Hindustan Times
What if Tiger was an Indian?
Here is a scenario. Sachin Tendulkar drives his car at a relatively slow speed, into a tree. His wife, who is nearby because the accident takes place right outside their house, breaks the car window with a cricket bat and rescues him. Sachin is taken to hospital where he is treated for minor injuries and allowed to go home.
How would the Indian media treat this issue?
Here’s my theory on what would happen. When news of the accident first emerges, it will be flashed on all TV channels. Then, reporters will go to the hospital to figure out how badly Sachin is injured and whether his cricketing prospects will be affected. When it is clear that he is in no danger and that the injuries are of a minor nature, the media will leave him alone.
Suppose now that a set of rumours swirled around the crash. Suppose somebody gossiped that Sachin was having an affair, that he had fought with his wife, that she may have hit him during that row and that, therefore, the minor injuries he was treated for were actually inflicted before the accident.
My guess is that one or two channels might conceivably carry the story. But that the media as a whole would ignore the gossip. Those channels that did run the speculative stories would be roundly criticized. Some MP would get up in Parliament and talk about the sensationalism that had now taken over television. The I&B minister would assure the house that her ministry would conduct a thorough enquiry into this kind of cheap and intrusive reporting.
Websites like this one would be full of comments. People would tell us how the media had crossed all limits. We would be attacked for trivializing the news. We would be told that we had fallen prey to the cult of celebrity journalism at the cost of the real problems that needed to be covered.
At some stage, some blogger would say that we needed to learn from the example of the West. Look at the BBC! Look at CNN! Would they ever stoop so low?
Okay, that’s one hypothetical scenario.
Now, let’s turn to a real one. Re-read the first paragraph of this column and think not of Sachin Tendulkar and cricket bats but of Tiger Woods and golf clubs. And if you haven’t already worked it out, you will know the point I am making.
For the last few days, the Tiger Woods accident has received saturation coverage on all media outlets in the West. CNN gave the story considerable space. So did the BBC. Many channels played a recording of a 911 call made by Tiger Woods’s neighbour in which he reported the accident. Newspapers have front-paged the story in England and in America.
We have been told who Woods was having an affair with – according to the media, the woman in question is a party planner who admits to knowing Woods but is unwilling to say more. She has been hounded and stalked by the media to the extent that she is now taking refuge in a hotel.
The police have been trying to interview Tiger Woods to find out exactly what happened. Had his wife actually hit him before the accident occurred? You could take the line that even if the couple had a domestic spat which resulted in minor injuries, neither wants to file a complaint so there is no reason for the police to get involved. But obviously, that’s not the way it works in America where policemen enjoy dealing with the media and releasing tapes of 911 calls.
I make no value judgements about the way in which the Tiger Woods case has been covered by the Western media. Perhaps it is entirely legitimate to turn a domestic spat into an international issue. Perhaps the issue of whether or not Woods was unfaithful to his wife is worthy of so much media attention.
My concern is with India. As should now be obvious, this is not the way we do things here. Are we right to follow our own path? Or should we adopt a Western approach.
My view is that we are better off doing things our own way.
But there is a second question. Why are Indians so determined to run down our own media? Why do we waste so much time and energy attacking television channels and newspapers for coverage of celebrity stories or of relatively insignificant events? Why do we pretend that this would never happen with the BBC, CNN, etc.?
As the Balloon Boy incident shows us, Western TV channels can be obsessed with the trivial. And the Tiger Woods saga demonstrates that when it comes to celebrity journalism, we are actually far more restrained than the West.
It’s time for all those self-righteous bloggers to re-think some of their reference points. We may well do things badly. But then, so do the great TV channels of the West that are held up as shining examples to us.
(25 votes, average: 3.32 out of 5)
Loading ...Posted by Vir Sanghvi on Tuesday, December 1, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Filed under Media · Tagged 911, America, England, Parliament, Sachin, Sachin Tendulkar, Tiger Woods
Quite sleek you are juxtaposing worst journaism from west to the eveyrday journalism in India.
I can assure Indian media would have even had talk show some would have even played mock spat audio visual.
Our media sucks and we know it very well.
they do the kind of drama you have painted even in thin air without any incident whatsoever.
