A Review Of #NLHafta from Kumar Ankush and Jefferson

Dear Newslaundry Team,

A very happy new year and congratulations on 100 episodes of NL Hafta. This is my second letter to you guys, and since the first one has already been discussed by the panel, I doubt this one too will get a chance, nevertheless since I renewed my membership for 6 months yesterday, I am hopeful. 

In case you all have forgotten about me, I am the guy who wrote about the regressive leftist beliefs of Deepanjana. Thanks for reading my letter DJ. I really appreciate it.

NL Hafta 100 was amazing, I couldn’t catch it live but did listen to it later. The format of the show was interesting and it was nice to listen to some constructive criticism from the subscribers. The part that intrigued me the most was your discussion about online trolling and Abhinandan’s psychological evaluation of the “bile vomiting losers who don’t deserve any attention”. Based on my experience on social media and encounters with those whom you regard as ‘trolls’ I have put forth my opinion on the subject. 

I don’t agree with your theory of the “vortex of low self esteem”. It is actually a “climb to the top of the social ladder”.

To understand the mind of a troll it is important to understand his evolution and growth on social media. It is also imperative to have an idea about his ideological affiliations before they were aggravated or corrupted by vigorous online interactions.

Most people have a political favourite, a person, a political party or a political ideology. Also, there are certain things he holds sacred, things that are beyond criticism, beyond questioning, things like religion, country, army etc. A lack of modern liberal education and constant propaganda have made these things sacrosanct for a lot of people. Now this person, who hasn’t seen or heard people criticising his god or his country except only by the enemies, i.e, ‘Pakistan’, ‘Muslims’ or Abhinandan Sekhri, once he is online, he follows people who have similar political leanings, he shares their posts, retweets their tweets, reads the articles shared by these dimwits. Along with these, he also learns a few facts daily. Facts like, ‘there is a shivling in Mecca’ or ‘the Taj Mahal was actually a temple’. He is also made aware of the crimes committed by the Islamic invaders in India and the crimes committed by them now. He is led to believe that his failure is not because of a lack of effort or intelligence, but because of minorities, dalits etc. The hate increases. The dear leader is projected as a saviour, equated with god, something sacred, something pious, something inviolable. The saviour is perceived as the personification of all his hatred and all his ambitions. He is something beyond criticism, he is a deity, and anyone who criticises him is ‘Pakistan’, ‘Muslims’ or Abhinandan Sekhri.

Once his psychological indoctrination on social media is complete, the tolerance level decreases. Not everyone is good with words, not everyone has a thousand followers. He isn’t wise enough to write a detailed rebuttal of a tweet posted by a journalist against the dear leader, his counter-arguments are not noticed by his peers, he intends to hurt those who have committed blasphemy. He wants to offend those who have offended him. Thus he selects the simplest approach, abuse. Abuse catches attention, the filthier the abuse, the more hurt it causes. “There has to be something that offends the journalist”, he searches for it, till he gets a reaction, till he gets blocked or gets a reply. Can it be the autistic daughter, husband, the looks, the skin colour, religion etc. If he gets blocked, he knows that the recipient has read the tweet and believes that it has caused some amount of pain and discomfort, if he gets a reply, even better. He just won over a thousand followers. The aim of trolling is to cause hurt, pain, offense, to silence the opposition and to get approval and praise from his peers. Once he gets enough followers, he can easily influence sentiment on social media and cause more hurt to the people who offended him.

I do believe that a successful troll goes to sleep with a smile on his face. The sadistic satisfaction of causing hurt and the joy of climbing a step up the social ladder of twitter makes him happy.

The same is true for AAP trolls, and I do think they are equally bad, just read the tweets against right wing women on social media, be it Smriti Irani or someone else.

Requests:

• What are your views on Tarek Fatah? Please call him for an interview.
• Please try to get some rationalists like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins or Maajid Nawaz for an interview.(Even if via skype or a phone call)
• Please get a Pakistani reporter on the show for once.
• Get some right wing voices on the show.

P.S: I am a Modi supporter, but not a bhakt. It is important to make the distinction. Everyone who disagrees with your view or is leaning right isn’t a troll or a bhakt. There are liberals on the right side of political spectrum too.

P.P.S: The website needs improvement.

Regards,
Kumar Ankush

Hi Abhi, 

I’m a Newslaundry subscriber. I’m a big fan of you and NL Hafta. I have a few suggestions: 

1. Please check the following site: https://tytnetwork.com/join/. In it, for the 100 USD per month and 1000 USD per month, the subscribers can have a call with the staff. You can also have a similar structure in which the people who donate high value amount (for example, greater than 40,000 rupees for the NL Sena) can interact with you or with Madhu and maybe get a chance to participate in the NL Hafta.
2. The 100thepisode in which you had bought the 6 subscribers was a great idea. It could be great if once in a while you can select one subscriber to be part of the NL Hafta. In this way, we can know how the common man views issues.
3. For subscribing, there is option for subscribing for 1 month, 6 months and 12 months. Please include for subscribing for 3 months also.
4. Please upload the video of NL Hafta on the Newslaundry YouTube also. NL Hafta is the biggest plus point, and I feel it should be marketed more.
5. The website feels much cluttered. More white background is needed. Please checkhttp://www.aljazeera.com/and http://edition.cnn.com/

Happy New Year,

Hope it’s a great year for you and for Newslaundry.

