The MSM (Main Stream Media) tried to ignore Indian bloggers. They said we are the big thing that is simply non-existent. They compared us with the western bloggers, especially US bloggers; they said we are not up to their standards. Now irony of ironies, the same MSM is talking about the murder of IIM-L graduate S Manjunath citing blogs written on it and the reactions that followed in the blogosphere. On 25 November, 2005 The Times of India carried out an article on the 13th page titled - ‘Blogosphere seethes at IIM grad’s murder’ where it quoted extensively from blogs of Gaurav Sabnis, Anthony, Sharad etc.



The point I want to emphasize is that whether the MSM likes it or not, Indian bloggers have started influencing public opinion the way MSM did in its initial days. Incidentally, in the days of yore, newspapers had a strong personality when the electronic media was just government mouthpiece.



Indian bloggers started later than their American counterparts. But that actually didn’t come as a big disadvantage to them in order to make an impact on the public. The IIPM scam, the Manjunath murder etc. are just not isolated incidences where bloggers moved the public like never before on issues that MSM chose to turn a blind eye to or ignore as insignificant like the recent murder of Manju. Indian Express quoted Rashmi Bansal’s blog as one of the letters that it received!!!



Ok, we are not talking about Manjunath here. What I want to emphasize here that just check out the names of the bloggers whose names were quoted in the newspapers. Times of India quoted Gaurav Sabnis, Indian Express lifted the content of one of Rashmi Bansal’s blog as a ‘letter written to it’ on the murder of Manju etc. These guys were the ones who raised the IIPM scam that created such a furor in not only the blogosphere but moved the general public at large against the IIPM. When the IIPM controversy wasn’t covered by the MSM (or covered as it should have been covered) we said that it was deliberately ignoring this because of the ad revenue losses MSM might suffer should it joined hands with the bloggers in unearthing the great scam. Gaurav Sabnis and Rashmi Bansal are not the only bloggers in India who wrote about Manjunath, but they were the first who unearthed the IIPM scam in blogosphere which gave bloggers a mighty weapon to bash MSM (its favourite pastime). Furthermore, The Times of India had the cheek to carry out an article in the Delhi Times section where it obliquely tried to ridicule the Indian bloggers and tried to drive a wedge between the Indian bloggers unity by falsely quoting Tarun Pall as saying ‘this and that’.



We stand vindicated today when we said that we, the Indian bloggers, are making a huge impact already in our short lifespan. With the kind of intellectual depth that India has coupled with the ever growing interest in Internet, we are going to be the numero uno blogging nation in the world in the no-so-distant future; not only in terms of sheer numbers, but in the quality of the content. With so much happening here in India, with so many pressing issues to be resolved, so many controversies floating around, we are going to have our moments that will pale what the TOI remarked as ‘the Dan Rather moment’ into insignificance.



Also read these blogs related to MSM and Bloggers that I found really interesting: Shivangi Mishra in Black Ink, Diwakar in Floating Sun, Gargi in Point of View, Mukundan Krishnaswamy in ChennaiCentral and Dhananjay Shettigar in Chicken Soup for the Insane