Tuesday, November 10, 2015

the shambuka syndrome: my rediff piece on OBCs and messaging

the obvious way to improve BJP messaging... well, i leave that as an exercise to the reader.

5 comments:

san said...

Well, we need to do more than just leave it as an exercise - we need to figure out a viable way to achieve this. Here's my exercise as a reader - we need to TAX any activity associated with political campaigning or political endorsement. Then anytime any so-called "news reporting" activity occurs that looks too partisan, it then gets categorized as a taxable activity, and it's time to go after the publisher to get money out of them. Need to create a financial incentive for news publishers to police themselves - and hitting them in the pocketbook would do just that. The legislation would have to be framed in neutral terms, so that any partisan reporting of any kind would incur tax liability. Information should be free - but lies or spin should not.

During the Reagan era, there was the proposed "Fair and Balanced" law, which required that news publishers present both sides of a debate.

san said...

Another idea I had was that members of news organizations should be required to provide full disclosure on any party affiliations - including who they've voted for. Forcing news media personnel to give full disclosure on who they've voted for might seem intrusive against voter privacy, but consider that the bulk of the population is not composed of news media personnel. If a person is giving an analysis/recommendation on a company's stock, they should be required to disclose if they themselves hold shares in that company. Likewise, if someone is giving a news report on politics, then they should similarly be required to give full personal disclosure on their political disposition for similar reasons - ie. whom they've voted for, whom they've received any money or favours from, etc. Failure to disclose in advance of publishing news reports would be construed as an evasion of the law, and subsequently punishable through fines and other penalties.

CVSMurty said...

A person like sardesai may claim that he voted for BJP and who is going to prove him wrong, when it is common knowledge that he votes for anyone but BJP. This information is not in public domain unlike in the stock market arena.

non-carborundum said...

For all of it, we cannot get one news channel on the air. Wonder whether if the folks Niti Central could do something like that or at least launch a youtube channel in Alex Jones style.

san said...

Yes, other than Pioneer, Organizer, NitiCentral - what else is there? A global Indian news network with conservative leanings would be great.