Manipulated media

A 22 year old Oxford graduate and aspiring journalist, Willem Marx, had a stint in Baghdad as an intern in a US PR firm. Which resulted in a lengthy, but engaging, account of how the US forces make/fake news for media consumption. Willem interned with a PR-firm that processed military-fed material into news reports and features and flogged them, as reports sourced from ‘independent’ agencies, to Iraqi media - print, TV and radio.

The media was paid for their publication. A newspaper charges anything from $50 to $1.500 a piece. TV and radio commanded a much higher fee.

The PR company made millions. Its total earnings during the two months of Willem's internship was $19 mill. The company got $ 20,000 for every news story it placed in the Iraqi media. Placement of 32-op-ed articles and 80 half-page advertisement fetched $400,000. Plastering Baghdad with 140,000 posters meant another $400,000. The company also designed nine Internet news sites (for $2,500 each) and produced five DVDs ($ 580,000).

Willem Marx article, a must-read for reporters and other media-related folk, appears in AlterNet

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Celebration of dancers

My friend Vibuti Jain of Wonderweb sends me loads of photos on a wide range of subjects. the one on the left is from the set of 12 pictures he sent me under the heading - Celebration of dancers.

Coping with your in-laws situation

I don’t watch saas-bahu serials on TV. Presumably, they typecast saas as the devil-in-residence; and a bahu as the tormented underdog. Pa-in-law (sasur) is usually painted as a well-intentioned, but good-for-nothing, guy, and the prime ‘yes-man’ in the household.

Richa Pant in a rediff.com feature articulates here thoughts on how a woman could handle in-laws, for maxing domestic harmony. Maybe there is nothing in the piece that you don’t know about already. But then it is the kind of theme that you would want to read about, if only to self-rate yourself in Richa’s 9-pont scale. The article is mainly for women who can’t ‘escape’ in-laws trouble, by staying away from saas.

Part II of Richa’s article deals with the husband’s perspective on marriage and in-laws.

How about a piece on the in-laws perspective, Ms Pant ?

Lalu at IIM-A

My thought on seeing the newspaper headline was: ‘What was he doing in a place like that?’. I could not quite place our top entertainer-politician in a sober setting of a management class-room . Besides, my perception (I stand corrected) of our rail minister was that he probably knew about cows, rather than issues of high management of railways.

I was mistaken. In his interaction with management students at Ahmedabad Mr Lalu Prasad impressed the gathering with his plans for the railways. What’s more, the rail minister told the IIM students a thing or two about cows as well. A Jersey cow, he says, falls sick, if she is not milked fully. So would the railways, if their full potential for development is not tapped.

The minister spoke of his dreams of developing our railway stations to global standards - with shopping malls, large parking lot, transit hotel and all. He makes sense with his suggestion that access to platforms should be restricted only to passengers. Apart form security concerns, the ban on visitor entry to platforms would make them far less congested.

As a security measure, the move for passengers-only platform would have merit, only if the ban on visitors is backed by proper arrangement, at the platform entry, for security check of both passengers and their baggage (x-ray screening). However, provision can be made for allowing in visitors who come to see off elderly passengers, needing help in boarding a train.
Railway stations in future would look more like airports. Hopefully, with no entry fee, for access of visitors. to the lobby, the mall and areas other than the security-cordoned railway platforms. Airports would also so well to scrap entry fee to arrival/departure lounges. Aviation minister, Mr Praful Patel, should take a leaf from the rail minister.

Damned by Debt Relief

In June 2005 the finance ministers of the G8 industrialised nations struck a deal worth a seemingly whopping US$72billion that cancelled the debt of 18 of the poorest countries in the world, 14 of them in Africa.

So how’s that working out for those on the receiving end, for those who live in the poor African countries that have been liberated from debt? ‘It is rubbish. It stinks. This debt relief is making things worse.’ says DeRoy Kwesi Andrew, a science teacher and BA student in his twenties who lives in Accra, Over the past year he has been working on the film Damned by Debt Relief, a scathing critique of the economic and political straitjacket imposed on the poor countries that signed up for debt relief.

‘Debt relief has taken away very much: our independence, our ability to develop, our self-respect

it has meant the country being forced to submit to more stringent international regulation of its spending habits and priorities, Says Andrew. ‘It does not deliver development and it also denies us the freedom to pursue development.

