Looking beyond celebrity illness

The last few days have seen not just social media but also mainstream media abuzz with the news of cricketer Yuvraj Singh’s illness. Even Justice Katju seems to have no opinion about how the media seems cover celebrity health – whether it is Kareena Kapoor’s Size Zero or Ranbir Kapoor’s recent cyst removal operation or Sonia Gandhi’s much publicized yet known “treatment” in the US.


What is our obsession with detailing celebrity illness when we show little propensity to cover public health care? Do celebrities deserve scrutiny of their medical health? One may argue that there is precious little that needs to be respected and regulated when it comes to celebrities. If that be the case, giving superficial coverage to health issues which are neither life threatening nor have larger implications for the public at large, only results in wastage of space.

Instead the media can choose to be intelligent and do more impactful stories using the celebrity angle (if they have to) as a peg. For instance, Yuvraj Singh’s illness and its progress, could have been covered more deeply by assessing why he had to seek treatment in the US. That in turn would have highlighted two issues – that of health care data security laws in the US which forbid anyone from sharing details pertaining to their illness and India’s mediocre capabilities in the field of oncology. Both these story angles, if explored properly, would have yielded at least 3-4 analytical pieces leading up to whether India’s data security laws need to include health care related information and if so, how can we ensure that these laws are respected by the media.

Another scenario that could have been wisely explored was Aishwarya Rai’s normal delivery. Instead of lauding her for the feat (given her age and the celebrity predisposition to opt for surgery), a deeper story around why there has been a rise in C-Section deliveries in India over the past 3-5 years would have been an eye opener. Not only would this have shed light on the technological advances in gynecology and obstetrics but also provided a perspective on human evolution and corresponding lowering of the pain threshold.

If reporters want to do lighter stories, they can also use the information on health magazines featuring celebrity diets and fitness routines. Not only are celebrities willing to talk on these issues but they are more forthcoming these days to discuss pitfalls and challenges associated with following any of these routines. For good measure, celebrity advice can be cross checked with what their trainers or any healthcare experts say.

The fact that the media doesn’t want to go this extra mile highlights a disturbing trend –short sightedness and under estimating the shelf life of a story idea. During my stint as a journalist I came across only few industry colleagues who could understand and cover the health care beat. With only a rudimentary background in Science, these colleagues had spent time and years on the beat talking to doctors and health care experts, de-jargonising medical journals and dissecting pubic propaganda. As a result they could see the implications of small developments and chose to do insightful stories – with or without celebrity inputs.

While we should ideally be evangelizing these veteran journalists to pass on some tips to the younger generation, perhaps media bodies (regulatory or otherwise) need to put in place certain guidelines or rules that can help journalists seek the right kind of stories. I came across one such set of guidelines on the webpage of the Association of Healthcare Journalists. They also have guides that specifically focus on aspects such as covering hospitals, medical health, local nursing homes, accessing data from governmental records as well as specific conditions such as obesity. Another site actually points out common mistakes journalists make while covering health care news and how to self-evaluate your piece to ensure it is worthy of publication.

In the Indian context, publications can arrange for medical professionals to give brief lectures on how to decipher the meaning of medical data and terminologies. They can also attend healthcare related events to understand the emerging trends. As of now, only public relations professionals handling health care clients organize meetings with the media to create awareness, primarily on their client’s activities, and only as a secondary measure on public health care.

Cub reporters who are assigned beats such as politics, municipality and crime usually undergo a short one week training and shadow the senior reporters on the beat to understand the complexities of the beat. They are also allowed to file stories under the supervision of these seniors to ensure that they understand the sensitivities in handling information pertaining to such beats s that no assumptions or basless inferences are drawn with the available facts. Perhaps news organisations need to include a similar training programme for reporters covering public health care.

As a next step media regulatory and representative bodies such as PCI, Editor’s Guild, NBA etc should design and recognize certification programmes for covering public health care similar to the current system of accrediting journalists. This will help smaller news organizations who do not have the resources to train their journalists in-house.

In today’s appearance conscious and glamour driven era, it is important that core health care issues find adequate space in mainstream media. While there are several magazines that have dedicated supplements focused on lifestyle diseases and treatments, few focus on public health issues like malnourishment and infant mortality. While some may justify that we need a medical update on Yuvraj Singh’s condition, it is equally necessary to get an update of India’s efforts to curb polio and measles.

