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INDIAN NEWS MEDIA From Observer to Participant Usha M Rodrigues and Maya Ranganathan Sage Publications; 240 pages; Rs 895

The trouble with this book begins with its title - Indian News Media: From Observer to Participant.

I asked myself, has Indian news media ever been an "observer"? The first newspapers in India were born to aid, abet, participate and exhort others to participate in the fight for freedom from Britain. Their whole purpose was to needle, rile and irritate our British rulers. That is why newspapers set shop and shut down with such speed. Ram Mohan Roy started the first Indian-owned English daily Bengal Gazette in 1816. When that shut down, he launched Sambad Kaumudi, which shut shop in 1823. Before that, in 1822, he started the Persian weekly Mirut-Ul-Akhbar (Mirror of News). This, too, closed eventually. Many of the top publications today, Malayala Manorama, The Times of India (TOI), Mumbai Samachar, Ananda Bazar Patrika (ABP) and The Hindu, among others, are all survivors of the Indian freedom struggle.

And that is where my disagreement with this book begins. Usha M Rodrigues's and Maya Ranganathan's tome is noble in intention - "to examine the role and performance of Indian news media at macro and micro levels". It looks largely at television news media only. That is not surprising considering that India has a world-beating 135 news channels. This has helped spread access to information far and wide, but it has also led to a downward spiral in quality. This trend has triggered a huge amount of largely ill-informed debate on the role, ownership, nature and content of television news media in India. So a book like this is welcome.

But its fundamental argument that news media is now an active participant, thanks to sting operations, political ownership and all the other issues is the one that is flawed. That legacy of righteous, judgemental, hyper-involved reporting was encouraged when news media was born in India. It reduced a little after independence, but re-surfaced after the Emergency. And it has been encouraged by successive governments and their failings, a Press Council of India that had no control over its members, editors who failed to institutionalise systems and processes to protect the freedom of its journalists, and, most of all, by media owners who, till the media was making losses, didn't care. Once the economy opened up, many owners decided that the brands they owned were wonderful tools of influence.

If we wanted to have a news media that knew what good journalism and processes were, we should have insisted that it be neutral even when the English were ruling us. As things stand, Indian news media is genetically coded to fight, argue and question. This is a good thing in general. But a large part of the media does this without enough knowledge, training or resources. That explains why the quality of public debate is so abysmal in India.

This brings me to the second flaw with the book. It completely ignores the industry structure within which news broadcasting operates, in India or globally. In India, too much news television has meant a loss-making industry. Only four news broadcasters manage to keep their heads above water. Across the world, unless it is bundled with entertainment, news is a difficult area in which to make money. What, then, can finance an array of reporters and editors, marketing and ad sales staff that can keep a healthy, good-quality news organisation going? All the blah-blah on liberalisation in the book makes no sense till you know that the financial heart and muscle of the news business is weak. And however much left-liberals may say that "news cannot be a business", the fact is it takes money to gather news. And someone has to fund it. And whoever does that will demand his pound of flesh.

There is a way out, though. The best quality news it seems usually comes from a not-for-profit body, like the BBC, which is funded by the licence fees paid by British taxpayers, or The Guardian, which is run by The Scott Trust. The trust was formed in 1936 in order to "protect the liberal editorial line of the Guardian from interference by future proprietors". There are very few news brands that have this luxury - Al Jazeera, funded by the ruling family of Qatar, is the only other brand one can think of.

A couple of strong not-for-profit news brands, like the BBC, are great benchmarks to keep the entire private news industry in line. In India, unfortunately, the state has played a negative role in the development of an independent news industry by keeping Prasar Bharati, which runs All India Radio and Doordarshan, beholden to the central government. Much of the taxpayer subsidy that goes into running Prasar Bharati is simply wasted in bridging losses and not in creating a world-class news organisation. Globally, evolving democracies with insufficient experience of media freedom need a strong state-brand that is not ruled by favour or fear, to set the tone. That is the big lesson that one can learn from the good news brands.

