Vendetta Or Not?

Were the tax raids on the offices of Bhaskar group and Bharat Samachar vendetta-driven attacks on freedom of the press or perfectly justified actions by tax authorities?

Most journalists and opponents of this government will say it is the first – the two media houses were being punished for their reporting on the management of Covid.

The government, BJP spokespersons and other supporters will say the two media houses were evading taxes and indulging in other financial shenanigans. Is the government to watch this helplessly?

They would both be right.

Let’s be clear: if the current raids were not vendetta-driven, nor were the tax raids on the Express group in the late 1980s when Rajiv Gandhi was Prime Minister. If those were vendetta-driven, then so were these.

Is that giving a clean chit to the latest targets of tax raids? Definitely not.

There is probably not a single media proprietor who doesn’t have some skeleton to hide - not just relating to the media business but other businesses as well. Not one.

All governments (union and state) have information on these. But all governments (from Nehru to Modi) sit on this information, waiting and watching (patiently, not helplessly) for the right opportunity to cloak their revenge (always, but always, for the editorial stance) under the garb of checking financial or other irregularity. The action is never without any basis. This weapon is wielded when informal channels of communication between media owners and governments/ruling party don’t yield the `desired results’. The union government has one set of weapons; state governments another set.

Ultimately, it is the journalists who get caught in a bind.  

Since the raids/action are clearly punishment for an editorial stance/reportage, they jump in (as they indeed should) to allege freedom of press coming under attack. How do they know when the action is vindictive? The targetting is obvious when a particular media house is singled out for transgressions that others have also committed and when the action follows a string of negative reports/editorials.

Action is wound down (either because the government realises the negatives will outweigh the positives or because it and the proprietors reach some compromise) and the proprietors continue with their shenanigans.

The journalists know they’re being manipulated – that media owners cry `freedom of press under attack’ to escape action – but there’s little they can do apart from limiting their outrage to the more egregious, and clearly vindictive, examples (like the Express case in the 1980s and the current ones). Let us not forget that journalists did not allege threats to the freedom of the press when one media tycoon was facing action from the Enforcement Directorate in the late 1990s. Other media barons got stories done on the merits of the case or the treatment of the proprietor, but no journalist body cried about threats to media freedom.

If this and future governments don’t want allegations of attacking press freedom to be thrown at them when they take legitimate action against newspaper owners for financial and other transgressions, then the action will need to be seen to be legitimate. It should not be like the convenient use of the Central Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement Directorate against political opponents.

Where is the voice of sanity?

When emotional crowds justifiably agitated over a horrific crime go out control, what should the role of the media be? Should it try to bring some sobriety and perspective into the debate? Or should it further stir up the frenzy and add to the shrillness?
My training as a journalist tells me it should be the first. But when I see crowds going berserk on Rajpath and Vijay Chowk, and television channels proudly claiming they have their best professionals and three cameras there to cover the `historic moment’, I am beginning to think that it is the latter that is the norm now.
As young people scream incoherently into television cameras and mikes, saying this should be the last rape ever (!!!), the culprits should be handed to us and we will punish them, excited television reporters are and anchors scream even louder – `this is people’s anger manifesting itself’, `young people getting agitated and demanding answers’, `people are getting frustrated’.
One can understand young people getting over-excited, but what explanation could be there for seasoned reporters and anchors to add to the lynch-mob hysteria, asking leading questions guaranteed to get only certain answers from those being asked those questions,
fulminating about police resorting to tear gas and lathi-charge (what are they supposed to do when crowds go berserk and try to break police cordons in a high-security area) and whipping up passions by talking about police high-handedness (prompting a desperately-seeking-relevance L.K. Advani to ask the home minister to ensure restraint by the police) and government `dishing out platitudes’. Did any one point out to the crowds blocking the roads to two of the busiest hospitals in Delhi – AIIMS and Safdarjang Hospital – and demonstrating loudly on Friday that they were not being fair to other patients? No. Everything is justified if it makes for great television.
Colleagues who walked down to Raisina Hill to join in the protests came back shocked and shaken. In a rally to protest rape, lewd remarks were being passed about girls, MC/BC abuses were being hurled freely (at a rally in support of women’s dignity, mind you) people were climbing lamp posts and asking their friends to take their pictures, garbage was being thrown at policemen. But on the news channels, there was only a passing reference to some lumpen elements having crept in.
What came across on Saturday was the desperate attempt by television news channels to milk the protests for whatever TRPs they were worth. Actually, it seems more than that. There seemed to be a bit of orchestration as well to ensure eyeballs on a weekend when news is normally thin. Parliament was over. Narendra Modi had got a decisive mandate in Gujarat. It would normally have been a relaxed weekend. Would the crowds have swelled to such numbers if different channels hadn’t launched different `campaigns’ and asked people to join in?
Times Now had a line running at the bottom of the screen, `Why can’t politicians ask for an emergency session of Parliament to pass a stricter law’. Its reporters and political editor dutifully went around asking the young people, `what do you want the government to do’, following it up immediately with `do you think there should be a special session of Parliament to pass a law’. Obviously, the youngsters said yes. By evening of Saturday, BJP leader Sushma Swaraj was asking for an emergency session of Parliament.
Did anyone stop to think about the folly of rushing through such an important legislation? Don’t we have enough problems created by poorly-drafted legislation passed with hardly any discussion? Haven’t we learnt any lessons from Section 66A of the Information Technology Act which has lent itself to so much misuse?
Headlines Today had this line on the top of its live coverage - `Govt deaf to protests’. What did it want the government to do? It wasn’t clear. The channel was more incoherent than the protestors. The answer was provided by another channel, which decided that someone from the government should come and talk to the protestors. “Shouldn’t Rahul Gandhi come here and show solidarity with them?” That then became the favoured chant as they went around asking the young people that question. Maybe by the end of the day Rahul Gandhi would turn up there.
Lest this piece comes across as a rant against the electronic media alone, let me point out that the print media has not been much better. It’s just that the hysteria is not so graphic as on television screens. I was appalled by a Times of India heading on 20 December: `Shaken by a tsunami of protests, govt comes out with some half measures’. These measures were about ensuring that buses remove dark films from their windows and keep the lights on inside the bus at night, that they are parked with the owner and not the driver during off-duty hours, more policing. The bus on which the girl was raped passed five police pickets only because curtains and dark films on its windows ensured that nobody could see what was going on inside. These are half-measures?
If the media is going to behave so irresponsibly, how is it any better than the politicians it keeps criticising? And who is going to provide a voice of sanity that is so desperately needed?