(Reproduced from my piece in The Hoot - http://www.thehoot.org/web/home/story.php?storyid=5740&mod=1&pg=1&sectionId=1&valid=true)

The Insider Reports : Baby Bachchan is delivered. Whew!

The broadcast media supposed refrained from covering the Bachchan baby’s delivery. What they did not cover was more than compensated for by the rampant reporting by their online divisions. The Hot featured my piece on this (http://www.thehoot.org/web/home/story.php?storyid=5597&mod=1&pg=1&sectionId=1&valid=true). For those who could not open the link, I have reroduced it below -

When electronic media decided to go easy on the Bachchans by excluding Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s delivery from news coverage, their online divisions went to town with a literal minute by minute analysis of the situation (considering the lack of any updates to report).



In the last one week, there have been over 4.3 Lakh mentions of the delivery. Of this, 601 stories were reported by leading news portals. From the speculation of the baby’s birth date being 11.11.11, hospital visits by the actress, fake news of the birth, betting on Baby B and the manner of birth, everything was covered the way a national crisis would be. Some portals even posted pictures of the family reportedly checking in to the hospital, perhaps in a bid to outdo the competition.


While the BEA Guidelines (Broadcast Editor’s Association) sought responsible and sensitive coverage, they seem to have turned a blind eye to the online divisions of their channels which participated in the coverage frenzy. Did the BEA not anticipate that such a loophole could be taken advantage of? Or were these guidelines issued to merely to pacify the new PCI Chief’s tirade against broadcasting celebrities and fashion? Surprisingly, while these guidelines were widely reported by the media, the BEA website itself carried no information on this.


For starters, the 10 point-guideline, as reported by the media, was shallow. No news organization highlighted this, possibly because they were in the midst of chasing the bigger story – Baby B’s birth. Let us analyse some of the guidelines that were reported.


1. No pre-coverage of the event – How do you define Pre-coverage? The broadcast media (and its online portals) have been actively reporting the Bachchan pregnancy since it was announced in June.


2. The story of the birth and baby to be run after official announcement from the family – Considering everything from what Aishwarya ate and wore to when she was admitted in the hospital was covered, what would be left of “the story of the birth”? The baby would obviously have to be born before anyone reported about its birth. As for official communication, only tweets sent by the father and grandfather were used in the news reports. Since when have we started considering tweets as official announcements? In the past there have been several instances of celebrity tweets being “mis-interpreted” by the media leading to “formal” clearing up of the air at press conferences.


3. No outdoor broadcast vans to be placed outside the hospital – The lady is not having her delivery in a government hospital. She has opted for a private fortress of a hospital in the full knowledge that 17 acres of land surrounded by considerable security and a massive entrance, will not allow any clear visuals for broadcast on TV. Even if one was to shoot the story via helicopter, they wouldn’t get visuals. Had OB vans been allowed outside the hospital, would journalists do a live broadcast of her admission to the hospital at 11:30 pm? Mostly not, considering it is way past prime time.


4. TV Channels can go for photos ops only if invited by the Bachchans – Unless you are signing an exclusive deal with a magazine for the rights of certain pictures, or want to be in the bad books of certain media, there is no way you can be selective about inviting the media. The Bachchans, having done it once before for the Abhi-Ash marriage, would rather not call any media than be selective. In that case, the Indian papparazzi would resort to other means to get pictures, like they normally do with any celebrity.


5. Channels to not run any astrology shows related to 11.11.11 – How absurd is this? What has 11.11.11 got to do with Baby B? We did not have a similar guideline banning astrology shows on 10.10.10 and nor will we have one for 12.12.12. Why this?


6. TV Crews and Cameras to leave the venue after 15 minutes of the event - What would be the event in question? A glimpse of Baby B or an interview with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan? Who will ensure the media leaves on time? The guidelines specifically says this is a self regulating measure to avert greater tragedy/ disaster and reference was made to coverage of the Ayodhya issue and the demise of Mohammed Azharuddin’s son. But Baby B’s birth is a happy occasion. Is it realistic to expect that the media would remain on ground only for 15 minutes? After all, the media would want to get some candid pictures also.


