Even as the world waited to figure out whether Biden or Trump had won the US Presidential Elections, the New York Times – supposedly the doyen of journalism – showed how far it had fallen when it referred to the Shiv Sena as a – wait for it – progressive political party!
A party which has currently jailed a Twitter user for mocking its leaders and attacked a Navy veteran for sharing a cartoon.
After being the butt of much ridicule on Twitter, NYT issued a clarification which read: “Correction: An earlier version of this article mischaracterized the political party that currently controls Mumbai. It is an opposition party, not a progressive opposition party. The error was repeated in our tweet. We’ve deleted the incorrect tweet.”
Sadly, it didn’t make it much better, epitomising how foreign correspondents miss the woods for the trees when it comes to coverage outside its borders. Come to think of it, given the inaccuracy of reportage particularly about politics, they don’t really hit the bulls eye at home either.
So, what’s wrong with the clarification? Let’s list the various mistakes that even a noob political science student would point out:
An opposition party cannot arrest anyone. Mumbai, which falls under Maharashtra, is ruled by three parties which has formed the Maha Vikas Agadi with a coalition between Shiv Sena (erstwhile ‘progressive’ party), Nationalist Congress Party and Indian National Congress. The full piece fails to acknowledge the federal structure that exists in Indian politics where law-and-order is a state subject, which here is in MVA’s hand. To be even more accurate, the Home Minister of Maharashtra is Anil Desmukh from the NCP.
Also, the terms ‘conservative’, ‘progressive’ et al are picked up choc-a-bloc from US politics and makes little sense here. Calling Arnab Goswami a ‘conservative’ news anchor is akin to labelling the Modi government a right-wing government. The piece also went on to compare it to Modi administration putting pressure on ‘progressive journalists’, when in truth, in India, irrespective of the political ideologies they profess to follow are united in their will to subjugate dissenting journalists.
The piece also claimed Indian news outlets had taken a ‘conservative turn’, continuing an infuriating tendency to extrapolate American political terms, to the rest of the world. For starters, when one says Indian news outlet, one means English news outlets and the ‘conservative’ turn would be more by two particular channels. Also it’s not really a conservative turn but a more right-wing one, which is as different from conservativism as chalk is from cheese.
Republic TV Editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami and two others -- Feroz Shaikh and Nitesh Sarda -- have been sent to 14-day judicial custody on Wednesday by Alibag District Magistrate Court in connection with Anvay Naik suicide case.
Goswami has alleged that he along with his mother-in-law, father-in-law, son, and wife have been physically assaulted. Mumbai Police entered Goswami's residence and allegedly physically assaulted his family members and him.
Republic TV channel has telecasted visuals of Mumbai police entering Goswami's residence and what appears to be a scuffle.
Within inputs from ANI
