It is evident to even the blind that the media is not particularly in love with Modi. I wondered what was so different about Modi that the media hated this particular politician over a hundred others like him. So here is my half-baked take on this subject. This theorising is obviously just to get a conversation started. So here goes...
Their philosophy: From my little tour of the web (most people call it research), I found that some of the more notable media persons in India today are products of left-leaning educational institutions, were flag-waving, and possibly card-carrying members of NSUI, SFI, and similar student unions that are far left of centre. And many of these journalists became journalists not necessarily out of choice, but were misfits in corporate India, or were unqualified for government jobs. And as journalists, they carried their political philosophies into their jobs. This probably holds good for Hartosh Bal, Purnima Joshi, Harshvardhan Tripathi, Nalini Singh, Kanchan Gupta, and a dozen others in the Delhi political circle. So far so good.
The clique: Over years, these journalists lived inside a nine-square kilometre bubble in Delhi (also called Lutyens Delhi - dotted with large, dark bungalows with pretty lawns), and built a cosy relationship with the establishment living and working in those bungalows - the political leadership, key party workers, business tycoons, and a bunch of hangers-on and 'sources'. They hung around together most times away from work - they were always seen in the cocktail and samosa parties hosted by the Lalu Yadavs, Advanis, Kapil Sibals, Anand Sharmas, Omar Abdullahs, and the likes, peddling juicy inter and intra party gossips, speaking in clipped English accents, and trading favours for favourable articles in the next edition. Not for them, the hard grind of traveling the length and breadth of india in search of a story or a lead, or the deep and sharp scrutiny and fact checks, to make a story fool proof. There was an easier way to be the fourth pillar of democracy - 'network'.
Their work ethics: Traversing the dusty Mathura-Agra road to understand the mood of the electorate, or making the bone-jarring trip from Patna to Gaya to sense a political mood change, or spending a sweltering afternoon with suicidal farmers in Andhra, was not their cup of tea. Their window to the rest of India was from the air-conditioned confines of their offices at Barakhamba Road. They got their news-bites, juicy gossips, power plays, election game plans, alignments and breakups, et al. simply by tapping a few buttons on their phones, or by making a quick dash to Ashoka or Maurya hotel for a meet-up with a 'source'. If they did have to travel, they rather board the prime-ministerial aircraft, and be seen with the 'powerful'.
Members of this Lutyens network are famously incestuous, and detest any outsider trying to get into the club. Add to this mix, the well-known Delhi "haan-jee" culture (I am expecting brickbats here from my Delhi friends) of licking up to the powerful, you have a heady potion that gets poured into the print and digital media everyday. They knew it all, and passed their judgement on all and sundry from this Vikramaditya throne.
When you add their political beliefs (left leaning liberals almost always) to their closed network of friends and connections, you know the outcome - promoting and talking up people, irrespective of their caliber or moral scruples, who were aligned to their viewpoint. A witty Lalu Yadav was therefore a darling who did magic with the railways, a Kapil Sibal was that brilliant minister who could weave his magic with words, and P Chidambaram was the finance minister that God himself ordered. Advani, Vajpayee, MM Joshi, though from the right-wing, were still amongst the beloved, because they were quintessentially Delhi. Lutyens Delhi.
So when a Modi came along with his Gujju entourage, with his rustic brashness, his no-nonsense attitude, and his total distaste for cocktail parties, he petrified the suave, tea-sipping, left liberals in the media world. And when they realised that this man, who had been under unrelenting media scrutiny for over a decade for events of 2002, had come to occupy the highest post in the country, they just could not accept it. How could a Delhi outsider, who neither spoke English with a clipped English accent, nor let his teammates hold parties on the plush lawns of their Lutyens bungalows, now curried favor from these media lords for his kith and kin, become a PM? Rather, how dare he become a PM?
Modi on his part, cared two hoots for these media barons and those gilt-edged journalists. Unlike his predecessors, who made sure their friends and families from their administration found jobs in NDTV, Hindustan Times, TimesNow and the likes (as "liaison officers" usually) once they demitted office, Modi on the other hand, had no expectation from, and use for, this media - media that hounded him for his (mis)deeds of 2002, for his RSS right-wing philosophy, for his strong Hindutva leanings. If Modi had his faults and biases, the media instead of showing those up, showed itself up as faulty and biased as well.
Modi's smarts though was in understanding that the India of today had little use for traditional media. He therefore sidestepped the Barkha Dutts and Rajdeep Sardesais,and focused instead on building his own digital presence, connecting directly with the people, and through a hundred digital news channels that pushed his agenda forward. If Amazon and FlipKart could do it, why could he not? That of course irked traditional media.
Traditional media were now not just deprived of access to the PM, or to insider friends, but even to cocktail parties. 'Sources' started drying up. It was funny that one of the big names quoted his 'source' as an 'ola cab driver'!!! Pitiable, isn't it?
We now see the media slowly pivoting, and kowtowing to the new dispensation, with media house after media house slowing down their rant against the PM and his team. Is this the beginning of the about turn of the Indian media?
Editorial freedom is mythical in India. The media owner dictates to the editor what is ok to publish and what is not. if media is considered the fourth leg of democracy, and the watchdog for the millions, it has now turned itself into a lapdog here in India, used, misused, and abused by the powers that be. And journalism 101 - seek facts, check facts, double check facts- and then publish, has never been our media's strong point. When you add pliant media, low commitment to, and competence in, the profession, and a phenomenally secretive and centralised government machinery, we have a situation today that we wished we never had. Indian mainstream media has failed us miserably.
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