The post-G8 debt relief programme ties poor countries into a relationship of child-like dependency with international institutions.

They tell Third World countries how to run their affairs, prioritise their investments and they insist on regular check-ups to make sure these countries are adhering to ‘good policy performance’
.
In order to win debt repayment or relief Third World countries must agree to mould their political and economic life – the very lifeblood of sovereign states – around the diktats of Western governments and banks.

From Spiked interview with Ghanaian teacher and film maker.

Toxic childhood

A letter in London's Daily Telegraph, signed by 100 experts evoked a Spiked reaction, saying that experts, while raising critical questions about how we mollycoddle chldren, are suseptible to childish prejudices.

Spiked essayist Helene Guldberg writes: The best thing experts can do for children is to argue for them to be given more freedom – not to do whatever they want, of course; they need clear boundaries set by parents. But unsupervised play isn’t just some kind of childhood luxury that kids can do without. It is vital for children’s healthy emotional and social development. Study after study has shown that it helps to develop children’s ability to negotiate social rules and to create their own rules. Children need to learn to deal with risks and develop the capacity to assess challenges. They also need to be given the opportunity to develop resilience to life’s inevitable blows. In short, taking risks in childhood goes hand-in-hand with developing new skills. Click here.. to read on.

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If only MS could’ve blogged….

The Hindu photo - MS with T Sadasivam

M S Subbulakshmi had this habit of jotting down minute details about all her performances. So says an article in The Hindu Friday Review. Her jottings contained details of concert organizers, venue, accompanists, the song list, the dignitaries in the audience, and even the colour of the sari MS wore for the occasion.

If only they had invented the blog when she was at her prime MS would have been a great blogger. Sulochana Pattibhiraman’s article is full of tidbits on the daily routine of MS - an early riser (well before 5 a m), she started her day with piping hot coffee before a brisk walk-around in her garden. At times she preferred ‘sukku’ coffee.

MS had always discussed with husband T Sadasivam programme details prior to every concert. He chose the songs and listed them out and she scrupulously followed the list of numbers.

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Anne Frank’s Diary

We all know of the book; many of us may have read it. Translated into 67 languages, The Diary of Anne Frank reportedly sold over 31 million copies. I didn’t know that the book had problem finding a publisher in Britain and the US till I read about it in a letter to the editors in The New York Review of Books. The death of the book’s editor at Doubleday, Barbara Zimmerman Epstein, (in June) occasioned the letter.

The Diary of Anne Frank was published in America in 1952, five years after the book first appeared in the Netherlands. The author of the NYRB letter, Kem Knapp Sawyer, points out that Anne’s father, Otto Rank, received numerous rejections from publishers before Doubleday acquired the manuscript (1951). Following its publication he got over 30,000 letters from readers.

In the introduction to the US edition Eleanor Roosevelt wrote:
Anne Frank's account of the changes wrought upon eight people hiding out from the Nazis for two years during the occupation of Holland, living in constant fear and isolation, imprisoned not only by the terrible outward circumstances of war but inwardly by themselves, made me intimately and shockingly aware of war's greatest evil—the degradation of the human spirit.

Anne Frank died at Bergen Belson concentration camp

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TTK Group’s First Lady

A Tehelka interview with wife of TTK group chairman makes a racy read. Mrs Latha Jagannathan emerges as a plain-talking person with a sharp mind that appears refreshingly free from hang-ups one might associate with corporate social environment.

Her response to some rapid-fire questions:
If you met Bush, what would you ask him to do?
To resign.

What about Mother Teresa, if she were alive?
I’d ask her to do things differently. She gave away freely to people. I’d say give them something that makes them responsible and independent

An issue you feel strongly about?
Corruption. An issue that is dragging down the country badly.

Narayana Murthy or Anna Hazare?
Neither. Azim Premji.

