Journalism

Match ka Mujrim

This is the fourth installment of Viewfinder, my weekly column for Yahoo! India.

What is the job of a journalist? An idealistic reader would say that it is to report the news, to put the facts of the world on record. A jaded news editor would say, it is to tell stories, ideally sensationalistic ones, that capture the attention of the reader. These stories are often a spin on the truth; and sometimes they may be outright false. A reporter’s brief is often to turn banal facts into gripping drama—and if there is no easy story to be had, then to manufacture one.

We see this in the way sports is covered in India. You might think that a sporting encounter is dramatic by itself, and does not need embellishment or hyperbole. But news editors seem to believe that readers not only want dramatic narratives, they want those narratives to be simple. (I wrote about this in the inaugural Viewfinder as well.) A cricket match may be decided by a number of complex factors, and the loser most often does not play badly, but simply gets outplayed by a better team. But this complexity does not make for a good story.

The most crass illustration of this came a few years ago, during an India-Pakistan series, when a news channel started finding the Match ka Mujrim (‘Villain of the Match’) in a post-match analysis show. Cricketers aren’t Mujrims, and on most days, even when matches are lost heavily, there may not be any blame to be assigned. In sport, shit happens. But no, it’s more fun, allegedly more engaging, and what’s more, far easier for a lazy thinker, to affix blame, paint the events of the day in black and white, and move on.

Last year, when India crashed out of the second T20 Cricket World Cup, there were the usual calls for our captain MS Dhoni’s head. When there was no story to be had, the media made it up, such as when, as Anand Vasu reported, “Dhoni’s effigy was burnt in his hometown Ranchi, … apparently it was ‘arranged’ by two channels.” The footage was good—so what if the burning was staged?

The sports pages of our newspapers these days are also full of such nonsense. For the last three days we’ve been reading about an alleged brawl that our players had in a nightclub. Well, as this report indicates, it wasn’t a brawl, and it wasn’t even a nightclub. There was no story in it. But our players had already been painted as mujrims, and of course our journos took that narrative forward.

Another big story of the last few days was about how the BCCI was planning to sack Dhoni from the T20 captaincy. As Prem Panicker eloquently pointed out, it was a fabrication. And it was a particularly ludicrous one, when you consider that Dhoni is also captain of Chennai Super Kings, which is owned by BCCI bigwig N Srinivasan and has chairman of selectors K Srikkanth as a brand ambassador. If Dhoni is sacked from the Indian captaincy, it directly affects CSK’s brand value. Even if he really sucked as a captain—despite some bad tactical calls, I believe he is a splendid captain—he would not be sacked. He could walk on field in a bikini, holding a tennis racket, and he would keep his job. So what a dishonest story to run.

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Besides the lazy reporting, there has also been lazy analysis. Success breeds enemies, and the IPL has been successful, so obviously it has become fashionable to beat up on it. That’s okay, but to blame it for India’s poor performance in the T20 World Cup, as so many commentators have done, is ridiculous. If the IPL did tire out the men who played in it, or get them used to a lower standard of cricket, or fatigued them with its parties, then you’d expect the non-Indian players also to suffer from it. Well, consider the following facts:

The Man of the Tournament in the T20 World Cup, Kevin Pietersen, played in the IPL. The top run-scorers of England, Australia, Sri Lanka, South Africa, West Indies, New Zealand and India were all IPL players. Australia’s miraculous comeback in the semi-final was fashioned by two IPL batsmen. The top wicket-taker of the tournament, Dirk Nannes, was an IPL star. Barring Pakistan, whose players unfortunately missed out on the IPL, every team was driven by its IPL stars.

And yet, at the end, we were the only ones whining.

