The News That Did Not Make It

Answer this. How many seats did BJP and Congress win in the Lok Sabha? And AAP? The numbers come instantly to mind, don’t they?

Now answer this. Are you aware that there were Assembly Elections along with Lok Sabha elections that took place last month? And their results were also announced on May 16. Five states, namely Arunachal Pradesh, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh (including Telangana and Seemandhra) and Sikkim. Do you remember any news channel covering the campaigning? Any debates of Chief Ministerial candidates? Do you remember any ticker on any news channel flashing the result of these state elections on May 16?

If you do not remember, don’t blame yourself for having a poor memory. You don’t remember simply because national news channels pretty much ignored the Assembly elections and did not highlight any such news, not even a token gesture. No, this was not an intentional blind eye as was the case with the road accident of the son of a big business tycoon. The news editors probably found it easy to forget the Assembly Elections amidst the frenzy of Lok Sabha campaigning and counting. When the entire country’s future is being decided, who’d be interested in a few paltry states, eh? If national headlines are to be prioritised according to the interest of viewers, then call yourself an entertainment channel, not a news one.

What happened on May 16 can be considered a disappointment for believers (the few remaining) in Indian media. There weren’t even counting tickers or graphics for the results of these Assembly Elections, as if they were not a part of the Indian Union. Times Now, Headlines Today, NDTV, CNN IBN, NewsX, AajTak, Zee News – all were guilty of this oversight. So what if none of them were Hindi speaking states (and hence didn’t count), there were some very remarkable facts about these State elections which ought to have caught the attention of the media:

• These were the first elections post declaration of division of Andhra Pradesh. For those who do not know, K Chandrashekhar Rao will be the first Chief Minister of Telangana and Chandrababu Naidu will make his political comeback in Seemandhra after 10 years. Congress scored no Assembly seat in Seemandhra, which it has dominated for the last 10 years.

• Naveen Patnaik‘s Biju Janata Dal (BJD) won 117 of 147 seats in Odisha, which is a great victory. The media however, merely patted his back for his 20 seat victory in Lok Sabha.

• Nabam Tuki of Congress is set to become Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh.  Please note that Arunachal is the only state where Congress was on the winning side (42 of 60 seats).

• Pawan Chamling of Sikkim Democratic Front won 22 out of 32 seats and will be the CM for the fifth consecutive term –  set to break Jyoti Basu’s record for being longest serving Chief Minister of a state.

If these don’t count as national news, then what does? Certainly, an hour long discussion on how many people slapped Arvind Kejriwal, chest size (and its subsequent thumping), twitter trolls and hashtags make for good entertainment, but not giving national news its due will do no good to the credibility of the media. Ideally, the national media should have highlighted the CM aspirants of these states, the challenges the states faced, political debates and debacles. But it totally ignored them, leaving the coverage to local regional media which is highly susceptible to influence of money, as remarked by many critics.

I ask you, if the national media could cover hour long discussions on Narendra Modi’s marital status, Priyanka Vadra’s(undeniable) charisma – even AAP and its tantrums(which was yet to debut in Parliament at the time), and could not devote a single program to Assembly Polls of these 5 states, then is the media to be pitied?

A journalist infamously spoke of “tyranny of distance” vis-à-vis the riots in Assam. But given this trend, could one say the national media is “regional” – limited to Luyten’s Delhi?