The non ending TV coverage which will be expectedly followed up by reams of newsprint on the death of Students Federation of India (SFI) leader Sudipto Gupta in Kolkata in the backdrop of allegations that a baton charge by police led to his fatal injury is yet another example of how such incident ends up being in the national media spotlight by mere virtue of the geo-political context. If Sudipto had been a student leader dying in the same manner in any one of the states in the NE region, there would have been no national media spotlight. The same goes for smaller town based incidents of the same nature: zilch in the national consciousness but because the late Sudipto was from Kolkata, there will be more media fodder in the days to come, many rants on social networking sites and countless breathless TV reporting and shouting matches on panel discussions on prime time news. Therein lies a reality that we all live with: that the national media remain blind to issues which are more critical than the celebrity gazing that passes of as news content and need to be in the spotlight. Apart from the fact that the NE region is far from the political-cultural-social consciousness of the national media, the truth is that there is commerce involved. For newspapers, the north east is not a great business opportunity apart from Guwahati, given the resources and logistics needed to ensure that papers make it to readers on time and the lack of avenues for major corporate advertisement investments. For the news channels, the Target Rating Point (TRP) does not cover the North East region. Factored in as a tool to judge which programs are viewed the most on TV, TRPs gives an index of the choice of the people and tracks the popularity of a particular channel. A device called People`s Meter is attached to the TV set in a few thousand viewers` houses for judging purpose and records the time and the program that viewers watches on a particular day. These numbers are treated as sample from the overall TV owners in different geographical and demographic sectors. The average is then taken for a 30-day period, which gives the viewership status for a particular channel. Once the TRPs come in, advertisements and contents are embedded in TV programs, including news. Simple economics indeed!
There will always be the angst of the smaller media outlets within the fraternity and more so because the share of what is called the ‘local media’ is indeed heavy at times. Working without or rather, inspite of small financial resources, the ‘local media’ will have to work within a very limited sphere in terms of being part of an incestuous social-cultural-economic-political context of relations. The nature of being in the middle or even having vague synergies with shady elements or even banned groups make the nature of the media functioning in the state to be disjointed and pressured to take a stand for or against. The proof of this lies in the many instances where the media in Manipur have been gagged and bound over matters of certain missives being published or not. The accusations against various media personnel and the resulting clarifications tell its own story of having to separating the wheat from the chaff and in the scenario, discounting every charge with the uneasy feeling that what goes behind the printed words of a newspaper is not necessarily just black and white. It does not take rocket science to figure out that a ‘free press’ or a ‘free media’ are misnomers in Manipur, every time there is an e mail from one of the many groups specifying what must go in print and what must not. Elsewhere, there is the phenomenon of ‘alternative media’ where social media networking sites and blogs or even video news are used as non conventional outlets to tell stories. This is something that is being done with great effect and which has even shaped global phenomenon’ like the Arab Spring or the Occupy Wall Street campaign. But when it comes to Manipur, the Internet is throwing up more trolls than serious room and opportunity to highlight major issues and their discussion. More often than not, many Internet forums are bent on spreading malicious charges and accusations with no proof given and given the lack of a spirit for not getting personally affronted during discussions, internet forum content in the form of news and views still have miles to go. For the local print media including cable TV though, it would be the fate of years on the job saying and writing about something that the national media may or may not even get a clue about in years altogether and also, get the brunt of the movers and the shakers.