Mads ([info]mmk) wrote,
@ 2008-04-12 18:37:00
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NYTimes and an slant on India
Something that [info]deponti wrote about recently made me think about something that had been bubbling in my mind. Is it just me, or is the New York Times slant on India visible to other folks as well?

The context is that every time there is a front page article on India, it is nearly uniformly negative. So much so, that when I open the paper in the morning, if there's a mention of India, I inevitably avoid reading the article till later at night. Consider the following:

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[info]shortiyergirl
2008-04-13 12:03 am UTC (link)
I may have missed it but I remember reading "The ink fades on a profession" and don't recall that it was negative....
I did think the "Careers Give India's Women New Independence" and some of the others were a negative in parts.

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[info]kingsly
2008-04-13 05:04 am UTC (link)
What part of the last article was negative?

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[info]shortiyergirl
2008-04-13 11:03 pm UTC (link)
I've elaborated on one example below. There are a few others too

This quote that I'm not sure is accurate - "And so the new economy, and the new lifestyle it has engendered, has hardly wiped away the old values, particularly with respect to marriage."

The new economy has indeed given women more independence and a say in their own lives...if/how we find our mates has changed but I don't see why that should wipe away our "values with respect to marriage" like commitment for instance! Seems like a gross extrapolation to me.

Also, the whole deal about the poor girl reminding herself to lose weight just to improve her prospects on the marriage market seemed to contradict the premise of the article - where is the independence and where is the wiping away of the old values?


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[info]sidcarter
2008-04-14 12:44 am UTC (link)
The new economy has indeed given women more independence and a say in their own lives...if/how we find our mates has changed but I don't see why that should wipe away our "values with respect to marriage" like commitment for instance! Seems like a gross extrapolation to me.

The context for "hardly wiped away the old values" ? From the article:
Public opinion polls in recent years routinely have revealed that young people, men and women both, still cling to ideas of virginity before marriage, and fairly large numbers say they prefer to marry within their own caste and community. The great big Indian wedding is bigger than ever. Dowry — and deaths at the hands of women’s in-laws who consider their dowries to be inadequate — prevails.

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[info]kingsly
2008-04-14 03:27 am UTC (link)
[info]sidcarter beat me to it, so I'll just add...

And "commitment" is going away like never before.. divorce rates are shooting up esp. amongst the new "independent" generation.

wrt the girl losing weight to improve prospects, it goes perfectly with "has hardly wiped away the old values". And there are enough girls/women out here that are starving themselves and companies like VLCC/Herbalife are raking in millions by taking advantage of them. There are very few who can give a sane explanation as to why they need to lose weight.

Overall I'd say the article was very accurate.

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[info]shortiyergirl
2008-04-14 06:29 am UTC (link)
But the title is so misleading, no?

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[info]kingsly
2008-04-14 07:07 am UTC (link)
Not really .. Independence/Freedom is something you need to work to maintain... being able to pay your own bills, empowers you to take your own decisions and not be forced to submit to someone else's decisions.

Whether you decide to push for what you want or not is entirely up to you.

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[info]shortiyergirl
2008-04-14 08:25 pm UTC (link)
At least to me, the article seemed to say that women now have economic independence but still succumb to societal pressures and age old norms and so the economic independence isn't translating to independence in other spheres.....so I still find the title misleading...

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[info]floopilot
2008-04-14 03:57 am UTC (link)
err .. i think you misread the "has hardly wiped away" part ..

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[info]shortiyergirl
2008-04-14 08:26 pm UTC (link)
Just seemed to contradict the title.

I feel the title sets up the reader to expect one thing but really talks about all the ways in which women still arn't independent....

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Completely agree
[info]mmk
2008-04-19 10:02 pm UTC (link)
Thank you.

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Attitude
[info]mmk
2008-04-19 10:01 pm UTC (link)
It seemed to be written with a "oh-look-at-the-savages" style.

Admittedly, there are still folks who ask for dowry/want thin girls/want to marry within family constraints of caste etc, but for most folks that I know, these are hardly even relevant.

It can be argued, that urban India (which is what I'm talking about here) does *not* reflect real India, but then again, if urban India is 30% of the total, then some % of the articles should reflect urban India, right?

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[info]usha123
2008-04-13 09:45 am UTC (link)
just curious..how would you rephrase these headlines given the content? or are you saying that only negative aspects are focussed on?

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When a dog bites a man ...
[info]kingsly
2008-04-13 05:25 pm UTC (link)
There isn't much interesting happening that's worth writing about... would anyone really care about a Hard Rock Cafe opening up in Bangalore. Or the new Airports in Hyderabad/Bangalore.(Most Indians outside of the city concerned would hardly be bothered about it.) Someone gifting a plane to his wife is news in India, doesn't mean much elsewhere.

I didn't find "The Ink Fades on a Profession As India Rushes to Modernize" to be negative. I'd say it'd be informative even to a lot of people living here.(I didn't know that such people were given space inside the post office!)

The "10000 letters" part doesn't seem accurate though, since it averages out to less than 3 letters a day for 10 years or 1 a day for 25 years. (I must have been averaging better than that that when I was in college!)

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Re: When a dog bites a man ...
[info]mmk
2008-04-19 09:54 pm UTC (link)
Well, I think there are a number of things worth writing about. Just things in Bangalore/Karnataka that come to mind:
- New Airport I'd argue is actually interesting (story about KLM and Shamshabad is funny, I'd argue)
- IPL (esp concentration of cricketing power, the $$ amounts are non trivial)
- The wave of Indian companies buying external entities (Tatas,et all)
- Mobile revolution in India (Economist had an interesting study about fishermen in Kerala for example)
- Tibet exiles in India
- Indian launch of Israeli satellite (ok, Hassan, but still Karnataka)

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Re: When a dog bites a man ...
[info]kingsly
2008-04-22 02:28 pm UTC (link)
Agree wth the rest ... but the KLM story isn't true

http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/KLMSaysItKnowsAllAboutShamshabad_197488-1.html

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Well, my opinion
[info]mmk
2008-04-19 09:55 pm UTC (link)
Is that there's a consistent pattern and bias in the reporting.... just a negative slant.

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[info]usha123
2008-04-13 10:08 am UTC (link)
actually, i just read the last article on indian women (after seeing your post) and i found it quite interesting and from my perspective, reasonably accurate. 40 years back, we were among the earlier women in India to start out on full time professions, and we so resented the lack of lifestyle choices and the mandatory imposition of domesticity at home even while being full time professions then! ..given the whole historical gender baggage that working women in India come with, it is not surprising that they are confused and tentative about their choices..but what is exciting is that there are choices for them that were not so easily available to us and they are able to make non traditional choices at least at times..

it would be interesting for me to know what you found disturbing about this article, if you can share it with us..

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[info]kingsly
2008-04-13 05:08 pm UTC (link)
Just noticed you mention "front page" how many square inches are devoted to such stories?

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Many many inches
[info]mmk
2008-04-19 09:50 pm UTC (link)
Sometimes, especially when there is a bad pic (see the NY sewer covers story) there's usually a big color picture as well.

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You were bang on target madman
(Anonymous)
2008-04-26 03:06 pm UTC (link)
Ramesh Rao had a post on this a while back... this is considered by many as common knowledge and for that reason - as you do, ppl tend to just avoid reading the NYT for their slant on India.

A full exploration of this is here :
http://www.rameshnrao.com/media-assessing.html

- Uday

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[info]fus
2008-06-12 09:29 am UTC (link)
as i have been bleating to anyone who cares to listen
Edward Luce - "In spite of the gods - the strange rise of modern india"

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