Burying the Bizarre

How cruel can you get, Delhi? screamed the headline of the lead story in Sunday’s HT City, the colour supplement on happenings in the Capital. The story was about how crass Delhi-ites now showcase live installations at weddings. An `Ice Man’ dressed only in a dhoti and fake ornaments on his torso who stands on ice for hours greeting guests and having money thrown at him. Young girls becoming human bars with their skirts doubling as tables. Human fountains, with the fountains attached to the headgear of girls who have to stand still for hours.  It was a disturbing peak into a depraved Delhi.
But should this story have been buried in HT City? Shouldn’t this have made it to the front page of the main paper, to highlight the depths to which Delhi has sunk? Why is it less horrific than the story of gang rapes that regularly make it to the front pages?
There is a clear human interest angle in the story – a man dances on ice for six hours and gets paid a measly Rs 1500. Girls who double up as live bars complain of being groped. If the desperation of a tribal woman who sells her child for food can make it the front pages, why can’t the story of these people? Surely it must be a pressing need for money that pushes them to this work?
Or – and I do hope I am wrong on this count – is the placement in HT City a kind of promotion of such fads, with the heading only serving to have a reverse psychology kind of effect? After all, it is well known that these colour supplements have a large promotional element in them.

The Omerta is Broken

As some of my posts on my other blog, beyondlabels.blogspot.com would have shown, I am no admirer of Arvind Kejriwal and his fellow agitators for the Jan Lokpal Bill. I have found them to be extremely unreasonable and dogmatic in the way they conduct themselves.
But I have to grudgingly thank Kejriwal for one achievement – making the Indian media break its self-imposed censorship over the Gandhi family. Read this excellent piece by R. Jagannathan in Firstpost.
His article deals only with the Robert Vadra issue, but can we forget the collective media silence over Sonia Gandhi’s health? I will let another article in The Hindu encapsulate that whole issue.
Such deep concern for the Gandhi family’s privacy stands out in sharp contrast to the complete disregard for the privacy of other public personalities. That right wasn’t available to the Prime Minister or to his predecessor, Atal Behari Vajpayee. In both cases, stories in the media about their health went into excruciating detail of their ailments, complete with diagrams, and their dietary habits. Subramanian’s article makes the point that no media organization reported on Vajpayee's failing health till the government itself made the disclosure. But in Gandhi’s case even after it was known that she was in the United States for treatment, no one bothered to try and get the details.
Or take the case of an even more private matter – state of a marriage, which had no bearing at all on the public office – in the case of Omar Abdullah, as I pointed out in this post.
Why also has no media ever reported about the silence of the government even on RTI requests regarding Sonia Gandhi? It is well known that the RTI activist whom Narendra Modi quoted on his now-denied Rs 1880 crore figure never got a reply to his question. Firstpost has filed RTIs on her foreign trips but hasn't got a reply. Why has this never become an issue in the media?
It isn’t just about the way the Gandhi family is reported on. It is also about the fawning attitude the media has in any interaction the Gandhi family, especially Sonia, has with it. These interactions are always on their terms, by the way. I don’t recall seeing any interview where Sonia Gandhi has been subjected to aggressive questioning the way all other political leaders are. If there is any such interview, I would be grateful if someone can let me know so I can correct this statement.
Meanwhile, two episodes have etched themselves permanently in my memory.
One is Sonia Gandhi’s first press conference at the Congress office on Akbar Road. This must have been in the late 1990s or early 2000s. It was touted as a big thing and lots of people came armed with questions. But the whole show was a carefully orchestrated one, with the Congress media managers having identified which journalists were to be allowed to ask questions. Others who kept raising their hands to ask a question were ignored. There’s probably nothing new about it, it happens in other parties as well. But what stood out in this case was that no one protested at this blatant rigging of a press conference nor was anything written about it.
The second episode is the sight of a now-celebrated aggressive television anchor, who had managed to interview Sonia Gandhi briefly (in his reporting days), asking a senior Congress leader, sycophancy writ all over his bearing - `did Madam see my interview? What did she think? Did she like it?’
Is it any wonder then that it requires a Kejriwal to get the media to start looking into the Gandhi family son-in-law’s business dealings?