Regards,
Jefferson Simon

Dear Anand, Deepanjana, Manisha, and Abhinandan,

(My apologies to Ms Pal, Ms Pande, and Mr Sekhri for addressing you by your first names given our lack of familiarity — and we all know what that breeds; however I email with Anand every now and then and since I call him Anand, I thought it would be weird to have “Dear Anand, Ms Pal, Ms Pande …” (or the opposite). I also took the liberty to write to all of you instead of just Anand since I bug him regularly and, for a change, I thought I wanted to share some my thoughts with all of you. My apologies.)

I have been a long-time subscriber of Newslaundry; probably from its earliest days. There are a few criticisms which I wanted to articulate for a long time. The last comment is personal (and hence, if you wish, do ignore).

And many, many congratulations for your 100th! Wonderful! (Would have been nice to see Arunabh in there as well)

(PS. This email, again, is not to get myself published. However, in case you discuss any of this, please leave my name out! Beyond my little bubble, I find it awfully embarrassing to see my name!! Also because a couple of remarks below which does not behoove someone on a tenure track at TIFR!)

1. About NL Hafta:

(a) Pronunciations:

There is a strange phenomena, and in my experience limited to India, where we think its alright to pronounce Indian names (in a strange North Indian way) with no regard to where the person is from. Newslaundry panelists (with the exception of Deepanjana) are certainly guilty of this. Whenever there is a foreign name, I have heard people take pains to get the pronunciation right. For names common to say Italians, French, the British etc but pronounced differently depending on the linguistic/national identities, “educated” Indians pride themselves on getting the accent right. Why not apply the same yard stick to Indian names? My colleagues and friends from abroad find this strange Indian phenomenon extremely funny and me irritating. I would take the trouble to know where the person is from and then, to the best of my ability, pronounce his/her name in his/her language. I certainly do that with my colleagues and students. And most, if not all, intelligent people do so. Of course we cant get all the pronunciations right, but why not put in the same effort for an Indian name as you would to get a Spanish name right? As a group, I think you could take a lead in this and show the media how its done. Especially in a world where its “cool” not to be educated!

(b) Use of “America”:

This bit is to show solidarity to all my South American friends. Many years ago, a Chilean friend and colleague of mine, said how it hurts them every time people use America when they refer to the US. His standard response was “I am American too”. So out of sheer fondness for all the good food, drinks, soccer .. from South America (if for nothing else), you could think of using the US instead of “America” when you just mean that particular country.

(c) Anand’s assertions:

(This is the bit I am relishing and why I am cc-ing to see many of you.)

(i) Abdul Kalam Anand keeps asserting Abdul Kalam as a great scientist/teacher. I know he is a biologist and would not understand such things. But the rest of you should really grill him on this. I am yet to see a paper written by Kalam; neither am I aware of any course that he has taught anywhere. In my opinion, Kalam had the chance (given the office he held) to actually put scientific thought and rationality at the forefront of our national discourse. And he did not!

(ii) College Politics Anand is terrible at this. Maybe being at Stephens and not Presidency College has something to do with it. College politics will be there and should be there. It looks ridiculous of people of our age sloganeer! Maybe if you discuss this again, I will send a longer, more reasoned, argument.

2. Other remarks:

(a) Clothesline:

I used to like Clothesline many moons ago. But now I find it rather juvenile, with little or no substance. There is neither much humour nor critique!

(b) Poor editing of articles:

This may have to do with your resources and I understand that. But in recent times, the editing has been rather poor with quite a few typographical errors creeping in. From time to time I email the contact address pointing them out.

(c) Just a minor addendum to Deepanjana’s suggestion of Bengali books and lack of translations. I think its well worth recommending Sukanta Chaudhuri’s translation of Sukumar Ray and more recent translations of Bengali books by some of the stalwarts of the English Department of Jadavpur University.

3. Media & Science:

The general perception of scientists as bores is as true as a similar generalisation of any other profession. I had the same perception as an undergrad in physics. Hence my friends from college where all from the liberal arts and some read a strange subject called economics!

However, and I can only speak of physicists, most of the really good ones I know are as multidimensional and articulate as anyone else. So I think it would be great if you could engage with them. And interestingly a few of them have a great love for languages and fluent in many.

The reason, I think, why we dont see them as much in the media is that unlike economists, physicists are always worried about “knowing their song well before they sing it”. (As an aside, funnily enough, at Dylan’s Nobel ceremony, the singer did just that while singing the very song!) But I do think, especially with Anand on board, you could make Newslaundry a more interesting platform by some coverage of scientific discoveries and achievements.

4. Compliments:

I find your interviews wonderful. Especially the ones by Abhinandan. He is fantastic. Strangely, again, Madhu Trehan often gets trapped in her own anecdotes.

5. Gravitational Waves:

(This is the personal bit so ignore if you wish)

When LIGO announced its discovery, I had got in touch with Anand to see if Newslaundry would be interested in publishing an article from one of the members of that team (who subsequently, amongst other prizes, won the coveted Breakthrough Prize of 2 Million along with his colleagues; Abhinandan: Not sure he will subscribe though!). His article I learnt from him was processed and he never heard from your edit team and neither was it published. He did not complain but quipped that “its harder to get articles through to your favourite website than it was to get our findings published in Phys. Rev. Letts; atleast we do get to hear from editors there about acceptance or rejection!” We of course assumed (correctly I suppose) that all of you must be overstretched and overworked. But still I thought I would flag this in case it helps with future editorial reviews.

I am sorry of this mail appeared preachy or in bad taste.

But, as Anand certainly knows, I wish all of you only the very best. And the ver best for the new year.

Regards,
Mr X [the author wishes to be anonymous]