Coping with 'hate' mail

No newspaper, or website, worth its image can claim to be free from hate mail. None can be expected to entertain them in the name of freedom of expression. Spreading hatred towards something or someone can get to be some people's obsession. The Hindu readers editor, Mr K Narayanan makes a reference to this media virus in his latest op-ed column. As he put it,

Newspaper ombudsmen are familiar with what is called "campaign" or "hate" mail. In such instances, there is an organised flow of messages all containing the same idea, only slightly differently worded. From the pattern, it becomes obvious that these motivated missives need no consideration. As a rule, the Readers' Editor of The Guardian does not read them and indeed has them filtered out of his inbox

Film Critics, Endangered Species

No matter what film critics say about his flicks - plot-less, pointless, silly, goofy - Karan Johar seems to be laughing all the way to the bank with his latest, Khabie Alvida Na Kehna’ (Kank). Gone are the days when producers looked upon film critics as mai-baap, who made or mucked up a film’s chances at the box-office. Film-goers those days relied on newspaper reviews to set their minds for them. They now have sneak-previews, studio generated puff-shows on TV, fan sites and entertainment blogs. A film critic can no longer play god- Read more, click on Dateline Mysore.

Our crorepathi ministers

Now we know how much our ministers are worth. It's something we all wanted to know, but couldn't bring ourselves to ask when politicians make eve-of-poll vote-getting visits to our neighbourhoods. Must say, Deccan Herald has done a good job, reporting in detail the Lokayukta statement on the assets declared by our legislators/ministers. The DH online version doesn't fully reflect the coverage given in the print edition.

The newspaper not only gives details of assets of those who have declared their wealth, but has also listed the 53 MLAs/MLCs who failed to furnish the mandated information within the two-month grace period that expired on August 31. A couple of defaulters are reported to have claimed they were unaware of the Lokayukta deadline. A likely story. An MLA reportedly blamed his PA for the failure to communicate in time details of the MLA's assets to the Lokayukta. And then a has-been minister, still an MLA, is believed to have sought an assurance that details of he declares to the Lokayukta be held confidential.

Our elected representatives may have many virtues, but transperancy is not one of them, for at least 53 of our legislators. Of course, we can rely on them to raise their voice for our right to information, so long as it doesn't have anything to do with their information.

For award-winners, standing room only

A group photo in Star of Mysore (Aug.29) features 10 achievers in Urdu journalism and literature, honoured with awards instituted by the Urdu Academi. The photo, showing the award-winners along with those representing the Karnataka Urdu establishment, was taken shortly after they were presented with the awards at a Kalamandira function.

Seated upfront in the photo are CIIL director, Maulana Azad National Urdu University vice-chancellor (who presented the awards), chairman of the Urdu Akademi (which instituted the awards), a former Minister, and registrar of the Akademi. Behind them are seen lined up, and standing, the award-winners, in whose honour the function was held. Maybe no one thought of this, least of all, those who set up the photograph. Maybe, the award-winners took the back row because they outnumber the organisers. But I sense in the setting of the group photo , what I would call, our ‘mai-baap’ syndrome. It is not that we honour Urdu achievers less, but we are given to respecting our establishment biggies more.

Our CM slept here

Was it Sarojini Naidu who was credited with saying that it cost the nation a fortune to keep Gandhiji in poverty ? (Mr Gouri Satya/Mr Krishna Vattam could correct me on this). I remembered this saying as I read in Deccan Herald about the CM, Mr H D Kumaraswamy’s night stay at Hire Mannur village in Gulbarga dist. the other day. (Nice story by Mr Anand V Yammur). The newspaper carries a photographs of the CM sleeping on the living room floor of a party worker’s residence.
In a nine-para story the reporter captures the setting in all its mundane details. The CM used a common bath and bathed in water brought from the close-by Bheema river. Had he chosen to go to the river for a bath, as most villagers usually do, our CM would have provided the media with an excellent photo opportunity. I am not making a judgment here, on whether the CM’s night at the village was a PR-hype or he was being his plain simple self. My point is that persons in high position, with such austerity gestures, cannot hope to make much difference to the cost of VIP travel, involving an entourage, bandobast and security. Ms Sarojini Naidu’s reference was to the high cost involved in arranging for Gandhji’s rail travel in III Class, and his stay at the Punchquian Road Harijan basti in New Delhi.