When Statements Go Unchallenged

Incidents of atrocities against Dalits in Haryana are increasing, says Prakash Javdekar, Rajya Sabha MP and spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party on a television show to discuss the issue in the light of the horrible incident in Hissar, Haryana, where a Dalit girl was gangraped and her father committed suicide because of the humiliation.

He is from the BJP and there is a Congress government in Haryana, so political grandstanding is inevitable.

“Crime being committed per lakh [population of scheduled caste] is the highest in Haryana,” asserts P. L . Punia, Congress MP and head of the National Commission of Scheduled Castes on the same show. Grandstanding on his part is also inevitable, given his official position.

“Why is it that only Dalits get raped by upper castes, whether it is Khairlanji [the 2006 carnage in Mahrashtra] or Haryana?” asks activist Kancha Ilaiah, another participant in the show. He too can be forgiven for being dramatic – he has made a name as a Dalit scholar and activist and is expected to take a certain position.

But is it the job of the media to let all these statements go unchallenged?

NDTV anchor Vishnu Som did not ask any of these gentlemen to substantiate their statements with figures. I am providing the link to the show here.

Does Javdekar have any firm numbers on the rise in atrocities in Haryana?

We don’t know.

Is Punia basing his statement on some study? Can he give any numbers on how many crimes per lakh of population, which is the state with second highest crimes per lakh population? We don’t know.

Can Ilaiah back his startling claim with data? Are upper caste men really raping only Dalit women? Are they not raping upper caste women? Then what about the cases of rape of upper caste women? Who are the perpetrators?

We don’t know.

Okay, so let us concede that Som, in his hurry to wrap up the programme, forgot to ask follow up questions to the panelists.

But does a newspaper have that same excuse?

Punia repeats the same statement in an interview to Economic Times published the following day (Tuesday) and that is taken as the heading of a five-column anchor on page 2: Maximum Anti-Dalit Crimes in Haryana: Punia. Once again, there is no attempt to ask him to elaborate. Nor is there any attempt to double check on one’s own. The newspaper adds to the whole campaign by saying “several cases of atrocities on Dalits have taken place in the state,” mentioning the Mirchpur incident as the most serious. The only other anecdotal example it gives (again no numbers) is of a wall being constructed around a Dalit village in Hissar last year.

Som does fall back on one report. He mentions a 2010 report of the ministry of social justice and empowerment (the report is not named), which apparently mentions that there is an increase in crimes against Dalits between 2009 and 2010 in Kerala, Haryana, Bengal, Himachal Pradesh and Punjab. But there is no mention of what is the percentage increase or disaggregated figures on the states, which could, perhaps, show that the increase in Haryana is more alarming than in the rest. In fact, the other figures in the report contradict the thesis that Haryana tops in atrocities. In that report, quoted by Som, Rajasthan tops the list of states with registered crimes against Dalits and five states – Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Andhra, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh – account for 70 per cent of registered crimes.

When my boss got excited by Punia’s statement and wanted me to do a story on this, I took the trouble of checking things out. I downloaded the 2011 statistic of the National Crime Records Bureau. Here’s what I found. In 2011 Uttar Pradesh topped the list of registered crimes against Dalits  with 22 per cent of cases, followed by Rajasthan with 15.4 per cent, Andhra Pradesh 11 per cent, Bihar 10.7 per cent and Karnataka 7.4 per cent. Haryana is only 1.2 per cent.

The only report of the ministry of social justice and empowerment report I could find online was the annual report of 2009-10, which takes figures from the NCRB and that report too showed Haryana was way below several states in terms of Dalit atrocities.

I couldn’t find any report on the website of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes.

Maybe Javdekar and Punia were basing their statements on some other data or reports, which they were privy to. Maybe Som had access to a ministry report which is not online or I couldn’t find it because I didn’t have the name.

Maybe Haryana does, in fact, top in atrocities.

For me, which state tops in atrocities is irrelevant. Would it be better if some other state topped?

What is relevant for me is that people on television discussions and newspaper articles, whom people will believe because they are experts (as my boss did) are allowed to go unchallenged on facts and figures they dish out. By journalists, whose job is to challenge people.

What is also relevant for me is that television and print journalists are not checking facts properly and are satisfied with vague numbers and generalized statements.

