Thursday | 16 January 2025 | Reg No- 06
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Thursday | 16 January 2025 | Epaper

Why Trump is right about media

Published : Thursday, 26 January, 2017 at 12:00 AM  Count : 297
Afsan Chowdhury
I feel very close to Trump.  He reminds me of many of our politicians and the powerful. As someone who has been a serial journalist for over 4 decades I feel a pull towards him. He says and talks like so many of our leaders. How many times have we been called thieves and liars, I have forgotten. He doesn't trust media and I immediately warmed up to him. I knew he was our man in the White House. You can always trust a politician who hates media.
I remember a PM once became very angry with me. I was stringing for a foreign outfit then.  The PM had said that she would organize free fertilizer for the peasants after the next elections.  I was very excited so I called up a major donor who was supposed to be a major supporter. Those were our donor days, they mattered. But the donor said, no way, we will not support such a policy. So I reported it. Next morning I got a call.  It was the PM's, PS's APS (Press) who told me that I had a date with a scolding.
The PM's Press in charge met me and said I was deliberately trying to make her lose the election. When I protested saying though I wanted to be that powerful I was not, I was told, she was sending election information to influence the voters but by contradicting her, I was working for the Opposition. By then I realized that this line of argument wasn't going to work and so I sat down and drank the badly made tea that was served and promised never to report on the PM. "No, report on the PM but only say positive things. It's your patriotic duty."  Unfortunately the assignment shut down soon and I was never able to prove my patriotism to that PM.
 
The politician's marriage breakup and media
Once I went to interview a Minister who asked me to meet him because he said, his enemy was spreading falsehood and that there was a leak from his office and he wanted to know who the leak was. So I went out of politeness, sat down and drank my tea, - too milky and bad - and heard everyone in the ante room say horrible things about media. I tried to look unimpressed but it's not easy to drink terrible milky tea if people are discussing how to end media reporting sitting next to you. I forgot, I was served very sour slices of pineapple too which I think was -ahem- deliberate.
So finally I was ushered in and the Minister said, "Who is feeding all this news to you. He is a liar and a....
I said, the source was confidential but was the news false?  He said, "That is the problem. It's not false and I am not interested in the news even. I am interested in the source. Tell me and I will reward you."
So he took three names and asked which one of the three was the source. Point is, all three were sources and so I just kept nodding my head. I gave him a piece of paper which had all the info. It was on his office stationery. Seeing this he just went ballistic.
He said, "My wife wants to leave me so she is doing all this." He then blamed me for his marriage breakdown. "Without you media, I would still be happily married." Presumably, he was unhappily married.  Unfortunately, his wife left him soon and left for the US. He blamed me to everyone he knew. I am not sure how he connected me to his marital life. But you can blame it on media anytime for anything.
 
The powerful minister and the powerful President's wife
So one day I got a call from a seriously high Minister about the lies I was publishing about him. I had written that the said person was not very powerful and had to depend on others for his job. So he called me to his office, told me who was behind the news and gave me a lecture on his power.  And then said, "I can call the President anytime I want."
I happily nodded my head and waited for him to say some more. His PS ushered in a peon who brought in a cup of weak coffee and glared at me. The PS glared at me and the senior minister glared at me. Meanwhile a call came and then a call was made.
"Mr President. I can't call the PM as he is so rude Sir. Could you please ask your PS to call his PS to ask his PS to call me to the party meeting tomorrow?" He was almost weeping and I was almost choking with the bad coffee.  "You journalists always make it up. See I can call the President anytime. His wife is very nice to me. She calls me Bhaiya. Whenever I need to contact the President I call bhabi to ask him to ask his PS to let me know when I can call him."
We media members are always making the
powerful look small. Can you blame Trump?r
Afsan Chowdhury is a journalist and researcher






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