Doordarshan Fires “Eleven Jinping” Anchor: Knee-Jerk Or Necessary?

Doordarshan means business when it says it doesn’t want to wear that sarkari tag anymore.  And if its new-found zeal on social media wasn’t proof enough, it has also fired a news anchor for not getting a certain name right. No warnings, no notices, the pink slip straightaway – as non-sarkari as it gets.

It all began on Wednesday when a “casual” news anchor of the state-run channel called the Chinese President Xi Jinping “Eleven” Jinping, mistaking “Xi” for the Roman numeral “XI”. That, of course, was unacceptable for Doordarshan top brass, and the erring news anchor was immediately given marching orders. According to sources, the anchor in question, Nidhi Mehra, was not a permanent employee; she was a school teacher who anchored for Doordarshan on contract basis. Doordarshan news chief Archana Datta told BBC Hindi that the error was “grave”, and Jawahar Sircar, the Chief Executive Officer of Prasar Bharati – an autonomous body under which Doordarshan functions – also confirmed the sacking. Sircar told quartz.com that Doordarshan is “putting systems in place to make sure such things don’t happen in future”.

Opinions, however, vary on whether the move by Doordarshan was knee-jerk or plain necessary.

Shammi Narang, one of Doordarshan’s iconic newsreaders from the 1970s and 80s called the sacking uncalled for. Speaking to Newslaundry, Narang said that newsreaders often got as little as five minutes to read scripts before going live on air.

“We used to have special orientation sessions in our days when foreign dignitaries came visiting. I’m not sure if she was made to go through any of that, considering she was a contractual employee and on the night shift”, he said.

Rini Simon, another household Doordarshan name during the 80s, was less sympathetic. She said that someone had to “bear the brunt of a mistake”.

“If you’re presenting the news, you’re expected to be aware of things around the world”, she contended. Simon added that since the Chinese President had been in town for quite some time, it was only fair to assume that she should have known his name.

Ravish, who anchors NDTV India’s prime-time bulletin, however, refused to buy Simon’s argument. “It’s unreasonable to assume that just because the name’s been in news, everyone’s supposed to get the pronunciation correct. I have got it wrong myself and had to be corrected by a guest on the show”, he said.

So what is the standard procedure that newsrooms adopt when foreign dignitaries – the names of many of them are difficult to pronounce, in all fairness – come visiting?

“The desk consults with experts. This time too, the desk called up professors who speak Chinese, but there was confusion even among them”, said Ravish. Narang said it was common to call up someone from the embassy in order to get the correct pronunciations – a claim that was confirmed by another news anchor from Doordarshan. “We’d always have a contact person in the embassies”, she informed.

Narang also recounted how Russian experts were brought in to get pronunciation-related nuances absolutely correct when Mikhail Gorbachev had come on a state visit in 1988, since it was a “sensitive” trip.

Doordarshan – and Prasar Bharti – in spite of many recent public lamentations know where their allegiances are. You can hardly fault them for being loyal to their paymasters. So, it isn’t surprising that it wanted its coverage of Xi Jinping’s visit to be flawless – much as the government wanted it to be that model diplomatic exercise.  But did it bother to do its own homework in training its newsreaders? Or is the sacking of a teacher moonlighting as a “causal” (the word could have a special connotation apropos the sacking, as Simon pointed out) newsreader the easier substitute for institutional professionalism?

When asked, Sircar said that he didn’t “run or micromanage each of our 479 TV and radio stations”.  Perks of being the boss?