When private is made public

For a long time, we in India prided ourselves on the fact that our media is not voyeuristic about the personal lives of those in public office. We watched with amusement as politicians in the United States and Britain quit public office following the outing of a stray dalliance or an adulterous affair. Heck, we said, we have Karunanidhi with two wives who keeps getting elected as chief minister. We are more mature and less priggish about these things than the Westerners, we said smugly.
I don't know whether the media refrained from writing about private lives of politicians because of the general disinterest in them or whether the disinterest came because the media exercised commendable restraint. But the fact remains that Indian journalism respected the privacy of those in public office. (I am not using the term public figures because that would cover film stars as well. The issue of privacy is a tad complicated in their case because often film stars use their personal life for publicity. Film stars who want to keep their private lives private manage to do that.)
So we knew about that minister's affair with this media baroness, this politician's dalliance with that film actress, why one lady journalist got more scoops out of one ministry than all other journalists on the beat put together, how one politician and the daughter-in-law of another were an item. A journalist who didn't have a salacious nugget wasn't considered worth his/her salt. But this was all reserved for gossip sessions while taking a break from work, in the club, chilling out with friends.
There was one golden rule: these were not things to be written about.
If ever one did, no names were taken.
Alas, that seems to have changed.
Nothing brings this out more than a chief minister having to put out an official statement about his marriage. Omar Abdullah, chief minister of Jammu & Kashmir, had to do this after two newspapers went to town about his impending divorce and the reasons for it. These were mainstream newspapers, not tabloid rags.
Why did they do that? How was it at all relevant to his performance as chief minister? I have interviewed Omar Abdullah once when he was a junior minister at the Centre and he came across as a bright young man, but apparently there are enough reasons to criticise his performance as chief minister. Shouldn't the media have been content with that?
The depths to which the media has plumbed comes across in the way a newspaper described one woman he has been linked to - "a divorcee and has been in two live-in relationships since her divorce". That statement - the piece was written by a woman journalist - makes the woman in questions come across as some floozy constantly on the make. Why make a woman whose private life no one knew about the object of sleazy gossip?
When did the Indian media start changing? And why?
I think it all began with TRP-hunting television news. My mind goes back some years to when India TV aired clips of some MLAs with call girls in a hotel. Then there was the CD of former governor of Andhra Pradesh N D Tiwari with call girls in the Raj Bhavan. Both were disgusting and uncalled for. And I think the media fraternity was wrong to not have come out and openly condemned these practices.
The print media has, by and large, remained restrained. The only example I can think of is stories about Capt Amarinder Singh of Punjab and his Pakistani friend, Aroosa Alam. But that perhaps had more to do with the fact that Alam was seen in public with Singh and the fact that she was a Pakistani. The media may have restrained itself if she had been an Indian or of any other nationality.
That Shashi Tharoor and Sunanda Pushkar were an item was pretty well known but the media never wrote about it till the whole controversy about her getting sweat equity in the Kochi IPL team. So the matter became public only because it was perceived to be a misuse of office. I emphasise perceived. I am not saying there was a misuse. Maybe there was. Maybe there wasn't. I don't know.
But even this excuse is not there in the Omar Abdullah case. There is no public interest involved in the state of his marriage or love life. The media had no business in reporting about the impending divorce till it actually happened (maybe not even then) or commenting on the reasons and his future plans. Whether or not he remains married, or remarries will have no impact on the way Jammu and Kashmir is governed. If the attempt is to show that he is more interested in affairs of the heart than in affairs of the state, it won't work. There are many senior politicians in office who indulge in serial dalliances. If that doesn't affect their image as serious administrators why should this affect Omar Abdullah's image as an administrator? If he is misgoverning the state, identify other reasons for it - lack of experience maybe, or immaturity, or closed mind, wavering mind, wrong advisers, or whatever. Don't drag his private life and the people in them into it. 

If the media has done this to discredit Omar Abdullah as a chief minister, then it has become a willing tool for his critics. And that speaks even more badly of it than if it were merely indulging in tabloid journalism, bad as even that is.
There is no doubt that the media has crossed the line in this case. And if it doesn't step back, media ethics, which is already under immense strain, will suffer one more blow.
But does anyone care?

Act, Mr PM, Act

The Prime Minister has said, yet again, this time in the context of the bomb blast at the Delhi High Court, that "we will not succumb".
So we are expected to go around our usual business - breakfast, office, household chores, school, college, back home, saas-bahu serials, trip to the mall, dinner and bed. Just to tell the terrorists that we are not "cowed down". 
But why not show that we are not "cowed down" - and the steely resolve with which those words are said - by carrying out the death sentence on Afzal Guru, Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar and Rajiv Gandhi's assassins? And fast-tracking the prosecution of Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab?
Wouldn't that be a better way of showing India will not tolerate terrorism in any form? And that terror attacks cannot be used to blackmail us into inaction (in this case stopping the hanging of Afzal Guru)?
In fact the latest terror attacks should be used to tell political and other groups pleading for clemency to these above-mentioned worthies (for that is what they are to these groups, never mind that each of them has indulged in senseless killings) to stop pleading their case. They never showed any mercy to the people they killed, why should they be shown any mercy?
Does this sound churlish, immature? Perhaps.
Should I exhibit more sagacity and moderation? I see no reason to.
I see no reason why India should come across as a soft state, which people can come and bomb at will.
There is a time when sagacity and moderation have to be set aside. This is such a time.
Of course, there will be the usual arguments against death penalty itself. But as many people have pointed out, why does death penalty get debated only when high profile or political convicts are involved?
Perhaps there is a case against death penalty. Perhaps there isn't. Perhaps we need to debate it.
But after Guru, Bhullar, Rajiv Gandhi's killers and Kasab are hanged.