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Atul Reply:
December 16th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
I second that, though I doubt if I would have come that harsh on that one..
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The question is that Can India ever have a sportsman like Tiger or Can India have responsible media?
The answer to both questions is big NO.
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K Reply:
December 6th, 2009 at 9:16 am
I think thats harsh. Tiger Woods to golf is no greater than Sachin is to Cricket.
Responsible media ? How about responsible citizens first ……both in US and in India, tabloid is created because tabloid sells.
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uttkarsh chaturvedi Reply:
December 30th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Hey Rajiv,
Well your first query is being solved by Mr. K.
And the second one Media makes it because it sells in India,the day you turn responsible your Media would too, Media is just the refection of your society.When you had responsible citiizens during the Freedom Struggle the media was responsible and even Media by time is turning better.
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First of all I am not sure what is the purpose of this article.
Indian media is the worst… I don;t need to explain that. Many examples are there… one is Arushi murder case.
I have never seen any anchor on BBC, ABC, CNN shouting and yelling and trying to intimidate the viewers and person who is being interviewd. Hindi news channels are the worst… background music as shown in hindi movies and bold heading lines… as if there is a war going on.
Sanghvi why are to comparing India media and Indians with Western media and Westerners?
Giving another example : as you say Indian has its own brand of secularism as comapred to west… why compare media then? What are you trying to say/ proove here?
Arent there any bigger problems to address rather than wasting your time on celebrties? Who caers if Woods is having a bad marriage…
I wait when something like this happens in your family and you became a “Tamasha” of public…..
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Dear Mr. Sanghvi,
While I agree to your point that media everywhere irrespective of whether it is In India or the West thrives on sensationalism, I would also mention that besides sensationaling some events, you also get some fairly responsible reporting by likes of BBC/ CNN as well which is not what can be said of any newspapers or television channels in India. I just don’t see any useful debates or coverage of global human interest stories in any leading Indian newspapers , forget television. Our media is celebrity obsessed , so instead of reporting on valiant battles of our soldiers in Kashmir and North East in trying conditions, we get to see Salman’s antics and Shilpa Shetty’s wedding details splashed on frontpages. And as to your point about the way Indian media would have handled this if it was Sachin and not Tiger Woods, would just like to mention that this is more on account of Sachin’s carefully cultivated image, sullying of which would not be acceptable to public - but just try putting in a Baichung Bhutia or a Vijender Singh in Sachin’s place, and you will see how the media takes them to the dogs. I have been an avid reader of both HT and TOI, but must say that even in countries like Indonesia where I am currently residing, the quality of Jakarta Post expert article contributions and editorials highlighting national polity and international issues is a class above the Indian tabloid versions of newspapers.
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Saarthak Reply:
December 3rd, 2009 at 5:53 am
well said, agree with your points.
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Mr. Sanghvi, a master in the craft of marshaling his facts, putting ‘intelligence’ and then weave a highly readable story, is blissfully unaware of one of the golden rules of blogging that a post in a blog should be interactive. He never replies to the comments as that is not the job of a pontiff, a role which editors these days have smugly assumed. But even, I cannot check my temptation to put my comments on this post.
He has called bloggers self-righteous. The blogosphere, in fact, has exploded in such a bog way on account of tyranny of editors. In the New Media every one is free to express views. Eyeballs are the masters to judge what to reject and what to embrace. Unlike media, print and electronic as well as broadcast, which has been usurped by a few elites, the blogosphere is without any restriction. Moreover, this well-entrenched elite group in the Indian media continue to manage the scene, though with adverse impact on the media economy and increasing decline in the ‘genuine’ circulation of magazines and newspapers.
Unlike in the West where the role of journalists in every segment of the media is well-defined, here in India, we have to read the article (oped) by the same person who frequently appears on various channels and participate in a discussion on a radio station. Lo, now the same person is out to grab the blogosphere but here the feedback is immediate and one is subject to criticism and scrutiny without insulation of the editor’s scissors..
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Sumit Puri Reply:
December 2nd, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Agree with you, Anil…do hope we get some comments back from Mr. Sanghvi on whether he is influenced by any of our blogs or is this just a one sided monologue with no possibility of reaching a logical agreement .
