Recently, MediaCrooks crossed 6 Million Views on his blog mediacrooks.com
For those like me, who have been reading his blogs religiously for the past 2-3 years are not surprised. When I first started reading his blogs, I was so impressed that I used to religiously check every day in the morning if he has written a new blog. Eventually, I signed up on Twitter and his was the first handle to follow.
Anyone who has read his blogs would have by now got used to terms like Numero Uno and Unee, Category 5 Moron or even spokies and know exactly what he means. His trademark LOL and words like moron are used to perfect effect on Twitter.
But most importantly, what he has meant to represent is showing a mirror to the Main Stream Media, often referred to as MSM. The Barkhas and the Rajdeeps and others in the media and their hypocrisy and crookedness have become so evident to a keen reader of his blogs. So much so that, watching news has become an exercise in enjoying the hypocrisy of the various anchors and editors. More power to him and the social media as they take on and show a mirror to the MSM. The Congress has tried every trick possible to muzzle and suppress the social media. But, in the end, had to give up. But the MSM was all powerful not very long ago.But before that, I was trying to find out why is the social media so aggressive on the current government and the MSM. I had to go back in time a little when I started earning my living around 1998-99. I was in a well paying job, India was booming they said. That Vajpayee started a Ministry for IT was something I did not know then nor cared. IT grew at 40% back then, something that I discovered only recently.
New investments that started new companies and entrepreneurs flooded India. It was not uncommon to hear of expansion plans of new MNCs that came to India. "We would grow to 10000 or 25000" and so on, would brief the CEO or a top honcho of an MNC. Growth was now a birthright for Indians. The prices of various commodities were also fairly low and never pinched the pockets. Its amusing that I never really felt the necessity to understand or know what was the food inflation in India at the time.
But as surprising as it was, the Vajpayee led NDA lost the LS elections in 2004. The thought of Sonia Gandhi becoming a PM was outrageous. I remember plenty of email exchanges in various forums expressing our ire at that prospect. For the new emerging upper middle class this entitlement based politics seemed retrograde. But then, we were also the ones who had not thought of voting being a duty or a necessity.
Manmohan Singh as PM did blunt some of that ire. As with any Congress led Government, UPA did have its blunders. But the next 5 years was, in my opinion, when the 'Paid Media' was fostered, cultivated from its infancy to a full blown monster that it became till Social Media came around to challenge it.
These five years was when the MSM was a very powerful force and opinion influencer. But the MSM very effectively silenced the critics from the opposition, mainly the BJP, by citing similar examples from the NDA regime to show that after all the UPA is doing nothing different. For something which did not find a parallel in the NDA regime, discussions would focus on how Manmohan Singh was a "Honest PM" and how Sonia Gandhi was indeed unhappy with that happening in Congress/UPA.
The results showed in 2009 elections. The Congress came back to power in 2009 with better tally of 200+, with more than 60 urban seats. Traditionally, this urban seats would have belonged to the BJP. Quite ironically, some of us thought that the better mandate to Congress was indeed better for the country. But alas, it was not meant to be so. Their scams during the earlier tenure started surfacing. But that did not prevent them from new ones. They believed that the shield of MSM can protect them from anything. They were virtually default rulers. I remember P Chidambaram even arrogantly once say that the next 10 years and even beyond belonged to them and BJP had no chance what so ever. This was when social media started to make its presence felt. And then the downslide began for Congress and hence, the MSM. It seemed no more that the valiant defenders of the Congress and more specifically, the Gandhis, in MSM were doing it as pure neutral journalism. Criticizing the BJP and more specifically Modi, again, looked excessive and biased. I even am amused that I was too someone, who thought of Modi as a mass murderer and no good politician who has no space in Indian Secular Space.
The new methods of information sharing were now Youtube, Facebook and Twitter. These worked as the checks and balances for the corrupt media. MediaCrooks blog came to represent the power of social media and the regular intervals at which he exposed and rightly criticized the Barkhas, Rajdeeps and others, it reinforced to me and am sure tens of thousands like me, that the discourse in the media is completely fraught with intentional fraud on the nation and is more corrupt than we would believe. What I had all along sensed but never completely comprehended was put across so meticulously that the sins of the media were unmistakably exposed.