The third reason the book is a difficult read is unwieldy material. The book has some nice examples, like the one on Sun TV down south or on the Indian and Tamil media's coverage of the Tamil conflict in Sri Lanka. But almost every paragraph has a citation or reference making for a laborious read. Some deft editing and better writing would certainly have helped.

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The argumentative Indian media

Companies are starting to embrace social media as a viable disclosure channel for product recalls, with the goal of limiting and repairing damage to the firms' reputation. Using a sample of 405 consumer product recalls between 2000 and 2012, researchers found that corporate social media, in general, lessens negative price reactions to product recall announcements. However, as social media evolved from less to more interactive channels, firms have lost complete control over the content appearing on their corporate social media, and the benefits of social media have lessened.

As reported in a Journal of Accounting Research study, the investigators also found that increased frequency of tweets by other users exacerbates negative market reactions as disgruntled users interject negative sentiment into the online dialogue, while increased frequency of tweets by the firm lessens negative market reactions.

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How social media can help and hurt companies during product recalls

Part1 c The Spectacular Achievements of Media Control
This is a continuance of a serious magnification of Noam Chomsky #39;s 1991 speech "Media Control, The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda". Noam Chomsky even...

By: dares2speakTV

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Part1 c The Spectacular Achievements of Media Control - Video

The advent of the internet has brought a powerful medium into the information domain. Of all the media vectors (print, television and internet-based social media platforms), this is probably the most nebulous, seamless, largest, quickest and hence the most dangerous. The ability to anonymously transmit and receive information without owning any infrastructure or even hardware has made it an effective tool for the insurgents. The medium also does not lend to government control.

Two unconnected news items over the last one week caught my attention and set me thinking on how the age-old template of military-media interaction has undergone a drastic change in this past decade.

One was a report in The Guardian which said: The British army is creating a special force of Facebook warriors, skilled in psychological operations and use of social media to engage in unconventional warfare in the information age.The 77th Brigade, to be based in Hermitage, near Newbury, in Berkshire, will be about 1,500-strong... the Brigade will be responsible for what is described as non-lethal warfare... against a background of 24-hour news, smartphones and social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, the force will attempt to control the narrative.

The second was the Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD) decision to open a twitter account (@SpokespersonMoD). For a Ministry notorious for its opaque nature of decision-making and information dissemination, this was a tectonic shift. What prompted the MoD decision to follow in the footsteps of the highly popular and effective twitter handle of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA)@MEAIndiawill perhaps never be known, its a good first step towards bringing in some transparency in the highly sanitised, fear-ridden corridors of the MoD. Whether the twitter handle will actually be interactive (its first tweet said: This handle will disseminate authentic info and latest updates from the Indian Ministry of Defence) is a matter of speculation but the fact that it has joined the social media platform is a sign of our times.

The advent of the internet has brought a powerful medium into the information domain. Of all the media vectors (print, television and internet-based social media platforms), this is probably the most nebulous, seamless, largest, quickest and hence the most dangerous. The ability to anonymously transmit and receive information without owning any infrastructure or even hardware has made it an effective tool for the insurgents. The medium also does not lend to government control.

As a young, highly perceptive serving officer of the Indian Army has written in a private mail to me, Social media has become an additional element within the operational environment in which nearly anyone with an internet connection can participate. While social media capabilities do not provide information superiority, they have empowered individuals to more effectively share content and consequently influence the narrative of a conflict. Also, social media capabilities have provided a means for individuals and small groups to effectively synchronize actions, even in absence of an authoritative leader. The speed at which participants can add content, truthful or otherwise, to the battle space, forces Armed Forces to change the way they approach this media. Thus the power of this media is value neutral; it can be used by any player. In fact whoever controls the narrative in this field, will occupy the perception high ground.

