If the media gives itself licence to take potshots at world leaders, it should open itself up to scrutiny too.
By Pradyuman Maheshwari
When managing editor Asif Syed called me via old friend and thinker-columnist Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad, I must confess I didn’t know how to react. For, as someone who loves to relive the past, I was hugely excited about the fact that CURRENT was being revived. I don’t quite belong to the generation that grew up on the weekly that Messrs D. F. Karaka and Ayub Syed produced, but I was happy that an old warhorse was getting back.
For my father’s generation, CURRENT and R.K. Karanjia’s Blitz were hot properties.
Both prided themselves on being free and fearless, but in doing so, the quality of journalism didn’t dip.
So what now? Asif, I figured from my conversation with him, isn’t an I-want-to-change-the-world owner-editor. But he isn’t one whose basic intent is to bring out a paper to schmooze with biggies, go on junkets or bed starlets. The mission is to produce a quality weekly that discusses politics and socio-economics and has no qualms in calling a spade a spade. His partner in crime is Shahid Faridi, a hard-nosed journo who – as I figured later – cobbled together a galaxy of star journos to buy his idea.
I was asked to write a column on the media. And the reason for this is not my current existence but what I did in the past – a blog called Mediaah! It was what I called the media’s media and attempted to track events and issues concerning all media: print, electronic and online. This was following a fortnightly column that I would do in Mumbai’s Sunday Mid-Day and an annual Media Power 50 listing that I did for that paper.
Syed and Prasad wanted to me to do for CURRENT what I (un)did for Mediaah! Dho daalo! My words, not theirs. My first reaction was yes, but when I sat back and consulted my lawyer (who has warned me to refrain from writing on the media without consulting him), I was told that I should dump the idea.
For, the media, dear reader, isn’t as mature as we think it is. We can take potshots at the world – talk of how the Prime Minister should run the nation, how George Bush is effing it up etc etc – but when someone criticises us, we just can’t take it. Asif said I shouldn’t worry.
The biggies will growl at kids on the web, but won’t dare do much masti against a print entity. Perhaps.
Will CURRENT be fine if it is subjected to scrutiny, I wondered. And what about criticism? If it’s subjecting others to it, shouldn’t it allow for the same? Yes, it must. It’s a free world, and let anyone with a view express it. So here I am – Pradyuman Maheshwari – doing what has possibly never been done before in Indian journalism: reviewing a paper in the paper itself. And the fact you are reading this here indicates how sporting Asif & Co are. As they ought to be.
CURRENT didn’t have a problem of expectation management as a publication like DNA did three-odd years back or People magazine did recently. One didn’t quite spend much time thinking of what it would be, even though it’s got tremendous pedigree and a good set of people managing it. And what did I think of it when I got my copy?
The instant reaction to the re-launch issue was of disappointment. The design just didn’t work. My score: 5/10.
Even if the intent is not to have a tabloidy Page 1, the relaunch issue cover wasn’t arresting at all. Ditto with the rest of the issue. I asked a few others to comment on it and they were a lot less charitable. But the reason why I scored it as high as 5 was because of the content – all of what I read was super. Mind you, not a case of style and no substance, but simply good reading material. Divya Malik Lahiri’s interview of Prakash Karat, Sanjeev Acharya’s story on the rising star of the BSP Rajaram, and Neerja Chowdhury’s piece on the possibility of Congress dumping SP after the nuclear deal is done were all first-rate. So were the other features and columns, and that’s perhaps why my score for content would be a good 6/10 and for design and packaging, umm, well, 2/10.
But it’s still early days, and I am confident the paper will improve. In fact that’s the only reason why despite my low score, I am still writing for CURRENT. And since the editors have carried it and the designer hasn’t sabotaged it, obviously this paper’s different. Three cheers to that!
Pradyuman Maheshwari is a Mumbai-based editor, trainer and media commentator. The views expressed are his own and not those of the organisations he is associated with.
Email: pradyumanm@gmail.com