Face The Nation Sagarika Will You??

Face The Nation with Sagarika Ghose

The constant chatter on the net and twitter in particular about the Radia tapes which the twitterati has christened as #barkhagate has been trending for last 5 days. In sharp contrast to this has been the deafening silence from our mainstream English media.

We are more accustomed to a sensational and hyper reportage from our electronic medium, which has disappointed us by not picking on this subject. Leave alone playing the tapes of the conversations which are readily accessible on the net, no mention has been made by any channel. Normally we are compelled to watch the recordings/cds repeatedly until we full up to our noses.

Last evening CNNIBN conjured up the required courage to host a show at 10PM Face The Nation “Is corporate lobbying undermining democracy?” This we believe was done under tremendous public pressure, who are visibly agitated by the conspiracy of silence on part of the media?

I returned to viewing this channel after almost a lapse of 2 years. Yes with a very smug feeling, that we did achieve a success, IBNlive is at liberty to deny the role of public pressure and can state it as an editorial decision, yet it came 4 days too late. How many would buy it?  

The points raised were valid role of corporate lobbyist per se is not evil, nor is it illegal, however the journalists involved in peddling influence or facilitating the corporate lobbyist in their endeavors is a totally different issue. This was the consensus among the panelists.

Host of the show did make a feeble attempt at trying to defend members of her fraternity. The right and choice is her’s. The point that I wish to raise is larger, we the viewers have been subjected to biased and opinionated editorials which have been presented to us in the garb of news.

It is not just the two journalists who are in the eye of the storm, the host Mrs.Sagarika Ghose is also guilty of being contemptuous towards us, our contrarian view have lead her to label us as “Internet Hindus” which was her way of hitting back at a vocal audience, who dared to voice their opinion/views via the net. Very often she would not permit comments from a large number of us to appear on her blogs.

Somewhere prior to Ayodhaya verdict she tweeted in the most irreverent manner about “Lord Ram being a Divine Encroacher.”  Maybe there was a minor uproar or it dawned on her that she may have overstepped the line and she deleted the offensive tweet. Not before it had been saved by many on the net.

The question that is being posed to her is, did she in the course of the discussion last evening at any point of time ever so fleetingly feel a tinge of remorse for her actions?

1. Coining the term Internet Hindus. (Which is derogatory in nature)

2. Tweet about Lord Ram.

Has she considered the possibility of tendering an unconditional apology to the viewers and the majority community of this country! No I am not a religious person nor a bigot, yet irreverence towards something or someone who is revered by millions not just in this country but also overseas, who have not taken kindly to her acts.

We do accept the fact that sensitivities, emotions are intangibles.

Ethics and Morality will not touch on these subjects since the words themselves are foreign to our mainstream English media. The concepts or meaning would not be known to them at all.

Let me address this issue from another perspective and that is the sales and marketing and corporate governance. Which business school in the world teaches and trains the sales and marketing teams for companies on the basis of a confrontational approach towards it consumers, clients and viewers? Which business school prepares us for being contemptuous towards our clients and consumers? Is it not repeated ad nauseum  that customer is the Master and King?

How come the sales and marketing personnel in your company have not raised this issue with the management? Which corporate would accept the conduct that you have displayed? Not even a family owned business. We are not the intruders; we are raison d’etre for your organization.

This is the latest update on CNNIBN. 12/17/2010

: CNN-IBN in row over "fake" Twitter comments Nowhere to hide everything is coming apart. 

@barkhadalal @saikatd @sardesairajdeep is still lying.

CNN IBN’s “apology” What purpose will this serve?

We will wait for your response.

I welcome a debate and discussion on this…As always, please keep your tone civil, your language polite…no sweeping generalisations please and no personal abuse.  Thank you.