NL Hafta

The conversation kicks off with a discussion on the current media landscape of the Northeast. Cherry asks Paojel to provide an insight on the media culture in the Northeast with respect to access to politicians, political biases, and even media ownership. She asks whether it is similar to legacy houses that form a larger part in the mainstream and what is it that makes the Northeast media unique in nature? Paojel explains the difference between the Northeast media system and the rest of the country and goes on to talk about the challenges faced by investigative journalists in the Northeast region. Paojel suggested that there were many stories in the Northeast that have not been given importance; he also shares some specific examples of stories which have not been given any sort of significance by the mainstream media. The discussion then moves towards Amit Bhardwaj who talks about the eleventh day of Hardik Patel’s hunger strike that has not been covered by the mainstream media. He says: “These are the priorities; if there is violence and incidents of rioting, then the mainstream media will cover it, but if someone goes the Gandhian way and is on 11th day of their hunger strike, then they will choose not to.” Amit goes on to explain the entire hunger strike situation and the reason as to why it should have been covered. The panel then discusses the kind of news that deliberately doesn’t go on air and is not considered to be of grave significance owing to the prevailing power struggle in mainstream media. Rohin sheds lights on a story related to the Mahatma Gandhi Central University in Motihari, Bihar, where, after the death of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a professor posted something on Facebook against the former Prime Minister. The next day, he was beaten up badly and still remains in a critical situation. After this incident, the CAG report on the university showed that a lot of financial irregularities had been found, but even in spite of this, the incident went unreported. The discussion then moves towards what made news—but shouldn’t have—and everyone agreed that Rahul Gandhi eating non-veg in Nepal shouldn’t have set the headlines on fire the way it did. Rahul goes on to brief us about Tushar Damgude’s FIR in relation to the Bhima-Koregaon incident, and more. Tune in to find out more.