10 years of UPA have had something very noticeable traits. The healthy flourishing of fake NGOs, who surprisingly targeted Modi and in some cases other BJP leaders, but never the Congress, the liberal media celebs like Tejpal and his other cronies like Khetan who never found it necessary to do any sting on any Congress leader in spite of massive corruption, the suspended corrupt officers from Gujarat Govt suddenly discovering Modi's personal involvement in 2002 riots, were all not a mere coincidence. They were systematically cultivated and fostered to keep the opposition cornered and vulnerable. If, by 2010, BJP was no longer the force they were during the Vajyapee rule till 2004, it does not seem any accident.
Quite surprisingly, the target of the utmost vindictive and many times, outright ugly campaign, Modi, stood out tall and came out the winner. The facts came out more and more strongly in his favor through the social media. The courts gave verdicts in his favor that vindicated what the social media had always been pointing out. Many other online bloggers that I have discovered over a period of time wrote much better analysis of the various issues including economy. This critical analysis seemed completely missing in the MSM. It was here, that I learnt about Fiscal Deficit, Current Account Deficit, External debt to GDP ratio and many other things that I, as a citizen, had never bothered to think about or find out about. Its social media that taught me that the true success of a Government lies in creating infrastructure, jobs and hence, uplifting the millions out of poverty. The success of NDA was no mean achievement. It required a leader of the stature of Vajpayee to bring about this kind of prosperity to India. It was bewildering that none of that had been public discourse before the social media came in. What was a personal positive experience during the NDA regime was now better understood through statistics and other government figures. The exclusive right of positive coverage in the MSM seemed to be with the Gandhis and thus, rightly, got exposed in the Social Media. Also, the shield to protect that the MSM formed against failures of the Congress also started to break with consistent attack from Social Media. It was also amusing that the otherwise called as "trolls" of BJP were also the most vocal in condemning the induction of Muthalik into BJP and the party had to make a hurried U turn.
AAP has been accusing the media to be 'Paid Media' and rightly so. However, the joke was on them and their Congress bosses. Inspite of the massive scams, the attempt by the MSM to keep in clear the Gandhis and blame some scape goats has not gone well with any sensible India. On the other hand, Modi was the victim of the most hostile campaign against him by a ruthless and corrupt media. He was called as Mass Murderer, Fascist, Hitler and so many other names. He emerged victorious against them instead of whining about them. If a hostile MSM could not dampen or break Modi, its very unlikely it would happen so now when he has captured the imagination of the country. The MSM very routinely did a 'Hit Job' on many BJP leaders and those opposed to Congress. When they were proved wrong, there was no honesty to accept their wrong. LIE BIG and retract small, as MediaCrooks has pointed out in several of his blogs. The other important thing I have learnt through the discourse in the social media and more specifically through the blogs on MediaCrooks is how anti Hindu the MSM has become. Its reached a level where they simply hate anything Hindu. Its definitely very alarming. So much so that Sagarika Ghose wants credit for coining the term 'Internet Hindu' as those who troll on social media. What she and others in the MSM don't understand is that they are simply not relevant anymore. The frustrated Indians like me who took to the social media find them at best comical and at worst corrupt bigoted journos.
2014 is going to be a make or break election. No party is perfect and most certainly BJP is not. But having witnessed and experienced the NDA government first hand, I would definitely want them back. 60 million jobs, record forex reserves, rapid and massive infrastructure projects like the Golden Quadrilateral (which is believed to be the biggest anti poverty program lifting millions out of poverty) and many others. Every thing that Modi has come to represent in Gujarat gives hope that the same aspirations can be justified by a NDA government in 2014. Hence, they are the best hope we have. In case, something do wrong, we do have the Social Media and the same people who have supported them will surely take them to task.
I am pasting below a comment to one of his blogs that MediaCrooks shared on twitter, which inspired me to complete this blog that I had so often started to write, but never completed.
