On Sunday, the Vice President made no bones about his view: if you keep muffled out the good news, you’ll have some disaffected youth following the cockroach as their guide. In calling for a return to constructive journalism, he was having a word with the kind of incentives that make outrage go viral while real accomplishments can’t get a breath of air.
Speaking at the 140th birthday of the Malayalam paper Deepika in Kottayam, he put it this way: when you cover only the day’s controversies, you leave your younger readers with no one to look up to. It is up to the newsroom to put forward some solid, positive work for society to see.
Youth risk and media responsibility
Don’t get him wrong – Radhakrishnan is not one to stifle free speech. What he has a problem with is the kind of inordinate focus given to things that won’t be around much longer.
He would have you judge a story by its staying power. The kind of material that is any good will still be of interest in a week or a month. A viral moment, on the other hand, is often a short-lived distraction from the sort of conversation we should be having.
In his eyes, that is how you put some confidence back into society and make people feel they have a part to play. If the media is responsible, the public will be too, and we’ll see more involvement in the nation’s progress and less of the noise.
To put it in a nutshell, here is where he stands:
– For free expression, but not for hyping up the ephemeral
– Good content is the kind you can value after 10 days or so
– A nudge to the media to put role models and real achievements front and centre
– Journalism is key to how we develop as a country
How a satire account became a flashpoint
When the Vice President mentioned the cockroach, he was making an oblique reference to the Cockroach Janata Party, a satirical site that has been making waves online of late. It all started with some talk from Chief Justice Surya Kant about cockroaches and parasites.
The CJI has since set the record straight, saying he was talking about people with phony degrees in the legal field and that he was misquoted. But the satire has a life of its own now and has turned into a way to make some pointed political statements.
With its memes and hot takes, the site has latched on to the kind of exasperation you find in young people over jobs, leaked papers and the like. Radhakrishnan was left to wonder if that kind of overnight notoriety is really what we should be paying attention to, and he’s told editors to think about what will last.
What the Vice President wants newsrooms to do
His advice is to even things out. Cover the human side of things, science, the environment, some compassion. These are the stories that don’t just tell you what’s happening; they put some fire in you and, in turn, put some trust in our institutions.
He wants to see some good ideas and messages get out there to every part of the country. Then, he says, the young will see a way to be part of it, not a reason to check out.
Make no mistake, he said, this isn’t about being a cheerleader. It is a matter of discipline, of choosing what is of long-term worth over what is easy and quick.
Deepika’s legacy and the road ahead
He had some good words for Deepika on how it has been a force for social harmony and education, and for keeping a dialogue open. It is proof, he thinks, that a paper can be an instrument of change if you have the stomach for it and don’t just go for the show.
So it is a matter of choice for the people in the newsroom. Report the good stuff and you give the kids what they need to know. Don’t, and you’re leaving the field open for whatever is in vogue, even if it is a cockroach.