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Arvind Reply:
December 16th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
We all, including Anil, Sumit & me, should not expect Vir Sanghvi to respond — does he himself get to post his blog or is it outsourced? I enjoy his articles even where I don’t agree with him; this is the first (only??) time I’m commenting as it effects self-righteous bloggers.
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Media everywhere loves sensationlism. And it gets attacked everywhere. And people love trivia. Schadenfreude is the feeling that keeps the whole thing going. Period.
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I agree with pankaj. This article is quite defensive. The examples themselves are dumb. Firstly, EVERY media channel would analyse Sachin to death if he were to be injured. Dont u remember when he had the tennis elbow. Secondly, even if media channels wont believe the rumors, they will still continue to run the story and say that these are rumors and people should not believe those.
Of course, its easy to denounce (especially in monologues like this) online comments because they point out what they really are. Journos just cannot digest the fact that their opinions analyses should be subject to scrutiny. Finest Example - Barkha Dutt. Journos in India are yet to acknowledge that there are articulate, expressive people outside of their journalistic circles. Lawyers and journalists are known to love the sound of their own voice, including yours truly. If someone agrees with the journos, they are deemed secular, thinker, thespian etc… and if they disagree they are deemed bigots, self righteous. Maybe the old world journalists like the author are yet to digest the fact that there are considerable number of people who carry with them the objectivity of looking at a situtation and that this is not the exclusive domain of the media only. This could be summed up in two words though - Grow up
http://mywriterkeeda.wordpress.com
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Are you kidding,
We would have been saturated with Visuals of Tendulkar getting injured. The media especially the hindi channels would have had a field day with the english ones peer pressured into going along.
The affair angle would get sublimal coverage throughout for fear of offending tendulkar fans.
That would be it since its tendulkar and we do have some restraint with out holy cows.
If it was yuvaraj we would have had a chat show to identify the person and detail her entire past life. Her ex boyfriends building watchman will become an expert charector witness for her.
In between there will be further news shows about yuvraj’s past and any rent a quote idiot will start talking about when and where he met with the said person. The BCCI will be asked by some Bihari /Bhaiya in parliamant to look into any indecent dehavious during a govt of india tour.
We would go crazy without any pretence of class or sophestication.
Come on Mr Sanghvi, you know better…
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Anil Kumar Reply:
December 2nd, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Seriously what’s the relvance of bihari/Bhaiya here.. Despite the fact Biharis are the least regionalist of the whole lot in India. i find it quiteamusing when those who drive regionalilst nonsense tryign to paint themselves as soem some sort of liberal stalwart.
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Harish Reply:
December 3rd, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Lets see…Parkati was sharad yadavs Contribution to Parlimentary debate
Mulayam singh wanted to ban computers and English.
and we could go on about Mayawati and the paswans of the world.
Lallo yadav though is excluded. That man for all his failings can grasp the bigger picture better than most others..
This isnt about the people of any state but the politicians and how they react. Take these things in the right spirit without preconceived notions.
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Sharat Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 3:14 am
I agree with Anil’s remarks, what do you mean by “Bihari/Bhaiyas” ? You are generalizing a particular people of a state as foolish and illiterate here. Better apologize.
Hello Mr. Sanghvi
It is a very feeble attempt on your part to defend Indian media. Please do not compare our media with either BBC or CNN. They have such varied stuff to dish out to their readers which Indian media can not even think of. In fact, the reader is always thrust with one sided views of the editors of newspapers and news anchors on TV. Sachin is infact a creation of the media. Yes, he plays stylishly and has been playing for so many years. But never talk of Kapil Dev, who as a fast bowler survived so long. After all, batsmen have more survival rates than bowlers. It was for the same Sachin that people were asking for either dropping him from the team or asking for his retirement at one time of his career when he was not doing well. The Indian people like performers, no matter which profession they come from. After all, these players earn disproportionate amount of wealth which no other profession can do it.
The Indian media has to be very pragmatic and credible and be not always seen singing paeans to a single political party. The English media has to be more watchful as only a particular class opf people either read English language papers or watch tv talk shows in this language. They do carry their own views as well and can easily see through the biased views in the discussions. The Indian media can command respect only if they play a fair game in covering the events in the country instead of always propagating a particular political view point.