The biggest question remains – why were these guidelines issued specifically for the Bachchan family? Why not introduce better guidelines for general reporting? After all everyone’s dignity and privacy needs to be protected – be it the Bachchan bahu or India’s symbolic seven billionth child Nargis or a rape victim.


The problem with guidelines is that they show no clear benefit for the organizations complying with them. Their non-enforceable nature means that they are ignored in a bid to keep the organization as competitive as its peers. Because guidelines are not enforceable, they are vague and hence no one takes them seriously.


The solution is to ensure that the editorial and the advertising/ business divisions sit together and take a call on how they want to conduct themselves. Internal guidelines must be developed and these must be stricter, and clearer than those issued by external bodies. Moderation in coverage can be best met by self-regulation.

Earful!: Lessons from the Bachchan Baby

There are those try to be celebrities. Others have celebrity-dom thrust on them. And then there is the Bachchan baby (already christened Baby B). This one is for those of you who want to retain the spotlight without appearing cheesy. In other words, the art of telling all without actually saying anything.
1. Go reclusive – A good half year before your event (whatever that might be), stop going anywhere public or private. Avoid parties and get a pal or parent to say how reclusive you have become of late. Gentlemen, do promote that facial hair growth and get a scowl, it adds to the brooding image. Ladies, what can I say? You can pick any of the following options – turning up without makeup, wearing the same dress three times in a row, mimic Kangana Ranaut from Fashion, keep looking at the exit door or your cell phone and look through people. If none of that works, start a conversation about “How you don’t feel like talking these days…” or “How you feel tired all the time…”.

2. Use social media to go asocial – Talk to your family and friends by tweeting once in a day. The most obscure the tweet, the better. Take a cue from Big B’s “Another day of waiting..But yet again.. The lord had his ways…” Considering there are just 140 characters to mess with, start with “What a day! Don’t know where to begin…” As you master this game, you will realize you can keep repeating the same messages in a loop without anyone noticing…(Psst –It might be worthwhile looking through Big B’s tweets for ideas, avoid Shahid Kapoor’s Mausam outburst though)

3. Show, don’t tell – Assuming you have followed points 1 and 2, start making fleeting appearances and don’t speak a word. Let the public put together a morose look and a tweet that says “Feeling tired”. The lesser you show the better. Aishwarya appearing at Manyata Dutt’s Mata ki Chowki for 20 minutes led to the breaking news of her having twins. Or Rani Mukherjee appearing at the Durga Puja pandal in a saree and big red bindi, looking like a resplendent Bengali housewife, leading to rumours of her marriage. Well, what do you care? This kind of sensational stuff will withstand a week of you not tweeting.

4. Get quirky – Ask whoever you meet (hopefully this should be just parents and close pals) to get you weird stuff, like pencils or a night lamp. The fact that you no longer use these items but are now asking for it, will arouse interest. Did Aishwarya Rai not ask for Dhokla and Dahi Vada – all to satiate the hunger of the twin babies?. Didn’t we hear that Aamir Khan had lost his marbles and was sporting a weirdly criminal hairstyle before Ghajini released? What about Imran Khan’s often talked about “wicked humour” on the sets? Quirkiness is the way to go

5. Make the friends talk – We all know how reverently the media looks at celebrities’ “close friends” as news sources. Before D-Day arrives, make sure to start sharing different info with different friends. That way the media will fall over one another to keep breaking news every 30 minutes. Enterprising journalists may actually feed you fodder for further news. Remember the frenzy when 11.11.11 happened? Multiple stories on Baby B were generated – of the twins being born on this date, the BEA issuing guidelines allegedly upon Big B’s request, astrologers talking about Baby B, Seven Hills hospital’s nurses featuring in the news etc etc. If you want a simpler case to understand, how about Anushka Sharma crying hoarse that she was not seeing Ranveer Singh, followed by news of his trying to date Sonakshi Sinha, followed by news of how she was avoiding him? What are friends for if they don’t help you succeed in your objective?

What do you do after all these steps have been followed diligently and met with success? For that, we will have to wait for the first pictures of Baby B.