Times Haven't Changed

 - Dasu Krishnamoorty

Nothing has changed in the print media scene in America since the free flow polemics at UNESCO and the consequent American walkout. They continue to black out issues vital to the lives of the people in countries labelled as developing, underdeveloped, less developed or the third world countries. Prominence is given to internecine strife, natural calamities, and coups in these regions. This is an antithesis of democratisation of communication and a subversion of universally accepted news values. Two hundred million people in the United States depend on the whims of the print media which deny them true pictures of large areas of the world, impoverished and emasculated by centuries of European colonialism. As a result, the 'pictures in our (American) heads' remain the same, as they were when Walter Lippman wrote his Public Opinion. It is not surprising if the average American recognises India as a country dogged by Kashmir conflict. Is anything happening in the rest of India?

Of immediate concern to Indians in the U.S., who constitute two per cent of its population, is the American print media's casual response to the visit of their home minister L.K.Advani. Is Advani, representing a billion people, news or not news? What then is news? American media academicians owe it to their constituency to answer these questions. If one goes by what Galtung and Ruge regard as news, then the Indian minister's meetings with president Bush, secretary of state Colin Powell and attorney-general and a host of other CIA and security officials have all the ingredients of news. The trip meets with every item of news criteria known to the campuses and the press. Departure from well-known news values can only be attributed to an obsession with exclusivity.

The U.S. print media lived up to their reputation of reporting crises and conflict in countries outside the Group of 8. A lot of newsworthy happenings in these countries go unreported. India figures when there is a bomb blast killing several persons or a communal carnage taking a heavy toll of human life or a flood rendering millions homeless or an attack on its Parliament. In the absence of such juicy happenings, Kashmir can always fill the void. If this is "all the news that is fit to print" for the U.S. media, then it is time to know that such news perceptions and judgements are out of joint with the times we live in. They deny a free flow of worldwide information to the American people and abridge their world of cognition. Already, 80% of American towns are served by single newspapers, which decide the newsfare for the residents.

Mr Advani came to the United States in the context of his country's problems with Pakistan, especially, the latter's role in succouring anti-India terrorism. As a victim of fundamentalist terrorism, the United States is exploring avenues to eliminate chances of a showdown between the two traditional South Asian adversaries, without at the same time needling an ally who has helped it to crush the Taliban menace in Afghanistan. If this visit of Mr Advani is not newsworthy, newsworthiness needs to be redefined for the benefit of posterity. Indeed, the clamour for a redefinition was always there but the western print media always rejected it as unnecessary. Who will pay the price of the consequences of such negative response for American readership?

The day after Advani's arrival, the New York Times carried three stories on Indo-Pakistan stand-off written by Somini Sengupta from Srinagar, Eric Eckholm from Islamabad and by Todd S.Purdum from Washington, where Advani met Colin Powell. Sengupta's dispatch was a news narrative about children 'left fatherless and destitute by the bloody 12-year guerrilla war in the Himalayan valley.' She was pained by the plight of Kashmiris who had to put off sending New Year greetings to friends and family elsewhere! Eckholm refers to how deftly Pakistan is managing to maintain the number of troops hunting for Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders along the border with Pakistan. All this despite India's military build up.

Purdum's story is about Colin Powell's immediate plans to visit New Delhi and Islamabad "to see if I can make a further contribution, by my presence toward resolving the situation that currently exists, the crisis that currently exists, in a peaceful manner." This statement, readers are told, Powell had made "after a meeting at the State Department today (Jan.9) with India's home minister Lal Krishna Advani to discuss the administration's campaign against international terrorism." This is how readers got to know that Powell and Advani had met. On the same day, USA Today prints on page 4A, a small item mentioning Powell's coming visit to New Delhi and Islamabad and a remark by Advani. Wall Street Journal carried two elaborate stories about the troubled region: US Blocks Assets of Two Additional Islamic Charities and Musharaff's Speech Seen as Key to South Asia' Peace. There was no news of Powell-Advani meeting.

On January 11, the Hindu reports; "The US President, George Bush has told the Union Home Minister L.K.Advani, that he expected Pakistan and its President, Pervez Musharaff to take "all necessary steps" in fighting terrorism. Mr Bush "dropped by" at the meeting between Mr Advani and the US National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, here today. Calling the conversation with Mr Bush as the "most important discussion of my tour", Mr Advani said that he felt satisfied "the United States is determined to see the end of terrorism everywhere. By and large, I would say that this most important meeting of my trip (with Mr Bush) brought me immense satisfaction," Mr Advani told the media."

How did this Advani-Bush meeting figure in the New York Times on the same day? A report from Washington by David E. Sanger and Judith Miller says that "President Bush met with a senior Indian official at the White House today as members of the national security staff reviewed a stream of intelligence reports suggesting that tensions along the Pakistan border are rising and that the chances of a military conflict have grown considerably." The readers are not told what Mr Bush and the Indian official had discussed. After several quotes from several undisclosed sources, the reporters make a remote reference to Bush-Advani meeting in these words: "Mr Bush's conversation with India's home minister, Lal Krishna Advani, was clearly intended to reassure the Indian public that the United States is willing to pressure General Musharaff to do more to fight terrorism. At a news conference, Mr Advani thanked Mr Bush for what he called American support to the Indian position, words that the White House was careful not to use in describing the meeting."

However, the New York Times was careful in not mentioning what words the White House chose to describe the meeting. The following days saw a spate of reports and news analyses in the paper but none relating to the five-day tour of Mr Advani's tour of the United States. Perhaps, it is unrealistic to expect that Mr Advani, a mere home minister, would rate better than Mr P.V. Narasimha Rao, a prime minister. Mr Rao, on an official visit to the United States, failed to meet the objective news criteria that the American print media apply to information. More tragic is the western media are role models for the Indian press in reporting international news. Indian newspapers and magazines too play up events associated with the west and ignore happenings elsewhere.

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