Too Special By Far

 Journalists in Mumbai have stepped up pressure for a law to make attacks on them non-bailable and cognisable. This has come in the wake of the tragic killing of investigative journalist J Dey last week. Apparently this demand is a long-standing one. First the Maharashtra government had a meeting with journalists on this. Now the Union law and justice minister Veerappa Moily is promising a Central law on the subject.
This is absolutely uncalled for.
Dey's killing is extremely sad and brings home to a lot of us the perils we face while going about our jobs. Ours can be a hazardous profession and this article highlights this. In some north-eastern states and Jammu and Kashmir, journalists are routinely threatened by militant groups. I was in Ayodhya in 1992 during the Babri Masjid demolition and journalists were attacked.
But is a special law to protect journalists the answer? Definitely not.
Ours is not an ordinary profession. Journalists relay information to people and in doing so are privy to a lot of information that is not in the public domain. Their reports highlight problems, expose corruption and other misdeeds and help shape public opinion, among other things. That gives them power and prestige but also makes them vulnerable.
There are other professions whose practitioners also face hazards. Doctors, for example, do get attacked by relatives of patients whom they couldn't save. They also go into remote areas where their lives are endangered. So are engineers engaged in the construction of large projects like dams and power plants who could be attacked by people opposed to the project. Remember the case of Satyendra Dubey, the National Highways Authority of India engineer who was killed for fighting against corruption in the Golden Quadrilateral highway project? Or Manjunath, the Indian Oil sales manager, and Yashwant Sonawane, the IAS officer from Maharashtra, both of whom were killed by the oil mafia when they were checking adulteration of fuel?
Why shouldn't all these professions also get special laws against attacks on them?
And, like the Indian Express pointed out today, if special groups are to get special laws to protect them, does this mean that it is okay for all the others to have to make do with less stringent laws? The state is supposed to protect everyone from attacks on their person.
Journalists have got too accustomed to special privileges - government accreditation to allow them easy access to government offices and Press stickers for their vehicles to enable them to go to places in the course of their duty where others are not allowed (e.g. riot-hit areas, areas under curfew), to name just two.
Asking now for a special law to protect them is carrying things a bit too far.
The proposal needs to be nipped in the bud.

Sab mere ko hi bol rahein hain

November 30, 5.30 pm. On my balcony taking a break from work. A grandmother is trying to mediate between two fighting children. And one is saying, `aap sirf mere ko bol rahe ho, usko kuch nahin bol rahe'.
November 30, 10.30 pm. Am watching NDTV's The Buck Stops Here, where the show's usual host, Barkha Dutt, is being questioned by a panel of editors (including Manu Joseph of Open) on her figuring in the Radia tapes. As I watch her alternate between playing wronged victim, being churlish and brazen I am suddenly reminded of that little kid: aap sirf mere ko bol rahe ho; Manu aur Vinod uncle ko kuch nahin bol rahe.
If NDTV organised this to give Barkha a platform to show she is being targeted unfairly, it backfired badly. Barkha behaved badly throughout the show. She first tried playing the injured innocent (`I did not know that much about Niira Radia because I am a essentially a political journalist'; it was a `mere error of judgement', `innocent error of judgement'). Then as the questions got tougher, she kept interrupting (especially Manu, who was ticked off for interrupting her whenever he insisted on his questions being answered), trying to divert attention from her role by talking about media ethics, defamation, questioning of her integrity (when everyone, including Manu, kept saying that her integrity was not in question). As Manu Joseph kept pointing out, she was obfuscating issues. Finally Sanjaya Baru was forced to point out that he had not been invited to a discussion on media ethics but for a discussion on the way NDTV handled  the Radia tapes. Did that silence Barkha? No. `But isn't it connected?' she interrupted. It is, said Baru, and I made that point in the Karan Thapar show, which was a different format.
When two editors made the point that Radia chose her and not any other journalist to convey messages to the Congress, she retorts immediately: how do you know? Only these tapes have been made public. Once again, an attempt to show only she was being targeted.
She also expected the editors and the viewers to believe that she, `a cynical political journalist' as she described herself, didn't know exactly how Radia functioned. `When I look back, with hindsight, with everything that one knows about her, I made an error of judgement.' So now Radia is at fault for being a good professional by someone who blurred the ethical boundaries of her profession, seeing nothing wrong in journalists conveying messages, depending on the content of the message or in not doing an obvious story (a corporate lobbyist lobbying on behalf of a political party in cabinet formation). And being brazen about it: `I am not accepting error of judgement in not doing the story'.
She claimed that she never passed on any message. But when one of the editors read out a portion of the transcript that appeared as if she had, she immediately countered with `I was fibbing (to Radia).' As veteran journalist T J S George pointed out in an article: "Is a veteran networker like Radia so easily fooled? Obviously she is close to her journalist contacts and must have had promises from them before. She wouldn't waste her time if she knew that they were promises not meant to be followed up."
Since Outlook's Vinod Mehta didn't come on the panel, Manu Joseph was alone to bear the brunt of her attacks: "You do journalism where you don't contact the person you report on"; "I don't think you have a full understanding of how political journalism and politics works".
When Baru made the point that everyone makes mistakes and she would have come out better if she had on Day One, expressed regret, she said `In my personal statement I spoke about what I learnt from this.' But that personal statement did not come on Day One. That day there was only a statement from NDTV, which threatened legal action. Her personal statement came much later.
Sonia Singh was an ineffective moderator who couldn't stop Barkha from constantly interrupting and sidestepping questions by attacking others.
Ultimately Barkha Dutt came across as an ill-mannered brat. And NDTV came worse off by giving her a platform to brazen out an indefensible act.
http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/news/barkha-dutt-other-editors-on-radia-tapes-controversy/178964

Vigilante Justice, Courtesy Media

My revulsion for S P S Rathore - especially the sight of him coming out smiling after the six months imprisonment verdict - is in danger of turning into sympathy. And all because of my profession.

