GoM’s roadmap on good news: Colour coding journalists to neutralising negative
From a strategy to “neutralize” those who put “false narratives” against the Government to corner the “right-wing parties” in other countries to seek “common ground”; from the supposed “color coding” of journalists depending on how close they are to the government to a “mixture of truth and falsehood” in the news; These are some of the suggestions from a supposed report by a Group of Ministers on how to improve “government communication”.
This 97-page document, first reported by Caravan, shows that the majority of the nine ministers, who were part of the Government of Mexico, pointed to the “negative” coverage of the government on online and international news platforms and asked for support from journalists “in favor of our line of thought.”
Ministers included: Union I&B Minister Prakash Javadekar; The Minister of Law and Information Technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad; The Minister of Foreign Affairs, S Jaishankar; The Minister of Textiles, Smriti Irani; The Minister of Minority Affairs, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi; The Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Sports and Youth Affairs, Kiren Rijiju; MoS (Charge Independent), Civil Aviation and Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri; MoS Finance Anurag Thakur; and MoS Environment, Forests and Climate Change Babul Supriyo.
The Indian Express reached out to Prasad, Irani, Javadekar and Thakur, but they were not available for comment.
Puri, when contacted, said: “I was a member of that committee. I don’t recall receiving any reports, much less deleting any reports. ”
Naqvi, when contacted, said he was not aware of the report.
The alleged report said that the Government of Mexico held six meetings on June 14, 20, 22, 26, 28 and July 9, 2020. The members also held meetings with “prominent personalities” on June 26 at the residence of Rijiju; a videoconference with “prominent media” on June 23 and 24; and a videoconference with “representatives of industry chambers” on June 30.
This period coincides with the beginning of the outcome of the pandemic blockade and after the Galwan incident on June 15, when India lost 20 soldiers in a confrontation with Chinese troops. Beijing admitted last month that it had lost four members of its staff, including a battalion commander, in the clash and a fifth officer was injured.
Significantly, the report said that it was decided to limit FDI in digital media to 26% to “ensure that news in digital media is not skewed primarily due to its foreign investment component.” That limit was announced by the government in August 2019 and reinforced in October 2020.
The report tasked the ministries of I&B and IT with “Facilitating digital news and OTT” and stated that “a new mechanism must be involved to ensure that OTT platforms become more accountable.”
In fact, last week, the government notified new rules of a media code that empowers it to intervene and block access to information online in cases of emergency and the fulfillment of the mandate.
The report said that he “made his first presentation to the Honorable Prime Minister, who guided the Government of Mexico with his ideas and provided vital contributions.”
While Prasad, according to the report, asked for a “list of media personnel and prominent individuals, who are in favor of our line of thought, both nationally and globally,” Irani recommended tracking down “50 negative influencers. and 50 positive “. Javadekar added that “the narrative is driven by around 20-30 people” and “it is very important to counter false narratives in the national and international media.”
Puri mentioned that “productive and supportive journalists who are not working now can be tied up.” Naqvi suggested: “We should have a strategy to neutralize people who write against the government without facts and establish false narratives / spread false news.”
Thakur said that “the right-wing parties in other countries must be tied in order to find common ground.”
The Government of Mexico identified 10 “big initiatives” or narratives that the government should focus on, including celebrating the 75th year of India’s independence; creation of a 5 trillion dollar economy; Atmanirbhar Bharat; Digital India; and projecting India’s soft power globally, among others.
The report states that a meeting was held at Rijiju’s home on June 26, in which Naqvi was also present, along with 12 journalists. And among the “observations of the participants” were: “about 75% of the media are impressed by the leadership” of Modi and “are ideologically with the party”; “Groups should be made up of supportive editors, columnists, journalists, and commentators and should participate regularly”; “Lack of communication has meant that positive things are not expressed in an influential way.”
One of those who attended the June 26 meeting and is mentioned in the report was Ravish Tiwari, political editor and national bureau chief for The Indian Express.
“The meeting was convened at Minister Rijiju’s residence as a background briefing with Foreign Minister Jaishankar on the clash on the Royal Line of Control,” Tiwari said. “Nobody mentioned anything about a GoM. When I arrived, they told us that the Minister of Foreign Affairs was up to date and could not attend. ”
“There was talk of the lack of information exchange about the LAC confrontation,” Tiwari said. “The Minister, based on his past experience as MoS, Home, discussed the LAC but that was unofficial. It amazes me how an informal briefing on LAC has been presented as part of a meeting of the Government of Mexico. I cannot recall anything that was discussed that can be remotely construed as the so-called conclusions of the report. ”
The report also mentioned that during an interaction with Javadekar on June 23, national security journalist Nitin Gokhale suggested that “journalists can be color-coded: green – close-up caretakers; Black – against; and Blanca – who support. We must support and promote favorable journalists ”.
When contacted, Gokhale told The Indian Express: “I deny having used the language that is allegedly attributed to me in a Report of the Group of Ministers.”
According to the report, S Gurumurthy, an RSS ideologue who is also a director of the Central Board of the Reserve Bank of India, suggested during the same interaction: “News to carry a mixture of truth and falsehood.” He also talked about “how to change an ecosystem like Pokharan, how to handle hostility from the media.” Despite the calls and messages, Gurumurthy was not available for comment.
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She is a freelance blogger, writer, and speaker, and writes for various entertainment magazines.