Spotlight summit

IN the run up to today's summit, the media has been heard from much more than the foreign office. That has been the case before as well, but there is a qualitative difference. The conventional relationship between media and diplomacy is where the foreign office uses the media to calibrate the atmosphere for talks, through briefings, selective leaks, formal interviews and much else. To read what diplomats were saying off the record one used to turn to the media, because its writing used to be based on foreign office briefings. The catch phrase was "sources said".

This time around the media is on its own trip. The traditional "sources said" coverage is still there but rapidly getting lost in the din of self-appointed agenda-setting by the media. In a situation of media excess, the media's role in diplomacy has changed considerably. It has become pro-active. In attempting to second guess the agenda for the talks, it has ended up wanting to set it. There were shades of this during the Lahore initiative two years ago. The idea of the Lahore bus trip in 1999 was mooted in an interview conducted with the then Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, by the editor of the Indian Express. It triggered a historic event, though the Express is unlikely to seek the credit for the eventual verdict of history on that particular bright idea.

This time the Vikas Singh campaign was also the Indian Express's idea. It featured a story on the peace activist, and then decided the time was right to whip up a campaign around the issue, and in the era of e-mail that is easily done. Vikas Singh was duly released, the release was pronounced as having created a feel- good atmosphere for the visit, and presto, here was the media being proactive again.

The plethora of media coverage in the run up to the summit falls into two categories.

Zee News was running a cute series called "iHope". A Muslim hockey player told you what he was wishing for from the summit. Others including the Times of India were running "My summit" series. From fashion designers and schoolgirls in Delhi, to street vendors in Rawalpindi and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) jawans in their bunkers in Kashmir, we heard from all the non-players that the media could rustle up. Those bits you could dismiss as atmospherics, along with all the dargah, haveli and halwai stories.

But the second category of media excess was in the realm of we- want-to-set-the-agenda outpourings. Zee News rushed off the Times of India editor to Pakistan to interview the general-turned president, so that we could learn how they intend to play the visit. They then broke up the interview into bits and analysed each bit to death. Star News rushed off Barkha Dutt to Pakistan to prod less exalted Pakistanis into speaking their separate minds for Indians to hear. Not just everyday Pakistanis but also the jehadis and other militants in Pakistan occupied Kashmir. Star News also conducted what it called a tripartite "Big Fight" which attempted to get speakers from Kashmir, Pakistan and India to both state their positions and set the agenda. And in a separate category was the Star News programme called Witness on the lives of children in the Kashmir Valley which made its own eloquent statement about the urgent need for an end to violence.

Rediff-on-the-Net lined up a whole range of mostly hard line opinions to help Indians, official and otherwise, make up their minds on the issues at stake. India Today got a range of Pakistanis from Benazir Bhutto to former Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Hamid Gul to air their perspectives to their readers. And Outlook and others got Indian experts to submit wish lists on every conceivable aspect of the Indo- Pakistan relationship, not just Kashmir.

The media has stopped seeing its role as just reporting. It is into conducting diplomacy. When you give Omar Abdullah a platform to be visibly, audibly, hardline a week before the talks begin (sample: "any trifurcation will be over the dead bodies of people like me"), when you give the Hurriyat and a Pakistani academic the same platform, you are attempting an agenda-setting debate, conducting your own "talks" as it were. In varying degrees, many other publications and programmes did the same. Barkha Dutt's "We the People" conducted from Islamabad aired the idea of Pakistan giving up its demand for a plebiscite in Kashmir and got Pakistanis to respond. The "Big Fight" aired the idea of India giving up its claim on the Kashmir Valley. Both attempted to nudge populations used to subscribing to their governments' stated positions, into thinking the so far unthinkable.

Zee TV went a step further. It attempted to queer the pitch by sounding very hardline just the weekend before. Its "Inside Story" raked up Kargil, the Pakistani treachery during it, and the Indian Government's abdication in not taking the Army's repeated warnings about intrusions seriously. And then it did a poll before the summit which this column has been unable to catch because of its deadline.

Is the media's agenda-setting a good thing or a bad thing? It has its pros and cons. The positive aspect is that it creates a more informed public opinion, one that knows what the issues are and what the options are. The negative aspect is that so many wish- lists crowd the agenda, confuse priorities and raise expectations. Soon after General Musharraf goes home the instant agenda setters will quickly turn into instant summit evaluators, using their own self-appointed agendas as the benchmark. That is the pitfall-overexposure for the delicate process of peace- making, and instant judgments on what should only be seen as the beginning of a process. If the media resists the temptation to do this it will be a thoughtful contribution to the peace process. But past experience shows that that it is asking for too much.

Goodbye Turner Classics: From the beginning of this month its been goodbye to TCM and the beginning of a 24-hour Cartoon Network, much to the dismay of those who like the old movies. This is yet another case of market compulsions killing a niche offering. The channel becomes one that will cater to more time zones, and the official explanation from the Turner office here is that they are looking for another distribution platform for TCM in the near future. In the meantime they prefer to bet on HBO and Cartoon Network which can bring in more revenues.

Ravi Bana Crorepati: The neatly combed little 14-year-old who became a crorepati last week in "Crorepati Junior" made the proceedings quite moving to watch. He was quiet, and winsome. Here is hoping the ad world will leave him alone and not drag him into doing endless endorsements like the previous crorepati.

Mahabharata on satellite radio: Worldspace Corporation will present the Mahabharata over satellite radio today. Its Letters Channel will broadcast the epic poem in English over a span of 13 hours via both the AfriStar satellite and the AsiaStar satellite. It claims this broadcast will make history as it is the first time that the complete and uninterrupted Mahabharata will be presented to an international radio audience. You need a satellite radio receiver to listen in.

No Wimbledon: On DD Sports. As long as it showed them on on its terrestrial channels DD used the get the rights to the matches at Wimbledon. This year with its decision to telecast sports only on its sports channel it lost out on the satellite rights. It could not afford the amount being asked for, it says. Sports lovers in non-cabled homes are the losers. Giving the advertising draw it would have been, why DD failed to bid and make space for even a deferred telecast on its terrestrial channels beats me.

SEVANTI NINAN

E-mail the writer at sevantininan@vsnl.com

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