These are exactly the reasons why the British Army is forming an Information Brigade. The Guardian report noted: The 77th will include regulars and reservists and recruitment will begin in the spring. Soldiers with journalism skills and familiarity with social media are among those being sought. An army spokesman said: 77th Brigade is being created to draw together a host of existing and developing capabilities essential to meet the challenges of modern conflict and warfare. It recognises that the actions of others in a modern battlefield can be affected in ways that are not necessarily violent.

The Indian Army came onto the social media platforms in 2013 in a small way but has now gained a considerable presence on Facebook and Twitter. The presence of the Additional Director General, Public Information (ADG PI)@ADGPIthe nodal agency for all media related issues at Army HQ has a formal role now as the official mouthpiece of the Indian Army. Both the platforms have substantial following and continue to influence favourable opinion for the Army. The credibility of the Armys social media ventures has been enhanced by multiple references and recommendations which they have received from the accounts of the PMO, PIB, US Army & Amitabh Bachchan to name a few. May be the other two services will soon follow suit.

This is a big change from previous decades when dominance was achieved through rationing information, exercising information control, censorship and propaganda. Those in charge of public information have now realised that such methods are not practical or prudent in the contemporary world. There is a constant increase in the number of sources of information which cannot be muzzled and have to be managed. In coming years, the security forces will therefore have to focus on balancing openness with security to exploit the power of the media, both tactically and strategically. Media strategy can no longer be the job of the public relations officer alone, but must be seen as a command function. A day is not too far when the armed forces may have to think of creating a separate Public Affairs cadre to handle their media and perception management campaigns.

The media that reports on the military and central armed police forces too needs to train and equip itself to discern, detect and dissect national security issues. At the same time, the government, the armed forces and even academics, who deal in issues of national security, have to understand the way traditional media and the new entrants function. There is a crying need to have more interaction between these players without the pressure of deadlines. So far, the tendency is to keep away from each other. That does not help either side.

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Media-Military relations in the age of Twitter and Facebook

NewSat admitted it had chosen to ignore damning findings in a report about its governance.

NewSat lost nearly a third of its total market capitalisation on Monday with shareholders dumping the stock as the company responded to Fairfax Media reports over the weekend, that revealed evidence of poor governance practices and out-of-control spending at the satellite communications company, with a statement that admitted the board chose to disregard an internal report that made these findings.

Fairfax Media has reported excerpts from a damning critique of NewSat by former BHP Billiton finance vice-president, Brendan Rudd, whowas brought in as a consultant to review the company's operations last year by two of its then high-profile independent directors, former St Kilda Football Club president Andrew Plympton and Australia Post deputy chairman Brendan Fleiter.

Mr Rudd's review, which was provided to NewSat's biggest lender, the US Ex-Im Bank, identified numerous $10,000 dinners, a "complete lack of control" on expenditure related to overseas travel, and raised questions about executive salaries and benefits.

In a statement released to the Australian Securities Exchange on Monday, signed by NewSat chief executive Adrian Ballintine and chief financial offficer Linda Dillion, the company admitted it had chosen to ignore Mr Rudd's damning findings.

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"The views of Mr Rudd were considered by the NewSat board of directors in the second half of 2014. Certain matters reported in the Fairfax media as being the subject of the views of Mr Rudd were found to be without foundation," the statement read.

NewSat's statement to shareholders on Monday also responded to reports that one of its major clients, TrustComm, has served it with a civil suit in a Virginia court in the US seeking $10 million, saying that this was "incorrect", as the suit had been "filed" rather than "served". The NewSat statement dismissed TrustComm's action as a "negotiating tactic".

NewSat, which declined to respond to questions last week, said it "regards the Fairfax Media reporting as irresponsible and is considering its legal options".

Shares in NewSat dropped 30 per cent to 10.5 on Monday. It was the busiest trading day in the stock in more than a year.

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Shareholders abandon ship as NewSat plummets 30 per cent