I was watching television news this afternoon and saw the news flash about Rathore being unrepentant. Why? Because while coming out of the court after applying for anticipatory bail, he told the news cameras hounding him: "the day you can satisfy me you are a constitutional power on judicial matters, I will speak (to you)".

What is wrong with that? He is correct. He and other criminals are answerable to the courts where they present their defence. Not to hysterical television journalists.

I completely agree with Abha Rathore’s comment, “There are editors sitting in newsrooms passing judgments on the case, behaving like saviours of law and gaining mileage out of the entire episode.” She also has a point when she says that the media has already started the trial without waiting for them to file an appeal against the conviction by the lower court. The deadline for that was January 4. We may be aghast at the temerity of the man to appeal against the conviction, but, let’s face it, it is his right.

The Rathores have asked the court for protection from the media. And I am ashamed to admit it is probably a valid request. His behaviour all these years does not justify the media behaving like a pack of wolves. (Incidentally, it is only today that I learnt that the Rathores had filed a defamation case against one newspaper some years back. It is typical of the ostrich approach of our profession to our failings that we have kept silent about this).

Though nothing should surprise me any more about the electronic media, I was still aghast at the way they were conducting themselves. "The law is catching up" with Rathore, one channel said. Overlooking the minor point that the law had caught up with him and given him six months jail and then bail (which is also under the law). The point in question is that the sentence wasn't seen as adequate.

Rathore's wife was also the subject of sarcasm for mocking television cameras, saying don't push, take all the pictures you want. But what else can one say when being jostled by camera crew? And when she is being followed by a persistent reporter saying "anything you would like to say? anything about the case?" What is she supposed to say? If she says her husband is innocent (which is obviously what she will say), then she will be inviting further sarcasm on prime time.

There was this other gem on one channel in relation to the Madhukar Tandon case (the Rajasthan police officer who has not been arrested in 13 years on a rape charge): “Two states have either refused to track him down or arrest him.” Refused? Do these reporters/anchors know the meaning of the words they use?

And what has all this media hype resulted in? Things unheard of – like filing fresh FIRs in cases where conviction has been handed out. Legal experts including Ram Jethmalani and K T S Tulsi have pointed out that a person cannot be convicted for the same crime twice. Surely these people know more about the law than journalists do.

I am providing a link to an editorial in The Indian Express editorial, Call off the mob, which highlights the danger of the kind of media-generated public hysteria.

Indeed, the travesty of justice should not become an excuse for vigilante justice.

Media-manufactured Hysteria

Every time I see candlelight vigils for victims of injustice, I wonder how such a disparate group of people comes together. As a nation, we don’t really have a collective soul. Apathy is our first reaction to anything. So how come we turn out in hordes to hold candlelight vigils for Jessica Lal, Meher Bhargava, 26/11 victims. (Not sure if there was one for the Nithari victims, which says a lot about our so-called middle class vigilantes).

I thought the media – especially the electronic media – only disseminated information about the planned event but now am reasonably sure it helps in planning it as well – if not organising it.

The electronic media is setting itself up as the conscience keeper of the nation and the voice of the people. But many of its actions makes one wonder if it has a conscience at all. What it seems to have in the place of conscience is a TRP ticker, which dictates all its actions.

Take the case of candlelight vigils, which first started with the Jessica Lal case (I am not sure if it preceded or followed Rang De Basanti, which also showed a candlelight vigil). That may have been spontaneous but I doubt whether the many others were.

It makes for great visuals – grave faced people sitting with candles under a darkening sky. And it provides great soundbytes. So what if the people ranting in front of television cameras may not know very much about the case or about the law? And then there are the emotional SMS-es scrolling at the bottom of the screen. `Death to Rathore’, went one ridiculous SMS. The sight of a smirking Rathore would make any decent person’s blood boil. But `Death to Rathore’? This, we are told by hyperventilating star anchors of news shows, is a reflection of the people’s anger and distress.

But often this is nothing more than ill-informed hysteria whipped up by the media itself. There are enough examples of how media hype has led to situations escalating out of the control of authorities. Everyone remembers the coverage of the 26/11 attacks but think back to 1999 and the IC 814 hijacking. The relatives of the hostages gathered outside 7 Race Course Road, the television cameras and anchors went crazy getting bytes from them, demanding the government get their relatives out safely. I remember parallels being drawn by emotional relatives with Rubaiya Sayeed (militants were freed to secure the release of this kidnapped daughter of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed) and how that was done because she was a VIP’s daughter. I have no doubt that the hysteria whipped up by the media had some role in the then government’s decision to release the hostages that the hijackers asked for. Should the government have given in to such emotional blackmail is another question. The point here is – should the media have become a tool of emotional blackmail?

