Monday, August 8, 2011

The "venemous glee" ...


B. Raman is a former officer of RAW (Research and Analysis Wing, the external intelligence wing of India). He is also the author of the book, the Kaoboys. On his blog, he regularly discusses many strategic issues. Occasionally, he also talks about hate on the internet. He is also a great admirer of Barkha Dutt, and misses no opportunity to praise her sky-high.

Recently, the Congress party announced that Sonia Gandhi went to the US for getting a surgery done and hours later Tehelka reports that Sonia Gandhi is in a cancer hospital for a surgery. While there were different viewpoints on how this serious matter can be kept so secret, Barkha Dutt emphatically declares that Sonia Gandhi is entitled to her privacy (it matters little though, that a NDTV website published the video of an ailing Steve Jobs).

B.Raman writes a blog post titled "VENOMOUS THOUGHTS THROUGH THE INTERNET" and discusses how Sonia Gandhi's illness has bought out the worst in some tweeters. He is disturbed with their thought process, through which they were hoping (or justifying) she would get more sick. Also, in this process B.Raman also brings in the "hatred" targetted towards Barkha Dutt (believe it or not, yes!).

So far, so good.

Now, this article has been picked by rediff. Small change in the headline though. "A venemous glee over the internet". And then the article is split into a slide show. First slide has a slide with an accompanying screenshot of a "I hate Sonia Gandhi" facebook page. Rediff made it look like as if there exists only a "I hate only" page for Sonia Gandhi. Slides 2 and 3 were the most contentious.

Slide 2 had a screenshot with search results on twitter for "Barkha Dutt".


Silde 3 had a screenshoot with search results on twitter for "Sagarika Ghose".



And in slide 3, tweets of yours truly appeared in that screenshot! Now, I do not believe this was deliberate targetting of certain individual tweeters. This is a very very poor editorial call. A total of 8 tweets have been shown on slides 2 and 3 - Not a SINGLE one of them is venomous, nor is there glee over them. Merely having tweets there just because Barkha and Sagarika are "mentioned" is naive. And if those tweets were "chosen" after a scrutiny, then it is a desperately cheap judgement call.

Just tweeting about Sagarika and Barkha does not amount to "venom". This kind of blind assumption that anyone criticising Barkha (because of the way she conducts interviews) and Sagarika (because of...ahh well!) have hatred written all over them and need not be taken seriously is very dangerous. Already Barkha uses this logic to not answer anyone questioning her strongly. It was sad to see rediff fall for this bait.

We requested rediff to provide us equal space to write a a counter argument, but rediff ended up removing those screenshots from the website. I would have preferred if that space was provided, but alas!

6 comments:

Rising Gladiator said...

The cynicism prevalent among this pseudo liberals is so high and sickening that it actually makes wonder do they really deserve the accolades, applause, they respect they ruled over ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEDIA.
The cynics are too comfortable in self evaluative process and non interactive model. Few people's entire life and some idiot's more than half of life has gone, where he conducts dual role of king and slave at same time and not been questioned but in fact appreciated and in kept securely in cuccon from outside raw curious questions.

One of the major reason for this amount of hate blogs coming from the SO CALLED celebrity and their PANKHA's is mere an attempt to create so much of hate and apathy towards the celebrity that the real question ceases and We start grinning among ourselves, So that these IDIOTIC CELEBRITIES can again relish their long lost comfort zone of being not questioned. For this liberals are the one who advocates to denounce thought by thought, but these bunch of lunatics are using PEN to counter, YES, but they are not arguing and but playing victim card of being subjected to rape, where in fact they themselves were serial rapist all along

Dan said...

For one sir, please remove the pathetic RAW officer's blog link from your blog roll.

Ravinar said...

We have to "believe" that the tweets were chosen by Rediff. But it is also quite possible that the tweeters were referred to by Raman himself. We will not know but the urge to defend the tainted is mutual between Raman and those he defends.

Ravinar
www.mediacrooks.com

CodeNameV said...

Rediff knows what providing space would mean. First of all, it would piss off its author and author's best friend in the internet world.

But sir, perfect rebuttal to the gleeful lot. What Mr. Raman, Rediff, Barkha and the rest do not realize is, you could be just writing about cuisines in Hyd instead of discussing politics. Discussing role of media in political opinion building is a crime!? Nonsense! When middle class and working class people dont come out of discuss politics the same Ramans and Barkhas say Middile aint got no care for this country .... while when they do, these same worthies say venom ... chitram .. ayyare!

froginthewell said...

Have you tried contacting Kanchan Gupta or so? May be pioneer can provide you the space you are looking for.

Anonymous said...

Mr.B.Raman has been living on the cong's, sanctioned by the top most leadership,generous help for his treatment of a life threatening disease.What he does for them covertly is intelligence gathering.I can understand his gratitude to congress and all its mafia chamchas.

M

Post a Comment