The Art of Media Management

Shailendra

ENTER the deputy prime minister L K Advani and now, while the wait is on for the de facto to become the de jure prime minister, the plan slowly unfolds. The government at the highest level is all set to form a media management secretariat in the ministry of home affairs to formulate policies and programmes “relating to dissemination of information in respect of matters of internal security.” It is not yet clear whether this set-up will be independent of or parallel to the Press Information Bureau (PIB). But the minister of state for home affairs I D Swami conceded that there is a proposal. This secretariat will be the interface of the ministry of home affairs with the PIB and the media. Other questions too are being asked: Who will head this secretariat? Will the advisor in the secretariat have almost equal powers as, say, Brijesh Mishra has? Or will it be razzle-dazzle press cultivation through other means to prevent other Tehelka type exposures?

Within the PIB too, many things are happening. A tighter screening of correspondents seeking accreditation has begun. And a war is on in the Central Press Accreditation Committee, about its own composition. The war is on since March 22. On the warpath are the All India Newspapers Editors Guild, the Working News Cameramen’s Association and Indian Journalists Union, among others. Many contend that some 7 government nominees are there in violation of the rules approved by the information and broadcasting ministry. They also contend that government nominees do not represent any association or organisation, and therefore their inclusion in the CPAC is patently illegal. The government using its yesmen in increasing numbers for screening journalists, has also been discussed by the Editors Guild. The Delhi Union of Journalists has condemned it as arbitrary and prejudicial to the freedom of the press. 

It is a matter of record that, during the Emergency, the PIB became in toto a handout agency of the government, and screening of correspondents started in a big way. Screening has again begun now and a new team of pro-BJP observers has come in through the backdoor. The Al-Jajira correspondent from Palestine found his accreditation cancelled simply because he was critical of the Gujarat government; he was also told to leave the country. Some other foreign correspondents too are on the hit list. Not only this, cases against Kashmiri journalist Iftikhar Gilani go on, and he no longer has the central government’s accreditation. An attempt was made to cancel his press accreditation card for the press gallery of parliament too. But journalists protested and saved the card. Gilani continues in jail along with criminals, while even the pleas to shift him to a ward where he can have reading and writing facilities have fallen on deaf years.

In the media world in the capital, people have already started calling the Press Information Bureau as the Police Information Bureau, and not jokingly. A new government policy of pampering select media bodies and denigrading others has began. It is something more than mere carrot plus stick. A new media policy is slowly unfolding. While the Emergency was more open, a more guised policy for scribes is taking root.