Gee, that's so 2017!

Ten (2+0+1+7 = 10, for those cynics who would like a reason for everything) stories about storytellers,increasingly also storymakers.

1. Full credit to The Washington Post and the BBC for taking the lead in early 2017 to initiate stringent fact-check divisions. Facebook, well, tried. And yet, here we go again with fake news (oh, that's SO 2016!) ....

https://www.fastcompany.com/40510552/2017-was-so-fake

2. I think this is an example of why news media's credibility-nosedive continued this year. Worse, let me put it in verse:

When all you do is boo,
the erstwhile-swayed will come back to.

http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/12/28/pew-study-media-coverage-trump-3-times-more-negative-obama

3. Ego is bad. Drop the "I", they say. And sure enough: Padmavati--SC rejects ban plea but govt sets up super-censor ... which then drops the ego-word. Yay.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/hindi/bollywood/news/padmavati-becomes-padmavat-leaves-twitterati-in-splits/articleshow/62314196.cms

4. If it weren't so sad, this would be the perfect whodunit for the murder of journalism from the best watchdog of the ruling party.

https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/republic-tv-journalist-resigns-after-being-branded-as-shashi-tharoors-spy-allege/303007


5. #Metoo. The slogan of the year (although technically the claim-term was coined years ago) was also the best metaphor you could have for all that social media stands for.

6. Oh for words that are real but in fact represent fiction! There are tons of them (like calling Pak army's breaking of ceasefire as "terror attack by Pak") .. but this takes the cake, giving the term "mass media" a whole new meaning--standing for en masse blind support:

http://thehoot.org/media-watch/media-practice/demonetization-version-20-the-frozen-accounts-fiction-10290

7. I find it easy to cringe at TV news, but the television coverage of Gurmeet Singh's Dera raid on August 26 was reassuringly courageous and true.

8. Media doesn't always spin. Oh no. It omits too. Most omissions are best justified by editorial discretion in the noble act of gatekeeping. Such convenient discretion defined the relative absence of Not In My Name campaign, much less the months-long farmer agitation in Delhi, and of course most of what the Opposition said outside of the studio interrogations.

9. Who can fault today's governments around the world for jingoism and fear-mongering? We the media take the cake. Sample the post-defeat headline on India Today TV for its thumping "Villains of the Oval"!

10. And in the end, just to not be unfair, one story that makes you feel for the media. Shhhhh--no story, no opposition. Simple!

http://www.news18.com/news/politics/vasundhara-raje-government-shields-judges-babus-with-controversial-ordinance-gags-media-1552385.html