Celebrating Dasara, on Sarkari dole

Our public works minister, Mr H D Revanna, has released in the media the financial demands made on the state government by various agencies in the name of Dasara:

Mysore City Corporation - Rs. 5 crores (for road works and improvement of public parks)
Tourism Dept. - Rs. 1 crore
Horticulture - Rs. 1 crore
Chamundeswari Electric Supply Corp. - Rs. 40 lakhs (for roads illumination)
Heritage sites renovation - Rs.2.25 crores
Public Works Dept. - Rs. 12.85 crores (for repairs on 25-km stretch of city roads)
Dasara Celebrations - Rs. 2.25 crores.

The figures add upt to Rs. 24.75 crores. Not a big deal, perhaps, for the government. But I don't suppose anyone, least of all the departments concerned, expect the government to meet their demands fully. And we can expect, at the end of the day, a blame game to be played out, in which we can all blame the governemnt for being tight-fisted in releasing grants and giving us too little, too late.

We don't hear much about contributions from the economic beneficiaries of Dasara celebrations - contractors, city shopkeepers, tour operators, hotel owners, auto-drivers etc. They all have associations. Could we expect them to persuade their members to plough back part of their season's windfall into a permanent trust fund, devoted to making Dasara a festival to which tourists would want to come back , again and again ?

When are we, if ever, going to change this mindset - of celebrating Dasara on sarkari dole ?

MyMysore cloned

It is nice to learn that mymysore.com is being missed so much by someone that he has set up a clone. Mr Badri Hiriyur e-mailed us the link to his site - OurMysore - an alternate forum for mymysoreans. Says Mr Hiriyur: Every day I stop by the site only to return disappointed. I even spent the better part of Saturday setting up an alternate forum to keep the discussions going.

OurMysore blog makes it clear that it is a Mymysore clone, set up because the original site has been shut off due to spam attacks. It has three discussion forums modelled on the mymysore site.

Shortly before all forums in our site got turned off Mr Hiriyur managed to post a message:
For many months now, I have been a mute visitor here (one of the many, I am sure). Just found out that the two I-s (Issue & Ideas) message board has been cordoned off from public view with password protection. I am assuming this is in response to the recent spam attacks on this site. Would the forum administrator please give us an update on how we might access that board?- BKH.

Your assumption was right, Mr Hiriyur. Toxic spamming turned us off. For how long, we can't say, right now. Would keep you posted on the developments. Meanwhile, thanks for the proxy site. On my part, I would like to see OurMysore taking a life of its own, even after mymysore.com bounces back.

Plea to BAI: Building flats isn't enough

The Mysore centre of Builders Association of India (BAI) is talking in terms of raising, over the next one year, 50 lakh sq.ft. housing space, which means a hundred apartment blocks, with an investment of nearly Rs.600 crores. So said BAI chief, Mr K Sriram, on the eve of a Myrealty Expos at Southern Star Hotel. Some 30 property developers, who clubbed up to put up the show, have also involved institutions providing housing financing and insurance to facilitate prospective buyers all-round information at a one-stop expo.

I wish BAI also focuses its attention on after-sales service aspects. Evidently, such large scale apartments building BAI seeks to promote would exert pressure on maintenance and security services that are an integral part of apartment living. In Mysore, where apartment living is a relatively recent phenomenon, apartment-life support services are far from satisfactory. There is a definite need for developing these services on a professional footing.

Apartment builders, after completion of work in all its aspects - landscaping, proper rain-sun shade over common areas, intercom phones etc. - hand over real estate maintenance to residents association. Its office-bearers usually lack knowledge and management skills required to access and co-ordinate the upkeep of common facilities - power generator, plumbing, electrical fault repair, manning/maintenance of lift, 24/7 helpline, high-rise glass panel cleaning and other services for which there would be a spurt in demand with the growth of apartment blocks. Shouldn't BAI, which creates the steel-and-cement infrastructure, deem it its responsiblity to address issues pertaining to apartment-life support services ?

Then, there is the aspect of security. Till such time we become progressive enough to provide electronics security system in apartment complexes, BAI would do well to ensure that the mushrooming security services outfits in the city are run on professional lines. What we have now is that the uniformed staff provided by the so-called security agencies are under-paid and over-exploited, which make them poor security guards. If indeed BAI wants to function as a one-stop facilitator, the association should address issues of professionalism and efficiency in apartment-life support services in residential blocks, that often carry the brand name of their builders.

Are both rail ministers on the same track ?

