there and was brought to the place, where he is staying currently.

“Gulabrao planned Naru’s (Naresh Gaikawad) murder in a meeting in his own office. I was there. He hired assassins, namely Indin and Papa. A builder called Nazir and an important leader from Shiv Sena’s city committee was also involved. The witnesses were threatened and given Rs. 5000/- each to keep their mouth shut. My sister’s brother-in-law Anjum provided a chopper to those assassins and later on became a government witness in the court hence was released on bail,” Abdul said. (The complete conversation with Abdul Rasheed is recorded and is available in Marathi. These are few of the important points from the conversation).

Interestingly, when Rasheed’s story was compared with the actual series of events, most proceedings turned out to be accurate. Rasheed’s case raises a number of questions. How does he know Gulabrao? How does he remember his sister’s address and phone number, but does not remember details about his journey to Chennai? Even if he is lying, why has he chosen a political murder to lie about? How does a mentally-ill patient know the tiniest of details about this murder? If he was a public figure in Ambernath, then does his family there know about his current status? Is the story about his daughter true or is there some thing he does not remember?

When told about Rasheed’s case, a psychiatrist from a reputed institution ridiculed his story calling it blabber. “Mental-patients do such talking. You can’t trust everything they say,” he remarked.

But the questions which arise after listening to Rasheed’s story are valid and need an answer.   

Sahibzada Mohammad Shahid Khan Afridi

This post was written by Nikhil Ghanekar, as part of his sports assignment for Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. 

He can be reached at ghanekar.nikhil@gmail.com

Picture courtesy: shahidafridi.tv

He hoicked the second ball he faced in One-Day international cricket for a six over mid-wicket. In the same match, he went on to score the fastest century in One-day cricket (37 balls) and shocked the then world champions Sri-Lanka at the Nairobi Gymkhana in 1996.  Ninety of his 102 runs were scored in fours (6) and sixes(11), his eleven sixes in that innings is still third in the list of most sixes in a one-day innings. We are talking about Sahibzada Mohammad Shahid Khan Afridi, popularly known as Shahid Afridi or ‘Boom Boom Afridi’, one of the most explosive batsmen and valuable leg-spinners cricket has ever seen. Born in Khyber Agency which comes under the FATA (Federally administered tribal areas) Afridi is a true Pathan, aggressive and impulsive on field and shy off it.

Afridi’s career has been anything but ordinary. For starters, he was selected in the One-day squad as a leg-spin bowler and not a top-order batsman. It was Afridi’s first captain, Saaed Anwar who sent Afridi one-down on that fateful day against Sri-Lanka, where he became the youngest centurion on debut pulverizing the Lankan attack using Waqar Younis’ bat! He realized his true potential of a genuine bowling all-rounder after a good 10 years into his career. Afridi can be a lethal leg-spinner on his day, mixing his traditional leg-breaks with rapid googlies bowled at 110 kilometers. In fact, he took a fifer on his test debut against Australia at Karachi, the only time he notched up this figure. Afridi is essentially a clean hitter, with an extremely strong bottom-hand. A semi-slog over deep mid-wicket with minimal feet movement and maximum hand-eye co-ordination where the ball usually lands in the last row of a stand or the car-park has become the ‘Afridi’ shot.

Afridi’s batting can be best described as ‘Sanath Jayasurya’ on speed, with lesser one’s and two’s, zero patience and mighty contempt for any bowler. Afridi’s batting style has been criticized more often than not, for lacking a sense of responsibility and for choosing blind aggression and brute power over calm decimation and a wily approach. But that’s Afridi, unique, brash and unapologetic.

Like many youngsters in Pakistan cricket who made an early debut, Afridi too could have been found in wilderness, lost, after making a hash of his talent and potential, but thanks to his all-round abilities and leniency on the part of Pakistani selectors, he is very much a part of Pakistan cricket. In fact, Afridi has been named the captain of the T-20 side for the World Cup in the Caribbean, starting at the end of this month.

Pakistan’s coaches and team management are to be blamed equally for Afridi’s lost greatness. They played Afridi in the top-order repeatedly, failing to realize or positively change his wayward temperament. Besides, his became a case of the goose laying golden eggs. Expecting a player like Afridi to counter new-ball movement to score heavily in the first 15 overs was sheer foolishness. ‘A consistent Afridi’ had become a famous oxymoron in the cricketing parlance. It was only in the mid 2000’s that the team management pushed him down the order and coaxed him into concentrating on his spin bowling. Although it must not be ignored that he has played most of his explosive innings as an opener, at different stages of his career.

Afridi also pioneered what has become a trend in cricket today, retiring from Test cricket to concentrate on the shorter forms of the game. Afridi quit test cricket in 2006, his record was much better in the longer format compared to ODI’s.  In 26 tests, Afridi scored 1,683 runs at an average of 37.40, with five centuries to his credit and took 47 wickets at an average of 34.89.

Controversies have also been a part of his career. On 21st November 2005, he was banned for a test match and two ODIs for deliberately damaging the pitch during the second test match against England. TV cameras caught him ‘roughing’ the pitch with his boots as play was held up after a gas canister exploded just behind the boundary rope at Iqbal Stadium, Faisalabad. Recently, in a match against Australia Afridi was caught by the cameras openly biting the match-ball, an action which has cost him Rs.3 million. Such aberrant behaviour personify Afridi.

T-20 is a format; Afridi had perhaps taken birth for. Although T-20 has come in the latter part of his career, Afridi has found his true calling in this format, winning the player of the tournament in the inaugural edition in 2007 and steering his team to the T-20 crown with superlative all-round performances in the semi-final and the final. Captaincy might lead to consistency gate-crashing in a pre-dominantly inconsistent career, but Afridi won’t change much.

As Michael Holding once said, ‘Cricket is not cricket without Afridi.’

Time

This post was written by Parul Shankar for Asian College of Journalism.

Parul can be reached at dreamsnlife@gmail.com 

The sky turns a tinge of red, a flock of birds flies home, past the deep purple of the mountains. A slender figure bends over the sprawling fields. It forms a shadow against the world that now seems to be a somber painting.

The Kumaon hills of Uttarakhand have always been a home to Pushpa Rawat. She has seen the Sanade Valley change over the forty-seven years since she was born. No, not only seen it, but she has been a part of the change, an active agent.

A smile crawls up her face as she watches her granddaughter rush into the house of dark wood at the edge of the hill. It is six-thirty, the time when the eight-year-old Shiva returns from Sandhya Kendra, the Evening Education Center. Pushpa remembers a time when the entire village had called her a witch because she had spoken against the village school master, against his routine of coming drunk to the school. Being a widow had made things tougher. Yet she had stood firm through everything, she knew there wasn’t another option. Sometimes rebellion is the only solution.

But that was a long time ago. How things have changed since then.

Pushpa looks towards the west; her eye takes on the last gleam of the evening sky. Walking with the fresh, intoxicating scent of the monsoon on the mountains, she slowly disappears into the warmth of the house by the edge of the hill.