Trysts with MSM - Part 5

MSM stands for Main Stream Media :)

Bhupendra Chaubey, Chief of National Bureau of CNN-IBN and I had a discussion (which was not carried to its logical conclusion though).

He starts with these:

Opposition walks out of Parliament without voting on the finance bill, Historic as they had walked out during the budget speech as well

Opposition says this government is against the common man, Dont think Sushma Swaraj has quite understood the new Indian middle class

Sindoor, Mangalsootra and Saari with a sharp tongue was good when it first made a mark, Not anymore

I ask him back these:

since it looks like you understood the Indian middle class... can u enlighten us more on their needs?

u don't cover a bit on how well the entire opposition participated in the debate,but go gaga over the walk out. Explain pls?

He replies back:

Walkouts is a parliamentarian tool available to opposition to lodge protest.

I continue with my questions:

huh? how does that answer my question? Why was Parl not covered when substantial debates took place?

also, is it fair to expect that BJP talks about education and employment during a discussion on Finance Bill?

NDA introduced SSA and Golden Quadrilateral ( edu and infrastructure).

He replies:

Talk about everything, I was just giving a few examples. But this is negative politics, hence my objections

My questions continue :)

Don't you think it is worth commending that the entire opposition took part in the debate for 2 days?

Isn't that worth reporting? Isn't that what actually matters? Walk outs matter, or debates matter?

my point is that the opposition debated on finance bill. Isn't that worth commending and reporting?Isnt that +ve

As usual, one line reply from him :D

Then vote on it as well na

And it concludes with my two points ( because I guess he had to leave at this point of time)

ok, but let's harp on the good things that happened in LS too... how fair is it for you to ignore it?

if you report only walk out and talk about it as all negative, that is the wrong perception you are giving.

Basically, this discussion should be seen in the context of the letter I wrote to the President of the Editors Guild on the reporting pattern on Parliament. For two days, MP's from all parties debated extensively on the Finance bill, and not one channel found it fit to report that. NDTV found the news that Shashi Tharoor has unfollowed Lalit Modi on twitter worth reporting, but not the details of the debate that went on in Parliament! And today, we had the National Bureau Chief of CNN-IBN extremely "worried" about a mere walk-out when a substantial debate took place for a full two days. Talk about giving importance to form over content!