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I am a purist and prefer men wearing white flannels to those in coloured pajamas, but I’m an admirer of what the IPL has done for Indian cricket. I’m not speaking of how viewership has increased or how it has brought new followers to the game, both of which have happened, but what it has done for the cricketers. Before the IPL, the BCCI ran a monopsony. Young Indian cricketers who wanted to play for India had only one market for their services: the BCCI, via the state associations affiliated to it. It was no wonder that domestic cricketers were so underpaid. The teams they represented faced no competition for their services, and had no incentive to treat them well or pay them handsomely.

That has changed. The IPL has created 10 teams competing furiously for domestic talent, and forced, by competition, to pay them well. The result is that cricket is a viable career option even for players who will never play for India. A domestic journeyman today stands to make up to 100 times as much money as he might have made 10 years ago—and this is all because of the IPL. For this reason alone, I’m a fan.

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That said, there is much that is crass about the way it is covered. Commercial breaks in the middle of overs is pushing it a bit too far, even if the irony is delicious that as the Delhi Daredevils lose their second wicket, Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag are rolling around in the grass, giggling over a call from Vidya.

And I am so glad to see the last of the ‘MRF Blimp.’ I am told that MRF paid an astronomical sum to ensure that the commentators would mention the blimp a minimum number of times during every match. What made this especially bizarre was that the alleged blimp was actually not a blimp, but a tethered balloon. Also, it wasn’t even there at the venue during some of the matches when it was shown, and the broadcasters used stock footage. Imagine that: commentators forced contractually to praise a blimp that is actually a tethered balloon and is not even there to begin with. Next year, for all you know, they’ll put up a tethered balloon shaped like a volcano, and say, ‘Hey look, MRF has brought a volcano to India for the first time! And it’s in the sky! Hey, did you see that? The MRF Volcano just burst!’

And then MRF Ash will prevent the MRF Blimp from taking off.

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There also seems to be a bit of a financial bubble formed around the IPL. Some friends and I parsed the numbers recently, and could not figure out how potential revenues could ever justify the current valuations of the franchises. Sahara paid crazy money for its franchise, and are reportedly planning an IPO for the team. I suppose that explains it: it’s the Greater Fool Theory at play. But will all the franchise owners, in the long run, find greater fools?

In any case, the financial madness around the IPL does not mean that the IPL hasn’t created immense value, just as the bursting of the dotcom bubble did not mean that technology wasn’t transforming our lives. Will the IPL bubble burst one day, or will the IPL continue to thrive? I believe both will happen.

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The IPL somewhat resolves one of the problems with Indian cricket: that it was a monopsony, and cricketers had only one credible buyer for their services. But the other, more serious problem, remains unresolved: that the BCCI is a monopoly.

That is a problem with most national sporting bodies worldwide. They have exclusive rights to the sports they control in the jurisdictions they function in, and that brings with it all the ills of an unfree market. There is no competition to hold them accountable.

In other countries, there are multiple sports that compete with each other for attention, and that can keep the sports bodies honest. But India is effectively a one-sport country. So the BCCI does exactly as it pleases, and much of it is unsavoury. To take just one example, the way it bullied the ICL, and messed with its players lives, was disgraceful. This is a problem, though, that has no solution.

The BCCI is not run on taxpayers’ money—so it’s not accountable to us. It is not a public limited company, and has no shareholders to answer to. The only stakeholders with any control over it are the state associations who elect its office bearers, and their incentives are aligned with continuing the status quo.

In other words, the BCCI is the Match ka Mujrim. And there’s nothing we can do about it, because without this mujrim, we don’t have a match.

Previously on Viewfinder

The Man with the Maruti 800

Internet Hindus and Madrasa Muslims

The Hazards of Writing a Column

The Hazards of Writing a Column

This is the first installment of my new weekly column on Yahoo India, Viewfinder. It’s part of a section of columns that I’ve set up for them: read more about it here.

Welcome to Viewfinder. This is my new weekly column on Yahoo India, one of ten columns that will start appearing on Yahoo from this week. In this piece, I shall tell you a bit about these columns, and what we hope to do differently. Let me begin, however, by telling you about a common problem that all columnists face, which we will also have to deal with: the problem of arrogance.