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Part of it is our colonial mindset of not going against or saying anything bad about a celebrity or someone in authority. Our mindset of hero worship doesnt allow us to see the bad in famous and powerful people.
That is partly why India is the mess it is today.
The media should take celebrities and public figures apart so that there is some fear of wrongdoing.
Tehelka etc sting operations were a great start till the people in power launched a vicious and vengeful attack to put an end to them. Imagine how many corrupt and immoral people they would have exposed till now!!
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Shikha Reply:
December 6th, 2009 at 10:26 am
If you thought that Tehelka was there to expose corrupt politicians then well that might not be the complete picture. Have you seen Tehelka exposing ministers from the Congress? I mean can any one believe that there is no scam or fraudulent payments involving the ruling Congress ministers? We definitely want more sting operations but not those that operate at the behest of a political party
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Has someone in HT top editorial hacked Medium Term and written on your behalf as I haven’t seen such a bad copy from your pen ever before; it meanders all around to make a weak point and it generates no interest in the way it has been written.
“It’s time for all those self-righteous bloggers to re-think some of their reference points. We may well do things badly. But then, so do the great TV channels of the West that are held up as shining examples to us.”
Are you not a self-righteous blogger who just a few months ago did a piece called “Indian papers seem to be in terminal decline” and upheld the British papers as an example and I think you also did a piece called the death of the front page but those copies were written-well while this one looks like it has been downloaded and it is off the centre as well.
Your style suits you don’t give it up just to defend the indefensible.
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Shiuli Mukherji Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Well said Deepan.
I read Mr.Vir’s article In HT regarding the role of media in 26/11 and was very appreciable of his analysis but the current blog is not a signature of Vir sanghvi.
I quote Harold Acton-”So often is the virgin sheet of paper more real than what one has to say, and so often one regrets having marred it.”
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Deepan Joshi Reply:
December 6th, 2009 at 11:23 am
Thanks Shiuli,
I have no doubt regarding the fact that Vir is one of India’s leading writers and his copy flows naturally without a sign of painful effort that is quite evident in what many writers come up with.
This piece by his standards is extremely poor; I think he wanted to make some point but he has weaved it very badly and that could be because he may not have been sure about what it was that he wanted to convey.
Your quote is beautiful and very telling and I would keep it in mind; even if one keeps morality aside the fact is that truthful copies tend to be more interesting and engaging.
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Vir,
Had Indian media treated Sachin the same way the western media treated Tiger Woods Indians would have jumped the gun for the following reasons-
Western media is known to have exposed the cheating spouses that are not just sports personalities but also include high profile people in media and politicals. They involve Bill Clinton, senators, Congressmen. So atleast they are consistent. They do it with everyone. They do not spare the politicians. The do not spare the movie stars. They do not spare the media anchors (Letterman for an example) Now compare this to India. Our media takes pride in discussing movie star infidelity and break ups. But troubled relations of netas are a complete no no. It gives me a funny feeling. As a voter, I consider news of netas visiting brothels more relevant than the gossips about the men in Deepika Padukone’s life.
Now Take for an example Ram Vilas Paswan. It is a fact that this so called leader of dalits dumped his dalit wife only to marry a beautiful Brahmin. But the India media fails to consider this event newsworthy. What a shame!!
How can we dream of treating Sachin’s personal life the same way western media treats Tiger Woods?
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Rajeev Reply:
December 7th, 2009 at 9:21 am
Has media followed story of ND Tiwari’s son out of wedlock?
NO..May I ask why?
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There are some points that I would agree with in this post. Yes we are at times better off doing things our own way.
“But there is a second question. Why are Indians so determined to run down our own media?” I think it is a global thing; the foreign media never lets any opportunity to take a dig at our press go by and we do the same. When the Bach hoax happened I did a piece to take on BBC and Reuters and I am putting that original copy in my blog as the one that appeared in the paper was badly hacked…but when an update appeared in Reuters I just gave up.