Our CM, Mr H D Kumarasamy, and rail minister, Mr R Velu, appear to have differing perceptions on the Mysore-Bangalore double track issue. The chief minister brought cheers to Mysoreans with a statement the other day that work on this long-pending project would be resumed within weeks, if not days. Karnataka, he said, had sanctioned Rs. 25 crores for this year; and a NOC by the Centre to the railways was round the corner. CM's made the statement following an all-party delegation meeting with union rail minister, Mr Lalu Prasad in New Delhi.

Within days after CM's statement Rail Minister Jr. , Mr R Velu, was in Mysore for a railway function; and his take was the double-tracking work was not on the cards, not anytime soon. The project, as of now, had been sanctioned only upto Ramanagaram, from Bangalore. And to get the work extended entailed certain 'proce..ee...dures'. Mr Velu was in no mood to give us any hope, not even a false one.

As for CM's statement, Mr Velu let it be known that he was not even aware of an all-party delegation having met Mr Lalu Prasad. Doesn't this make you wonder if both of them work for the same ministry ?

Mysore Dasara: A spurious issue

Local media has been, for the last some days, polling readers on their preferences in respect the person they think should inaugurate Dasara celebrations next month. The Dasara high power committee (has anyone heard of low or medium powered committee ?) is pondering four candidates - Girish Karnad, Prof. Chenneveera Kavavi, Prof. U R Rao, and Rahul Dravid.

Star of Mysore’s invitation to readers to express their choice would presumably help us understand the Mysorean mind on the matter. To my mind, the issue that has been raised is spurious. Does anyone care who inaugurates Dasara? Would it make any difference to the celebrations? What if a critical mass of Mysore residents were to say, ‘none of the above’? Would the high powered committee consider such a verdict?

I suspect Mysoreans have no say in the matter. Nor do they have a mind of their own, to come up with their own name. I mean someone local, rooted in our soil; someone who would cherish the town's recognition, and brag about it to his or her folks. Someone who has made Mysore proud with her work at the grass-roots. Someone such as Putteeramma of Vidyaranyapuram, Dr. B Nirmala of the Maharani’s who has secured over 2,000 eye-donation pledges from college students, or Mr K Gangadhara Rao, 80, who has carried on a one-man mission to educate people on the importance of donation of body parts for transplant and medical research.

Collarless at the club

So, you insist on wearing a collarless shirt, said my friend Mani who came to pick me up for an evening out during my recent Chennai visit. That was his way of telling me I sabotaged his plans for drinks & dinner at the Madras Gymkhana. The club insists on members and guests wearing shirt with a proper collar. And I had given it up years back, in favour of half-sleeved ‘kurtha’ that is a cross between ‘safari’ and T-shirt. My ‘khadi’ signature dress is exclusive; it is available only at Chennai’s Rayapetta branch of the Khadi Gram Udhyog Bhavan. The club and I appeared mutually exclusive when it came to the dress code.

I have been to Gymkhana a few times in the line of duty as a wining/dining media person. This was before I switched to ‘khadi’. And once, after. But then I had to borrow one of Mani’s shirts for the evening. This time I wasn’t in a shirt-borrowing mood. We ended up at GRT Grand.

A decade back, during my stint as Chennai correspondent of The Times of India, a PR-friend invited a few us to lunch at Madras Cricket Club, with a visiting executive of a multinational, an American. There were a dozen of us, and we all drove to the club together and filed into the bar that overlooks the Chepauk grounds. Moments after we settled at the bar, a club official walked up to our table and whispered something to the PR-man.

Clearly embarrassed, our PR friend let it be known that we were not welcome at the club bar, as one of us was wearing something without a collar. The club secretary, however, condescended to set up a table for us at the pavilion, adjacent to the club bar. Our American guest took it sportingly. My efforts to make some excuse for leaving the club, so that others could lunch in air-conditioned comfort, didn’t work.

As a gesture of solidarity the mighty media in Madras was prepared to have its chilled beer and chicken biriyani at Chepauk grounds pavilion on a sultry mid-summer afternoon. Speaking of the power of the media, here was a group, representing the media corps of Chennai, that got pushed around, because the club management insisted on upholding an archaic club code. We, the media, accepted it without as much as a murmur. I don’t suppose any of us wrote about it either.