The act of writing for an audience is an act of hubris. When you set out to fill an empty page, you assume that the words you write will have some value, that your thoughts will move readers from one paragraph to the next, and keep them turning the pages (or scrolling down). How presumptuous is this? What leads me to imagine that my thoughts are worth your time?

Reporters who write for the news pages can plausibly claim that their writing has value because they are setting out, as is often said, the first draft of history. The facts that they report are the essential raw material from which we manufacture the story of the world. But columnists make claims on your time with nothing to offer but opinions; perhaps an argument for this or that; a worldview they want you to share. Why should their opinions be worth more than yours?

One conceit that a columnist might have is that his calling is to help you make sense of the world. Reality is complicated and confusing, and no one has the time or resources to figure it out on their own. To construct narratives that make it all simple and explicable, the columnist might say, does you a service—and it’s damn hard to do.

Well—yes and no.

There are a number of traps inherent in creating such narratives, and most of the opinion columns I see in the daily papers fall into them. They have implacable opinions on whatever they write about; they exude certainty; contributing to a public discourse that is severely polarized, they choose black or white. They construct simple narratives of a complex world—and when the columnist gets lazy, simple can fast become simplistic.

A couple of years ago I gave up writing my column for Mint, Thinking it Through, to pursue what was pretty much my life’s only serious ambition: of writing novels. I instantly felt much more comfortable—and honest—there. In literature, one embraces complexity and ambiguity and can eschew certainty. Good or bad don’t have to be distinct entities. The cause of everything need not be clear. Even in a whodunnit, these days, guilt need not be assigned. Most importantly, one need not pretend to have all the answers.

Literature is my natural habitat and I remain primarily a novelist. But given the chance to set up a section of columns for Yahoo India, and to write one of my own, I decided to take it up as a challenge to produce work that does not fall into these familiar traps. Here, then, are some of the things we’ll keep in mind to make sure that your time spent reading us is worth it.

One: We will not simplify needlessly. Too much of the journalism we see around us is driven by the hunt for narrative. What’s the story? Complex narratives do not sell; simple ones are easier to create and sensationalize.

Take the last general elections in India, for example. The narrative that the media has sold us is that the Congress made massive strides and that the BJP was decimated. But take a deeper look at the numbers and you’ll realize that how flawed that story is. As Devangshu Datta wrote in Business Standard, the vote share of the Congress went from 26.5% to 28.6%; the BJP dipped from 22.2 to 18.8: not a seismic shift at all. That the UPA gained so many seats is because of a number of diverse reasons, such as the changing pattern of local alliances that split the opposition vote in many places, such as in Maharashtra.

This happens in every election. Politics in India is now essentially local, and the people of India do not vote as one. And yet, after every general elections, the media talks of a national ‘mandate’ and so on. There are no mandates in national politics – except in the mind of the lazy reporter.

We will watch ourselves for this tendency to take relief in simple storylines. In a complex world we will set out, with a deep breath, to examine that complexity.

Two: We will not talk down to you. Many columnists, high on the power of their megaphones, tend to condescend to the reader. We will watch out for this. We will not treat you like a student in a classroom or the faithful attending our sermon, but as equals sitting across us in our living rooms. Accordingly, we shall feel free to adopt a more personal tone. The columns I like reading the most are those in which I get a sense of a person behind the column, not just a worldview or a body of opinions. That is what we will try to give you.

Every alternate Friday, for example, Jai Arjun Singh will write a column on cinema, Persistence of Vision. But this won’t be the typical film column: He will be writing on his journey as a film-lover, how he fell in love with different kinds of movies, and so on. It will be a personal narrative, and to me, that is what will set it apart. The book critic Sanjay Sipahimalani alternates with him on Fridays with his column, Dead Tree Diaries. Sanjay won’t be writing just about the world of books, but his world of books: how he became a serious reader, his moments of illumination regarding voice and point of view and other such things in literature, the different stages in his reading and so on. If you love books, I promise that you will find it more worth your while than the standard round-up of what’s been happening in the world of books.