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Sorry, the global thing I wrote is not an answer to the second question; that is a different point. I am not too sure about why we run down our own media…One reason could be that apart from the mainstream journalism which by and large is responsible we also have the amazing Aaj Tak and a couple of equally-amazing channels.
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Mr. Sanghvi,
What would the Indian media say if Sachin was affairs with 7 different women and at the same time was earning 10 crores per year via advertising and promoting a wholesome, family man image of himself.
Tiger is a complete fraud. That is the big story here.
Ravi
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Dont think you have ever been so off the mark. You really think the Indian media would leave Sachin alone once they have found out nothing was wrong with him physically (if your hypothetical scenario)?? If yes, let me jog your memory with Chand and god knows what the name of the former deputy chief minister was, or the nithari killings or Amar SIngh CDs or Ash and Salman or Salman and Vivek oberoi or Salman and dont remember her name and many more.
Here is what I think the media may have done in the hypothetical scenario you created - Cameras would have found the parents, neighbors, domestic help, office colleagues and who ever else they could find of the women rumored to be having an affair with Sachin. Questions such as “kya woh ladki apko is tarha ki lagti thi?” ” Kya apne kabhi shak kiya ki yeh ho raha?” would be aired on national television. Some smart presenter would find props (or real people with faces blurred) to enact how Sachin met and made out with the multiple women. And finally, sachin’s kids and their classmates, school teachers, peons and anyone remotely connected would have been interviewed and asked the most ridiculous questions.
Whats happening in the west is shameful but we are fast learners and dont need learnings from episodes such as the Tiger thing to take us down. We’r already there as low or perhaps lower than the western standards on such reporting.
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Well, i dont have to say much besides that no matter if tiger had been an indian or a western he’d have been treated the same by the media but if he’d been an indian he wouldnt have been treated well by indian population though. Some protests by various human rights organisations would have taken some attention of the media to hype the case. Atleast western population love him still irrespective of his personal problems and scandals. Because no matter what he is still the best in his domain without any second thoughts. Indian population is just too emotional to handle these scandals concerning either of their idols no matter how they are even then in their respective fields. Sad but its true.
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Perhaps the debate has now ell boiled down to indian media and western media. We must not forget that every kind of news has its own set of viewers. One might be interested in the business deals between tata and jaguar while another set might be interested in what goes on behind the closed doors of a casting room and another might be interested in whose dog bit whom….there is outlets for all sorts of information and that is because there are receptors of all sorts ‘news’. The definition of this remains the same in the west…
lets be fair here…let there be comparissons between equals…lets not compare level 2 indian channels with level one western channels…sure they too have their own MASALA media of their own….which would talk about a rotweiler biting off the hand of a cop et all….
the fact of the matter is we are still suffering from the colonial mindset and still think that anything coming from w est has to be good by default…even if it is junk…it would be better if we compare by keeping all things constant…
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Certainly the debate has been about the medias of 2 different countries. Now if we talk about the particular set of viewers for each vertical, i really somehow dont agree with it in this cony. I am not at all a sports viewer and neither i am aware. I got to know about the position of Tiger Wood after this hyped up publicity of his personal life only. This is the case with good amount of population. So hence it doesnt matter what kind of a viewer you are, because if something like this is so aggressively publised by the media then i think anyone or everyone would know about it irrespective of their choices.
Yes we still have a colonial mindset but then isnt it justified. But yeah ofcourse, you just cant admire everything of west blindly. And y cant we compare the media of 2 countries, y arent they equal? I dont think there is any inequality between two and hence should be compared…….
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Hi..
I don’t know what all peoples are think about Indian media. Someone says that Indian media focus Salman khan more than other valuable issues, some says Indian media gives more value Sachin then Kapil, but here i like to tell you all that these all channels, journals, tabloids are only show & print what people like to read & watch. This is a very huge truth that mostly people like to watch Saif & Karina’s affair then PT usha & Bainching’s sporting effort. People give more attention to Salman’s six or eight pack show then Indian team’s hockey match. some time media go beyond, but i really appriciate media’s role in Ruchika’s Case. Who knows Ruchika’s realty before media highlight the case ? I am not commenting to any i just here to cheer up our journalists, editors who done there job very fairly at every event. (my english is o poor so forgive me for my mistakes..)
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