[Reader-list] Twentieth Congress: Distortions and Lies in the Media

A. Mani a.mani.cms at gmail.com
Sun Apr 22 22:53:39 IST 2012


Source: CPI(M) party congress website
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Twentieth Congress: Distortions and Lies in the Media



Commentator



THE coverage of the 20th Congress by sections of the corporate media
was marked by a string of distortions, half-truths and lies. Ever
since the CPI(M) withdrew support to the UPA government in July 2008,
there has been a sustained barrage of hostile propaganda carried out
by some of the big business media. The traditional anti-communist
newspapers in West Bengal and Kerala have been in the lead in this
campaign.



In the run-up to the 20th Congress of the CPI(M), a section of the
Bengal media led by the Ananda Bazar Patrika group propagated that
Buddhadeb Bhattacharya was not happy with the central leadership of
the Party and therefore he was refusing to attend meetings of the
Polit bureau and the Central Committee. On the opening day of the
Congress both in the print and electronic media belonging to West
Bengal and Kerala, news was published that Buddhadeb Bhattacharya had
requested to be relieved from the Central Committee and the Polit
Bureau and that he had sent a letter to that effect to the general
secretary. Even when the content of the letter he had written to the
general secretary requesting that he be excused from attending the
Congress due to health problems was reported to the media, the
speculation persisted that he would not be in the Central Committee
and the Polit Bureau. The purpose of such propaganda was to portray
that there are deep divisions in the leadership of the Party.



The Congress is the highest body of the Party where major policy and
tactical questions are discussed. One can expect critical comments and
views being expressed in the media about various aspects of the
Party’s role and work. But what was seen was a concerted effort to
distort information, present falsehoods as facts and use them to give
a spin and publish them as authentic reports. Some of the media
persons reporting on the Congress seem to have given the go by to such
elementary tenets of journalism such as presenting facts, verifying
them and drawing conclusions from them.



Some glaring instances can be cited. The reports appearing in the
Telegraph, the English daily of the Ananda Bazar group excelled in
purveying falsehoods. On a single day on April 9, two front page
stories on happenings in the Party Congress were published. The first
dealt with the voting on the ideological resolution which was adopted.
It named two delegates who had abstained on the ideological
resolution. The names mentioned were wrong. In any case, in the press
briefing held on that day it had already been reported that one
delegate out of 727 had voted against the resolution and three had
abstained. Such voting is nothing unexpected, or, abnormal. In the
Congress of the CPI(M), delegates discuss and express their views
freely and they have the right to exercise their vote on any matter
which has to be decided. In the Political Resolution too, two
delegates had voted against the resolution and two had abstained. But
what the report in the Telegraph and the Indian Express sought to
portray was that it was a manifestation of the differences between two
leaders in the Party.



Any person conversant with the Communist Party would know that a
resolution presented to the Congress does not represent the views of
any individual leader but that of the Central Committee. Whether it be
the Draft Political Resolution or the Draft Ideological Resolution,
they were the products of discussions and the common understanding
arrived at by the Central Committee.



Unable to find any basis for differences at the Congress, a section of
the media sought to manufacture such differences.



The other front page news prominently displayed in the Telegraph was
headline “Economist Leaves”. The report claimed that Prabhat Patnaik
had left the Congress “in a huff” on the fourth day of the Congress
even though he was “scheduled to leave for Delhi after the completion
of the six day long Congress”. The report alleged that he was
criticised by a delegate and he was upset by the attitude of the
leadership.



The story was a complete fabrication produced by the same reporter who
wrote the other headline story. Prabhat Patnaik had to clarify through
a letter to the editor that he had taken prior permission from the
general secretary, before the Congress began, to leave earlier given
an illness in his family.



The Malayala Manorama the leading Malayalam daily in Kerala did not
want to be left behind in the competitive myth-making. It published a
six column headline report after the Congress about how one of the
senior Polit Bureau members had been downgraded in the list of Polit
Bureau members who had been elected and announced. It made much of the
fact that his name was ranked third in the list instead of the second.
The list of the Polit Bureau members announced was in the order of
precedence of when a person entered the Polit Bureau and his or her
seniority in joining the Party. The order of names that appeared was
the same as in the previous Congress. The Manorama report made a
belaboured attempt to cite this as an indication of sharp differences
in the Party.



The 20th Party Congress displayed a high degree of unity and purpose
in adopting the political-tactical line of the Party, in arriving at
common ideological understanding and in providing direction for the
future course of the Party’s work.



It seems some sections of the corporate media are unable to accept
this outcome of the Congress. Whatever be the views that anyone may
hold regarding the CPI(M), one would accept some degree of objectivity
and stating of facts as a fundamental basis for journalism.


__________________________________________________



Best

A. Mani



-- 
A. Mani
CU, ASL, CLC,  AMS, CMS
http://www.logicamani.co.cc


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