Sainath on the moral universe of the media

Yesterday, I attended a lecture by P. Sainath, given at the convocation of the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. The topic was ‘The moral universe of the media’. It was a very interesting and insightful lecture though a bit of rehash of what he says all the time – in his writings or otherwise.

Sainath, as usual, was at his witty best. He started off with statements by George Bush and Condoleezza Rice about how Asians esp. Indian & Chinese are eating a lot more, which is one of the reasons for spiraling prices of food the world over and how their middle-class population is higher than the entire population of the USA. He pointed out that they were still speaking in general about the Asians but our own agriculture minister Sharad Pawar has directly blamed the South-Indians for eating a lot of rotis these days which is adding on to the food crisis and inflation. All this happening in just over the last 6 months – they must be having an orgy of rotis I presume!

He talked on various issues. You can read more on it here.

Here are a few interesting observations.

1. Human beings & economists are contradictory terms.

2. Those who can’t – teach!

3. ABC and BBC of Media – ABC stands for Advertising, Bollywood & Cricket while BBC stands for Big Business & Cricket. These are the only preoccupations of media these days.

4. Indian media is politically free but chained by profit.

5. If excessive drinking is cause of suicide then there would be no journalists alive.

6. Be clever – don’t stick your neck out.

7. All your good ideas are boss’ ideas – always remember that.

8. M. K. Gandhi & B. R. Ambedkar – best Indian journalists.

9. Murray Kempton, Thomas Payne & Mark Twain – best American journalists.

10. Private-client treaty – In this, media companies acquire stake in large companies and assure them of continuous & positive coverage in their media.

11. (Condoleezza) Rice commenting on wheat!

12. Structural shut-out of the poor – when we refuse to talk to over 70% of the population by not having any agriculture or rural affairs journalists.