Media Analysis : How distortion of facts is a favorite tool for peddling of opinion in the media

It’s amazing how facts are contorted and interpreted to suit a predisposed point of view. The guiding principle of any fair journalist should be to look at issues and facts in an unbiased manner and lend us his point of view. However hard we might try, it is very hard to generate the escape velocity  required to spin our analysis independent of our ideology. Some allowance towards that is natural.

However when your ideology is at the forefront of everything that you write, then the writing loses its respect and is placed at a different level. A level from where it is very difficult to redeem oneself.

I write this today after reading one more anti modi rant from a writer who I used to follow with respect.

And needless to say that respect has been broken up bit by bit with each of his anti modi rant in which facts are colored and interpreted to arrive at a preconceived point of view

I recollect the days when I waited every Saturday for my edition of mint lounge where the writer would write about history, culture and many other topics which was insightful and offered a different perspective.

However begin inning last year just before the Gujarat elections his choice of topics changed gradually and soon more of his writings took a political angle. With the discourse on modi getting shriller and reaching a crescendo with his appointment as a PM nominee for the BJP, the writing of Mr .Patel has changed for the worse. This recent article on firstpost titled Why Narendra Modi, BJP are more dangerous than Congress .has prompted me to write this piece

: http://www.firstpost.com/blogs/why-narendra-modi-bjp-are-more-dangerous-than-congress-1169031.html?utm_source=ref_article 

I have no objection to his opinion on Modi, but when  facts are distorted to put views then it is not a fair analysis that deserves respect.

The facts mentioned in his piece to emphasize congress secular credentials over BJP are based on flimsy logic.

He states and I quote “ The fact is that the Congress has made its peace with Sikhs there. To see this we need to only go through the names of Punjab’s legislators. Of the 46 Congress MLAs, 33 are Sikh (on the other hand 10 of the BJP’s 12 MLAs are Hindu)

The above fact stated to press for Congress’s secularism case vis a vis BJP  is blatantly wrong.

It fails to take into account that the BJP had an electoral alliance with Shiromani Akali dal a primarily Sikh dominated party which has 56 Ml As .Punjab with a Sikh population of close to 60% should have at least 70 Sikh MLAs and 43 Hindu MLAs basis their representation in the population. BJP had only fielded 23 out of which they won 12 .So the counter point to Mr.Patel can be that the BJP has only fielded 23 candidates of which only 12 are Hindus  This  is still below the ideal level of 43 if you consider the population share as a metric for candidature .Does that make the BJP more skewed towards the Sikhs and so more secular ? You decide

Any basic analysis would suggest that every party makes a selection of candidates based on the strength of its candidate and his ability to win. With the current electoral discourse, selection on religious lines could be one of the factors for selection but the major criteria should be the candidate’s acceptance among the voters.

The facts about Punjab as cited in this article to buttress the writer’s point of BJPs non secularism does not hold