Three: We will aim to be timeless, not just topical. Most newspaper opinions pieces are purely topical; and therefore, ephemeral. We will aim to write pieces that you can read five years later and still enjoy. Sure, as most columnists do, we will address current affairs. But while doing so, we will also try and examine bigger ideas and greater truths.

For example, Nitin Pai, known for his sharp analysis of foreign affairs, will set out every alternate Tuesday to demystify international relations for you in a column named Pax Indica. Rather than just comment from on high about current affairs, he will explain the different schools of thought in the field, and talk about the prism through which he views geopolitics. Whether or not you agree with him, it will at least be clear to you what his belief system is, and which first principles he draws them from.

Similarly, Deepak Shenoy will set out every Wednesday to demystify the seemingly complex world of money. It is his contention that complex acronyms like ULIP and CDO and BRIC and OECD embody simple concepts that anyone can master, and he will set out to make every reader of his columns an expert in this world. As ULIPs and CDOs will always be with us, I suspect his column archives will always be worth a read.

Among other things, we will also use the flexibility the internet gives us, a luxury newspaper columnists do not have. One of its unique features is the absence of a word limit. However, even though this is an introductory column, I suspect I might be pushing that limit a bit too far right now. So I shall let the columns speak for themselves over the next few days. Meanwhile, with much excitement, let me share the lineup we have for you:

Introducing Yahoo! India Columns

Announcement time: For the last few weeks, I’ve been working as a consulting editor for Yahoo India, helping them put together a few new sections. The first of them, Yahoo India Columns, launches today. I’ve put together a team of 10 columnists, including myself, who will make sure that from Monday to Saturday every week, Yahoo has a column for you. My introductory piece, the first installment of my new column, Viewfinder, is here.

Here’s the full line-up of columns and columnists:

Anything That Moves—Girish Shahane links culture and politics (fortnightly, Mondays)

Minority of One—Mohit Satyanand’s private take on public affairs (fortnightly, Mondays)

Corner Plot—Ashok Malik on that great Indian obsession—politics (fortnightly, Tuesdays)

Pax Indica—Nitin Pai demystifies the anarchy of international relations (fortnightly, Tuesdays)

Atlas Invested: Deepak Shenoy on the world of money (weekly, Wednesdays)

Viewfinder—Amit Varma plays around with frames of reference (weekly, Thursdays)

Dead Tree Diaries—Sanjay Sipahimalani on the three Rs: reading, writing and Reality. (fortnightly, Fridays)

Persistence of Vision—Jai Arjun Singh takes you on a night out to the movies. (fortnightly, Fridays)

Mirth Vader—Anand Ramachandran discovers the power of the light side. (fortnightly, Saturdays)

Stereotypist—Aadisht Khanna plays the boom box of absurdity (fortnightly, Saturdays)

I’m sure you’re familiar with some of these writers, but the columns they will write for us will take them beyond what they usually write elsewhere. I’ve spoken a bit about that in my column today—and I’m sure you’ll enjoy reading them as the weeks unfold. Watch that space!

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Mint was kind enough to give me permission to retain the title of my column for them, Thinking it Through. But after getting their permission I realised that this column is actually going to be quite different in tone and character. So I’ve named it Viewfinder. What I intend to do with it should take me out of my comfort zone—and I hope you come on that ride with me.

Also, while it appears today because the section needed to launch with it, from next week Viewfinder will appear every Thursday, as Thinking it Through used to. Thor fhtagn!

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Update: Yahoo India’s managing editor, my friend Prem Panicker, has some thoughts on this section.

