er the last few months Kejriwal and his AAP have turned the spotlight on a number of fundamental issues: one of the most important of them, which has not received the scrutiny it deserves, is the attitude of the mainstream media-primarily the elitist, English language TV channels and print media- towards the Aam Aadmi party and some of its leaders.
Their approach has progressed through the full range of journalistic hysteria- from contempt, scepticism, grudging acceptance, demanding, outrage, to outright condemnation ( the current phase).
During this tortuous journey the media has also exposed the full range of its deficiencies, from elitist bias to ignorance, disconnect, arrogance and perhaps cupidity.
The media has never accepted Kejriwal.
- It initially dismissed him as a charlatan and fraud and even dug into his IRS past (without success) to find material (the study leave issue, dues to govt.) to discredit him.
- It deliberately created a rift between him and Anna Hazare by over-emphasising their different paths.
- It churned out opinion polls ( of toilet paper utility) that could only prejudice his electoral prospects.
- It grudgingly accepted his political and moral ascendance in Delhi after the elections but quickly recouped its forces, joined ranks with all other political parties and unleashed a blitzkrieg against him that continues unabated till today.
I am not talking of legitimate criticism and careful analysis, which is the reason the press exists, but of which we have seen little these last few months. I am talking of misinformation, misinterpretation, highlighting issues which support only a pre-conceived thesis and blacking out others, giving a slant to the reporting, shouting down contrary views, distorting the facts and making connections where none exist, regurgitating half digested news. (To be fair to this section of the media, they have done this to others also-the shocking manner in which the OB vans and the anchors wormed their way into the Sunanda Pushkar case, like maggots, and laid bare before the nation all kinds of nonsensical theories- murder, ISI plot, Dubai connection, IPL connection( they showed Subramaniam Swamy making this charge on TV), Sashi Tharoor’s culpability on charges of abetment to suicide,all without any verification- would make anyone want to throw up.
Those anchors have all shut up now that all those bestial theories have been disproved, and (without so much as a ” sorry” to Mr. Tharoor) turned their undivided malevolent attention back to Kejriwal.