The media does have a role in highlighting inadequacies in the system. But this has to be done by well-researched stories, shorn of drama. Not by organising vigils and soliciting angry SMS-es.

Verdict 2009 and the Media

Why was Verdict 2009 such a surprise for most people? Till the exit polls results came in, all the newspapers and television channels were predicting a completely fractured mandate. The Third Front, practically everyone asserted, was going to form the government. Newspapers and channels were anointing prime ministers – Mayawati, Jayalalitha, Deve Gowda.

And then came the exit poll results, which showed the UPA getting a clear edge over the NDA. The Third Front was hardly in the picture. The results were described as a surprise.

But should it have been a huge surprise? Especially for the media, which is supposed to be able to read the pulse of the nation?

This takes me back to Verdict 2004. The defeat of the NDA was also completely unexpected. Nobody, but nobody, believed that. Not even the Congress.

Now that probably shows that party leaderships are not in touch with the grassroots. That is a problem of the political parties which they need to address themselves. But should that also be true of the press? Shouldn’t the media, which is supposed to go out into the field and get a sense of what’s happening on the ground, be so divorced from reality? How could it not get a sense of such an overwhelming sentiment – the desire for a stable government?

This shows, quite clearly, that journalism is no longer about arduous legwork, about going out into the field, talking to people and sitting down and connecting the dots. Sure, every paper had sent people out, done features on key constituencies, factors at work in particular areas etc. In some cases, their prediction was also right. Some papers did predict the defeat of Ram Vilas Paswan and P Chidambaram (he almost lost, but won in a recount). But they all missed the larger trend that was clearly shaping up.

My guess is they looked at the parties forming the Third Front, took their party positions in the last Lok Sabha and decided that they would get the same number of seats. Nobody obviously thought that they could fare much worse. Just as in 2004, they preferred to go along with the whole hype created by BJP strategists in Delhi.

I think this is happening because it was only during elections that journalists really hit the roads to the interiors. Or that Delhi-based journalists were in most cases catapulted into the field during this period. But the mood of a nation is build up over months. If the press had really been doing stories from the grassroots (urban or rural), I doubt if they would have missed this trend.

Or it could be (and that is a far more distinct possibility) the people out in the field did get a sense of what was going to happen, but the editors, sitting in their ivory towers, blinkers firmly on, and hobnobbing with the political biggies in Delhi, didn’t take what they reported seriously.

This lack of field reporting also showed up in the obsession of election coverage with what L K Advani said about Manmohan Singh, what Manmohan Singh said about Advani, what Priyanka Gandhi wore and what she felt about Rahul’s marital and political prospects, what Sonia Gandhi said about Advani and Manmohan. Surely there were other things these leaders (barring Priyanka whom I don’t consider a leader) said in their speeches. Did we ever get a sense of that? No.

And then there were stories about which Third Front leader met which Fourth Front leader, why this UPA leader nod at that NDA leader. I have never come across such drivel masquerading as election coverage. And then television channels have the nerve to tell us this was an issue-less election!!! If it was issueless, Verdict 2009 wouldn’t have been what it was. If it was issueless, it was because the media reported it so.

Verdict 2009 only reinforces what Verdict 2004 showed – that the media isn’t doing its job properly.

Showcasing Rabble Rousers

As the print and electronic media continue to fulminate over the Mangalore mayhem, one small questions is getting overshadowed – what role did the media play in the whole affair?

Remember that few people outside the sangh parivar had heard of Pramod Mutalik. No one had heard of the Sri Ram Sene. Now suddenly Mutalik is all over the papers and television news channels. There are fierce debates on television on the pub culture and cultural vigilantism, reams of newsprint have been devoted to the subjects. Given the kind of media mileage both Mutalik and his obscure organisation got, I am unable to shake off the suspicion that this was a carefully orchestrated publicity-seeking event and the media has willingly gone along with it.

How is it that television cameras were able to capture the violence that the Sene members unleashed? Were they at the pub or in the vicinity? Did anyone from the pub or any of the bystanders call them? If that was the case, could they have reached so fast as to record the violence before it ended? Even before the police could reach? Or had someone tipped them off that something was going to happen?

Maybe my suspicions are wrong. For the sake of my profession, I wish they are. But I need answers to these questions. This is not the first time that obscure rabble rousers have been given undue publicity by a sensation-seeking media. Isn’t it time the media sits down and discusses its own role in encouraging such loonies and the impact on society and the country?

Television Terror

On Friday, February 12, there was a panel discussion on "Who is to blame for media hysteria on terror? Journalists or viewers? --Lessons from Mumbai Siege" organised by a new forum – Federation of Media Professionals.

I couldn’t attend it, but from what people who did told me, the representatives of the television news channels were quite unapologetic and repeated the same old arguments – that there were no dos and don’ts, that they did what was best in the circumstances, that they did not endanger operations etc.

This line of defence has been taken ever since criticism of the media coverage started even as the drama was playing itself out on television screens. And how did the news channels respond?

