What the media won't tell you, but tell you about Kejriwal's fast

I scrolled through a few web pages for news relating to Arvind Kejriwal's fast (Civil Disobedience), and found that there were glaring contradictions between what I read on news portals, and what was distributed on social media (mainly Twitter).

Simply put, news websites played down Kejriwal's fast as something which has failed to gather response, or is a "flop show". On the other side, Twitter provided with documentary evidence of what was happening on ground. Whom would you trust?

These are images of on ground activity of the movement.

 Volunteers (unpaid, self-motivated) went door to door to gather consensus. 

More evidence/cases of inflated electricity bills were found. In this particular case, a women received a bill of approx. Rs 93,000 for a small room she lives in. If such a thing was to be discovered by a journalist on his own, he or she would have done a news story. But since AAP is first to raise the issue, perhaps, there is no more news value to it.  

And some more... 

This is another related event in Lucknow where medical students, protesting in support if AAP were arrested.

These are people coming out in support of Kejriwal's fast, and denouncing unjust rise in electricity bills.

Seated on left is Mr. V Kalyanam, who has worked in the capacity of personal secretary to Mahatama Gandhi. He came to meet Arvind Kejriwal.

And like any normal human being would - Arvind Kejriwal also spent some personal time with his family.

  

But this is the image which flashes on TV.  

In the above picture, I can see Headlines Today reaching a conclusion of sorts "Civil Disobedience Flops" - does it support this conclusion with a research? And what are the parameters under which this movement can be qualified as a successful one? 

I also came across some news stories, which can be considered as downright dishonest practice of journalism.

For instance, the above headline is stated. Is it a fact? Is it supported by a research? How many people did this reporter interview in order to reach to this conclusion? In the hurry of being creative, and using pun-intended headlines, the journalist (or maybe the sub-editor) seems to have forgotten some basic principles. Such a statement cannot be made unless the reporter has surveyed/interviewed a representative population of Delhi.

The above news story (also archived here for sake of posterity) crosses all limits of journalistic sensibilities. It offers to tell you "How" Kejriwal's fast became a flop show but doesn't answer the "How" part (and remember the fast is only in its 3rd day at the time of this report). For those who don't know components of a news story - here it is - very briefly, it consist of 5Ws and 1H - (5W's - What, Where, Who, When, Why and How). Read the news story for yourself, and see if it answers the "How".


Another assertion stated as fact in the above news headline. After reading the headline Delhi: Kejriwal's civil disobedience movement fails to attract public, one would be curious or expect that the report will now answer "why" and "how" the movement failed to attract public. Some natural questions which arise are - Is it that the people do not want to participate because they do not like Kejriwal's initiative? Or they do not agree to the method of protest? Or his party? If yes, an objective reporter will support his claims by quoting at least a handful of  random people (remember, it still would be inappropriate to use a headline as one above). But guess what - this report does not include a single quote of any common man, whether opposing or supporting- and still makes a rather tall claim in the headline.

So were there publications which followed basic journalistic sensibilities before publishing stories around Kejriwal's fast? 

Very few. Citing an example below.

A headline like the one above is safe to use when one is not sure what is going to happen next. This headline is questioning the potential of the movement to mobilize people, and it is fair to do so. But in journalism in India, questions and question marks are perhaps the most abused (and mind you, its importance - grammatical or contextual is rarely understood). An issue can be framed even through a question mark.

Do you think its happening in the headline below?