A few days ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the US to meet with President Donald Trump. The Indian media billed this event as if it were equal to the second coming of Christ or the meeting between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, JFK and Nikita Khrushchev, Nixon and Brezhnev, or the meeting between Jimmy Carter, Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin.
There was wall to wall coverage of the meeting between the two leaders, with live broadcast from the US by various Indian news television channels. Each channel was trying to outdo the other by have a gallery full of experts opining about the importance of this meeting. The common theme across Indian media was that India is US’ BFF and Pakistan is the common enemy of the world’s two largest democracies. Many “experts” were hallucinating wondering about the possibility of Donald Trump declaring Pakistan a terrorist state.
The channels were all falling over themselves to convey the message that US has no bigger friend than India, how the US needs India to counter the China threat, and how this meeting will be a game changer in the US-India relationship. It was front page news on most Indian newspapers.
The slideshow below displays how the Indian media reported the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump.
And, this is how the US media reported the Modi-Trump meeting.
Can you spot the difference?
The Washington Post and MSNBC mentioned it once. Other reputed newspapers and news channels decided to ignore this meeting entirely. So, are there any conclusions to be drawn from the coverage of the meeting between Mr. Modi and Mr. Trump in the US media? Yes, the American media did not give this meeting much airtime? Matter of fact, many people in the US didn’t even know that Mr. Modi was visiting the US.
Now, compare this to how the US press and television cover the visit of the Chinese premier to the US, or the visit of the PM of UK to the US or Angela Merkel’s or Justin Trudeau’s visit to the US? Those visits are front page news on most newspapers, and they are also featured prominently on most news television channels in the US.
Maybe this coming together of the two leaders wasn’t a big deal for most people in the US. For the US media, the meeting was probably a damp squib and a huge nothingburger. Maybe the hug wasn’t newsworthy at all. Is it possible we may not be that important to them?
Can the talking heads and self-proclaimed experts on Indian news television channels stop over-hyping such events just to draw in audience, improve ratings and make some advertising moola? Some of those guys and girls who host shows on TV are just out of their mind and have gone batshit crazy? They have no critical thinking ability; all they can do is scream at the top of their voice.
May God save my nation from being hoodwinked by the manipulators and propagandists in the Indian media.