Once upon a time a rat was found in Air-India's cockpit. Srinivas laxman, an aviation reporter and son of the great cartoonist, found out. His piece, never more than this one line, splashed as a huge Page 1 box item in the newspaper he and I once wrote for. NB: There were no smart phones then, so in case you were wondering, the huge box wasn't a picture of truant rat.
As an aviation correspondent, then competing for the same space as Mr laxman, I wondered 'what' made a rat in an aircraft cockpit worthy of such a splash. Ditto for the then Union law minister, who unable to hold his bladder and pissed in the aisle. Would his act of incontinence have made it to the Front Pages if he had slipped up similarly in a bus or trainIJ
Don't get me wrong - anyone with a nose for news would play up these bits. There's a perceived demand for such narrative, the same as there is for Sunny leone not the poor Kalavati who Rahul Gandhi once spoke for in Parliament.
News prioritisation is a reality. So is what gets priority on google search. We all know if we cross our hearts: all rats or acts of ministerial malfunctioning aren't Page 1 material - demand drives the 'value.' Rats galavanting on our railway platforms - and more Impressive looking than the one who sneaked into Air-India - or ministers who have since been deposed, learn to live their 'inferior' lives.
Replace bits with rats and you begin to wonder if the same broadcast editors have moral ground to carpet bomb their broadband counterparts with the pros of #netneutralityIJ
There are, indeed, many positives to the cause - freedom of speech and the interests of small innovators are just two of them. But is health of the telecom or the pipe owner nobody's caseIJ
I hope not. Net neutrality is a bit of a chicken and egg situation. We surely need a sophisticated via-media where eggs are harvested, but the hen that lays them isn't carved up. So here's my two bits to the #netneutrality Brahmins: there are a few folks out there who'd like to hear a more nuanced argument in fifty shades of grey.
'Are-you-with-us-or-them' brand of journalism, driven as it is for ratings, shouldn't be allowed to dumb down an important debate to vulgar levels of over simplification. The 'pro' camp talk of freedom of speech as their clinching argument - but try raising the counter point, why do they troll you to the farthest corner of cyber space!
The brilliant guys at All India Bakchod deserve much credit in this dictatorial discourse. Their 8-minute video, now past 1.6 million views, killed whatever resistance serious academics and policy makers (and the 'big bad telco') might have posed. The video** creates a fascinating (simplistic, anyone!) body of argument (eg, would you enter Disneyland and still pay extra for the ride...and who dare ask more for the ride to rock a little faster!).
Hmm...our worthy news networks have nothing better than to play the (free) video again and again, hoping that this go-blue-in-the-face hashtagging will look cute with SEC-AB audiences! The result isn't hard to see. More hits for the AIB video is leading to more play outs on the networks. This is triggering more tweets on the #netneutrality hashtag, which, in turn, is lending more 'virality' to the video!
Welcome to the policy reality of India 2015 - a few lakh tweets and 150,000 signatures on change.org sounds like verdict in a General Election. Even Thakre Jr has jumped in with his wisdom!
Three cheers for policy gyaan via Mssrs Bakchod. We deserve it!
(The columnist is an former editor and now with RIl. Views are personal. Twitter @therohitbansal. Hashtag, you guessed it: #NetNeutrality)
Notes:
1.https://m.youtube.com/watchIJv=mfY1NKrzqi0&feature=youtu.be
2. An excellent compendium of resources shared with me: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DNXgJRKUMk4Tqefzybab7HzsV6EeYmnciPqMQG91EN0/mobilebasic
3. A dummy's guide on AIB: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_India_Bakchod