‘The Same Musical Framework’

The WTF sentence of the day comes from Inder Sidhu of Tehelka, who writes about the band Indian Ocean:

That one of the most original bands in the country has been working within the same musical framework for 30 years is, frankly, shocking.

How bizarre a sentiment is that? I’m guessing Sidhu doesn’t like the Rolling Stones or Metallica or U2 or REM either, all of whom are “working within the same musical framework” that they started out with. And in literature, for the same reason, he probably finds Updike and Roth and Kundera and Munro “shocking” as well. Poor guy. What does he listen to or read?

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Check out the rock band Thermal and a Quarter’s rejoinder to Sidhu.

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Sidhu does have one good sentence in his piece, though: “The fact is that original rock in India is still wandering around with its umbilical cord, trying to find some place to plug it in.” There’s a valid point behind this comment—but it’s not the whole story. (And it could have done without the first four words—leaving those in is sloppy editing—but that’s just me being anal.)

(Links via Shrabonti Bagchi and Devangshu Datta respectively.)

Marriage and Rape

HT reports that a couple of army jawans have been arrested in Pune for gangraping a woman. At the end of that report is the following line:

The incident comes days after a married woman was gangraped in the city.

Why does that sentence need to have the word ‘married’ in it? Does the inclusion of that word change either the impact on the reader or the perceived gravity of the crime?

If so, isn’t that disturbing?

Headline Material

I’m baffled by this Mid Day headline:

Oshiwara gay teen killed

The headline makes it seem that the victim was killed for being gay. But on reading the piece, you’ll find that his sexual orientation had nothing to do with his death. He saw someone getting mugged, tried to help him, and got fatally wounded in the process. That’s all.

So why mention his being gay in the headline?

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Imagine the following headline: ‘Left-handed teen stabbed in Lokhandwala.’ WTF, no?

A Metric for Hotness

The WTF headline of the day comes from The Times of India:

Sherlyn gets hotter!

Note the exclamation mark. But no, it’s not the enthusiastic reporting of Sherlyn’s increased hotness that makes this headline WTF, but the metric used to measure it. She is hotter, it seems, because her “new management agency is pitching her as the face of the cover for the most read and most popular lifestyle, fashion and health magazines.” In other words, she is hotter because she has better PR.

I suppose given the state of our media, that makes some kind of perverse sense. Such it goes.

The Elegant Hindu

The WTF Q&A of the day comes from a WSJ interview of Sonia Dara, the first model of South Asian descent to make it to the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue:

WSJ: During your shoot in Rajasthan, you posed with some local women who cover their heads, as is local tradition. Did you feel it made them uncomfortable to pose with you in a bikini?

Dara: To be completely honest, I was the one who felt the most uneasy because I thought I was putting the women in a potentially uncomfortable situation. At first glance, the concept of a Hindu girl in Sports Illustrated might seem contradictory. With that in mind, I posed as elegantly as possible, in order to never undermine my Hindu upbringing. I really hope this is made clear in my photos.

Yes, it’s clear. Her pout is Vedic, and her slim figure is surely the result of righteous fasting. Happy now, foreigners?

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And really, who finds such slimness attractive? At best I’d imagine it’s a niche taste. If I was ever to spend quality time with someone so slim, I’d want to feed her, not do naughty-naughty. This is one fad that totally befuddles me.

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On the off chance that you were wondering, this is how she looks without makeup on.

(Links via email from Arun and Madhu.)

Cricket and War

The WTF statement of the day comes from Pradeep Magazine in Hindustan Times:

In this wave of attacks from all sides, the IPL has unleashed one more this year. What the Mumbai terror attacks could not achieve—an Indo-Pak war—this fresh row could well do that.

I never thought that in a fracas between Lalit Modi and the rest of the world, the rest of the world will make a fool of itself. Such it goes.

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My thoughts on the IPL auctions are here. I must admit, the thought of war never crossed my mind. But then, I am not a defence analyst.