http://www.aapkikhabar.org/..A Media of Aam Aadmi
Ajay
There was a time, not long ago, when Arvind Kejriwalwas being billed as the ‘Julian Assange of India’. Perhaps this was born of the sense that Kejriwal’s record of launching high-decibel ‘exposes’ of alleged corruption, which were lapped up by the media, echoed Assange’s periodic WikiLeaks exposes of US cables that chronicled in merciless detail the diplomats’ observations on the ways of the world, and the shadowy side to American and foreign governments’ dealings.
Today, however, for all their vastly different agendas, approaches and life circumstances, Assange and Kejriwal are united by other common strands: they have both becomes targets of political vendetta; and, somewhat paradoxically, they have both become victims of a creeping ‘expose fatigue’. By another curious coincidence, although both Kejriwal and Assange still retain enormous goodwill among large sections of the people, their relationship with the media, which once soared on the strength of symbiosis, have become strained, even borderline hostile.
The hostility of the media is doubly curious because at one point the media fed off Assange’s scoops and Kejriwal’s recycled exposes, which worked to amplify the exposes and simultaneously profited from the relationship. The media also ostensibly shares Assange’s and Kejriwal’s commitment to transparency and freedom of information — and exposure of governmental wrongdoing; which is why their lack of sympathy for their causes is striking.
Today, Kejriwal has reinvented himself as a politician has floated his own party — and operates openly. In that sense, he is considerably better off than Assange, who has for six months now remains holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has sought refuge to escape likely arrest (on rape charges in Sweden) and possible extradition to Sweden, and then on to the US (where he is wanted on rather more serious charges of espionage).