by RAJIV SHAH
I usually avoid being interviewed. I have always believed that journalists, especially in India, are generalists who may suddenly be assigned a “beat” they know little—sometimes nothing—about. Still, when my friend Gagan Sethi, a well-known human rights activist, phoned a few weeks ago asking if I would join a podcast on civil society and the media, I agreed.
Out of ignorance, I assumed a podcast was simply a live audio broadcast. I didn’t bother dressing up. But when I reached the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), Gagan’s office, I discovered it was going to be a full-fledged video discussion—Gagan on one side, top rights leader Minar Pimple on the other, and me in between. I had been given a questionnaire and had prepared my responses, but I did not realise the format would involve both of them posing thoughtful, probing questions.
The set-up was fully professional. My phone was kept outside, and the recording was handled by a team from Drishti, a video NGO associated with CSJ, using a high-end camera. Part of their UnMute series, the episode (click here to watch), I was told, would appear on YouTube in November. And there I was—poorly dressed and with my snow-white hair uncombed—responding in both English and Hindi. The intent seemed to be to understand how media professionals work, and how civil society can engage with them more effectively.
They asked me about my seven years in Moscow as the foreign correspondent of the Delhi-based semi-Left Patriot and Link, as also my long stint with The Times of India, Ahmedabad, from 1993 until my retirement as political editor in January 2013. But the real focus was on a question that continues to bother many activists: what must be done to increase the visibility of civil society in the mainstream media?
The conversation opened with my Counterview article, written during the Covid period, summarising an IIM-A study that said civil society felt completely unheard. The disconnect between the state and civil society during Covid, especially concerning the hardships faced by working people, was enormous. They asked, “How can this gap be bridged? What can the media do?”
I began by defining the media as it exists today. Mainstream media is corporate media. It always has been. Earlier, only newspapers were owned by big business houses; now TV channels are too. Journalists hired in these organisations are rarely specialists. Most do not understand civil society. In fact, junior reporters—precisely those least familiar with these issues—are often assigned to cover them. Unless they have worked with NGOs, they know little about laws like the FCRA or about grassroots realities.
Expecting such media to authentically represent civil society is unrealistic. Reporters will come to cover events; that’s true. But they need training—training to understand what is happening on the ground, how to read it, and how to report it responsibly.
Counterview for more