The liberals and their false angst on intolerance – Times of India (blog)

It is clear that today what passes for news is essentially opinion. The left-leaning media (so called liberal) have shown more intolerance than what is essentially called right-wing by them. They hate to lose. And when they do, the savage attacks on the non-liberals show their intolerance.

Take the case of Shazia Ilmi not being allowed to speak at her Alma MaterJamia Millia Islamia on a seminar on Women empowerment. Though she was invited, the invite was withdrawn at the last minute without explanation. General Bakshi and Tarek Fatah were invited to a prestigious club in Kolkata for a seminar and Mamata Banerjee made the institution cancel the event.

None of the liberals had massive rallies against such acts against Freedom of Speech. In fact, most news channels did not even carry this.

Be it the Indian, American or British media all seem to have a markedly liberal point of view that does not allow any dissent. Talk about freedoms. Only the Left it seems has the freedom to speak and rally.

The word intolerance is used all the time when there is a blowback on whatever the liberals say or do. No matter how innocuous the subject, such as spreading yoga worldwide, the liberal left will have something unpleasant to say about it.

The people have pretty much told the liberal media that they dont rule the dialogue and the social media is, thus, thriving. Whether it is the New York Times or the New Yorker, very few read them and many think they are biased towards the extreme left.

Change in spite of the media has happened in India, Britain and USA and will follow in most European countries. One has stopped watching Indian TV news as once again there is little news but a great deal of debate. What passes for news is the opinion of the anchor or the owners of the channels who have their own agendas.

Yesterday, I watched the news briefly and saw an event, that made me think:Arun Purie congratulating his daughter for India Today TV getting the award for best English and Hindi news. To me an award is a self-perpetuating exercise by an organisation where they form a club of sorts and give each other awards. Whether it is the Oscars, Grammys, etc. They form a small cabal who decide who gets an award. Is this the peoples choice? No! The people are not consulted and mostly unaware of how and who chooses these awards.

Newspapers, magazines and such organisations pump up their reader/viewership to garner more advertising revenue, so their own statistics are always suspect. So, are these awards really relevant? Are the best reporters getting awards? Is there even such a thing as investigative reporting left in India?

I saw a portion of The big fight where the issue being debated was Is free speech being curtailed now. Well, in fact no. When the Congress realised that Modi was a potential threat way back in 2004 a sustained campaign was launched to discredit him this is a long story and much has been written on this. The US media did the same for Trump. The people lost trust and switched to social media. And voted Trump as president, in spite the hundreds of negative articles that appeared on him by CNN, New York Times, New Yorker, Washington Post and many others. They switched off.

So, I looked up once again at media viewership and came up with this revealing data on TV news viewership.

Top 5 English news channels viewership (BARC data week Feb 2017):

Times Now 798,000 India Today 498,000 CNN-IBN 404,000 NDTV 376,000 BBC 184,000

Hindi News Channels (Feb 2017)

Simply put two million people watch the top five English channels put together. And 485 million people watch the top five Hindi news channels.

The conclusion is most of what we see in the English news channels is really not relevant in the context of forming public opinion. A viewership of just two million in a country of 1.3 billion is too small to be of any significance. Wake up reporters and anchors. Your air- conditioned environment plus huge salaries and popularity are at stake. Beat the streets and start feeling the pulse of all Indians not just the Liberals and their cronies.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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The liberals and their false angst on intolerance - Times of India (blog)