“Godi Media” (the media sitting on the lap) is a hard-hitting term coined by eminent journalist Ravish Kumar as an idiomatic equivalent of what's known in journalism as “lapdog media”. It is used to describe the sections of media that have become obedient lapdogs of the ruling establishment instead of fulfilling its expected role as society’s astute watchdogs of the government and other powerful institutions. Besides Indianising the term formulated by some Western scholars, Kumar’s original contribution is turning it as a pun on Prime Minister Modi. In India, even as it remains ensconced on the state’s lap, the godi media barks and bites at its critics. The fondness it reserves for the ruling party, in contrast to the ferocity with which it tears into the Opposition, must be seen to be believed.
The Indian lapdog media’s sycophancy was at its frothy worst during the Ram temple consecration when it revelled in the emotional euphoria, leaving barely a nominal space for the event’s critics. Even the so-called cosmopolitan and modernist English media became blatantly communal and resonated with Mantras and Bhajans.
The next round of toadyism followed in the debates held over the interim Union budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1st.
Ever since the Indian state took a definitive right turn in the 1990s with the Congress government led by Prime Minister Narasimha Rao initiating sweeping market-friendly economic reforms, the Indian media, especially its English language section, have been its self-proclaimed camp followers. The rise of the right wing during this time was also related to the global developments of the period, like the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the demise of the Socialist dream. The neo-conservative tide that began in the 1980s with the emergence of President Ronald Reagan in the USA and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the UK spread worldwide during this time. In India, it surfaced as the sunset of the Socialist values that guided the Indian freedom movement and, subsequently, the nascent Indian state (Nehruvian Socialism).
As always, popular culture, driven by the mass media, was the handmaiden to tumultuous societal changes. Popular culture’s role as both the cause and consequence of the paradigm shift in societal values and its “manufacturing the consent '’ for the emerging changes has been explained in detail by scholars like Noam Chomsky.
Since then, the issues faced by ordinary folk, like poverty, hunger, unemployment, etc., were gradually replaced in the media by matters of interest for the upper and middle classes. Remember journalist P Sainath pointing out how during the height of farmer suicides in 2006, as many as 512 journalists went to cover the Lakme Fashion Week in Bengaluru while only six, including him, were there to report on the rising farmers’ tragedy in the Vidarbha region!
The 1990s saw print media being pushed out of the premier position in Indian media by private satellite news channels. Debates on budget and economy on news channels have since been nearly monopolised by corporate leaders and pro-reform economists who compete with the anchors to sing hosannas with the virtual exclusion of critics from the academia, opposition parties, or trade unions. If “Socialism” became a shibboleth during the Congress’s period, “secularism” became a pejorative in popular culture with the ascent of the BJP, and majoritarianism emerged as the new common sense.
Even when critics are present on panels, the supporters brutally outnumbered them or were allowed precious little airtime by the anchors. During a TV channel’s debate on the interim budget on February 1, the respected academic -cum- activist Yogendra Yadav was seen raising his hands repeatedly in vain to squeeze in some of his criticism when its supporters went on uninterrupted. Later, the channel had another debate with eight panelists, which included just one critic- Prof. Govind Vallabh, a national spokesman of Congress- opposed to an array of corporate leaders and a BJP leader, all falling head over heels for Sitharaman’s speech. Vallabh’s questions on the expansion of the regressive indirect taxes, cut in corporate taxes, the stagnation of private investment in spite of the tax cuts, flattening of wages, falling consumption expenditure, contraction of household savings, the budget’s eloquent silence on poverty, unemployment, etc, went unanswered. Instead, all we see around is the growing bhakti cult around our strongman PM. Even in her budget speech, Sitharaman uttered the name Modi 42 times, much more than terms like economy, budget or growth!
The grandstanding about India racing to become the world’s fifth-largest economy and a developed country soon went on unendingly even while the country has the world’s highest inequality and wallows at the 143rd position among the 195 countries in per capita income or at the 111th rank in global hunger index in 2023.
Popular culture has always reflected the values that hegemonise society, especially the middle class. Yet, never before has the Indian media -except during the Emergency- been so unabashedly slavish to the central government or its majoritarian social agenda. But unlike during the Emergency, when the media was threatened to be silent or acquiesce by draconian measures (“crawled when asked to bow”), today, large sections of the so-called free and private media have largely volunteered to be the megaphones of the government and its majoritarian ideology. This is not to ignore the various arm-twisting measures adopted by the government to make media owners and editors fall in line or replace the unyielding with the pliant ones or deprive lucrative government advertisements to those who dared to criticise. According to a study, the Modi government spent over Rs 700 crore in one year on media advertisements.
The cravenness has been noted globally and brought much ridicule to the once-respected Indian media, which is now being likened to the state-controlled media in autocracies such as North Korea. No wonder India’s rank in the World Freedom of Press Index has been falling steadily- from 140 in 2014 to 161 in 2023 among 180 countries.
The three assumptions of the theory of Lapdog Journalism, as summarized by a media website, strikingly reflect what is happening in the Indian media. 1. The news media do not have independent power, so they rely on government, corporate and elite sources for information and economic support. 2. Journalists show neither understanding nor interest in the opinions, attitudes and information requirements of any group other than those of society’s elite establishment. 3. The news media are characterised by a consistent argumentative and political bias to the benefit of these social and corporate authorities to the extent that they appear to act as their trained pooch.
The media website warns that this is a disturbing approach to journalism, which is detrimental to the success of democracies.
4 min
News
India
Jan 19, 2023
1 min
News
Kerala
Nov 19, 2020
Lapdog Journalism: The Indian edition
11
1
11.02.2024
“Godi Media” (the media sitting on the lap) is a hard-hitting term coined by eminent journalist Ravish Kumar as an idiomatic equivalent of what's known in journalism as “lapdog media”. It is used to describe the sections of media that have become obedient lapdogs of the ruling establishment instead of fulfilling its expected role as society’s astute watchdogs of the government and other powerful institutions. Besides Indianising the term formulated by some Western scholars, Kumar’s original contribution is turning it as a pun on Prime Minister Modi. In India, even as it remains ensconced on the state’s lap, the godi media barks and bites at its critics. The fondness it reserves for the ruling party, in contrast to the ferocity with which it tears into the Opposition, must be seen to be believed.
The Indian lapdog media’s sycophancy was at its frothy worst during the Ram temple consecration when it revelled in the emotional euphoria, leaving barely a nominal space for the event’s critics. Even the so-called cosmopolitan and modernist English media became blatantly communal and resonated with Mantras and Bhajans.
The next round of toadyism followed in the debates held over the interim Union budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1st.
Ever since the Indian state took a definitive right turn in the 1990s with the Congress government led by Prime Minister Narasimha Rao initiating sweeping market-friendly economic reforms, the Indian media, especially its English language section, have been its self-proclaimed camp followers. The rise of the right wing during this time was also related to the global developments of the period, like the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the demise of the Socialist dream. The neo-conservative tide........
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