CNN-IBN apparently did a panel discussion on the media coverage, where it patted all television channels on the back (with the occasional sniping at rival channels). According to thehoot.org, a mediawatch website, Mail Today (a part of the India Today group which also owns Headlines Today and Aaj Tak) does a story on media reactions to the information and broadcasting ministry’s advisory on television coverage. It was completely one-sided with public criticism of the media blanked out. Barkha Dutt responds to two Facebook groups that got set up calling them hate groups. Sure, they were named after her (Can u please take Barkha off air! and Barkha Dutt for worst senior journalist on the planet) but that was only because she came to epitomise all that was wrong with television news on those three days.

But none of our senior television journalists would admit to being wrong. So if Barkha flaunted so-called testimonials from N R Narayanamurthy (who, it later turned out, is on the NDTV board) and Shashi Tharoor (who seems to spend his time in television studios now) apart from Suketu Mehta Salman Rushdie, Sunil Khilnani, in her article on the NDTV website, India TV’s Rajat Sharma got a certificate from an unnamed former army chief whom he got to address his colleagues in an article in the Indian Express. Barkha said Naryanamurthy called it the "finest piece of TV journalism in a decade"; Sharma said the former army chief was emphatic that “News channels did nothing wrong. Your coverage didn’t do any harm whatsoever to the commandos!” This after the chief of the National Security Guards has said that the media did endanger operations.

Worse, the television journalists talk as if they are above criticism. Barkha calls the criticism of the television media “a different sort of civil war brewing; one that places us in the media on the other side of the enemy line.” Surely there should be some limit to hyperbole. Sharma says the war against terror is not over and that therefore the government should stop putting the blame on the media and the media should stop criticising the politicians, bureaucracy and intelligence agencies.

How very cosy! Don’t criticise me and I won’t criticise you. Even if both of us deserve criticism. This you-scratch-my-back-I-scratch-yours attitude isn’t journalism, by any standard.

A Parliamentary committee has concluded that some kind of statutory regulations covering the media are needed in the interests of society. What a very fascist idea. But then why do I – who is all for a minimalist state and cringe at the term `in the interests of society’ – after initially recoiling at the idea start to ponder over whether the committee has a point after all?

Calls for self regulation and media responsibility are made every time the media transgresses its limits and the government threatens action. But at the next big event, all this gets forgotten. The television media, especially, is not going to regulate itself, it is not going to respect any ethic unless it is made to.

Worse, they themselves seem to be asking for it, with their `we weren’t given any dos and don’ts’. From dos and don’ts to diktats and censorship is just one small step.

Sometimes, stern action is the only way to tackle brats. But in this case, the action against brats is going to have larger implications for even the saner and well-behaved lot.

One can only hope that out of this madness, some sense will emerge.

Am I being too optimistic?

The Election Victories

It was amusing to read all the newspapers and television channels waxing eloquent on how voters in all five states where assembly elections were just held voted for good governance. We are suddenly being told about the wonderful welfare schemes of Raman Singh in Chhattisgarh and Shivraj Chohan in Madhya Pradesh. But how come, till now, the only example of good governance was Shiela Dikshit? In fact, we were told, she would lose despite good governance! In the case of Madhya Pradesh, most media reports were full of Shivraj Chohan's obsession with yoga classes and how he was furthering the Hindutva agenda. In the case of Chattisgarh, Raman Singh was being pilloried only for the Salwa Judum. But clearly, both these people have also done all the positive things that newspapers are now listing out. So why were these not highlighted earlier? I am not saying that the media should have glossed over the ridiculous things that Chohan was doing in Madhya Pradesh. Or that it should not have highlighted the so-called dangers of Salwa Judum. But should it have focused only on these and not the constructive work? Is that what a responsible media should do? I find the same problem in the analysis of Vasundhara Raje's defeat in Rajasthan. All the reports are focussing on her arrogance, her personality-based politics and inner-party turmoil. There is hardly any reference to the fact that these pulled her down despite her good record on governance. Because from all indications (I have spoken to Planning Commission members and BJP-hating development journalists), she has done a good job in the social sector. Yes, negative stories are more exciting than positive stories. But this natural inclination to negative stories should not lead the media to distort the reality.

Silver Jubilee

Twenty five years ago, on this day, I walked into the Old Lady of Boribunder – Times House, opposite what was then still known as VT (Victoria Terminus) in what was still Bombay – to become a journalist.

I was an idealistic twenty-something then, with just two career choices in mind. One was the civil services and the other was journalism. Both, I felt, could help me do something for the country. Journalism was my first choice. I had appeared for my civil services prelims in Delhi and had opted for Bombay for the mains, which were due to start on 2 November. In the event, I never appeared for the mains, even though I had carted all my preparatory notes and books to Bombay. A second chance came some years later. Again I gave the prelims and again bunked the mains. The call of journalism proved stronger.

Do I regret the choice? No, but I would be lying if I said I never ever questioned it. There were times I felt fleetingly that perhaps I should have given the IAS a shot. As a journalist I can only write and rail about something, but as a government official I could do something about it, if I was so inclined. But deep regret? Never. And though there were many disappointments and falling off of rosy spectacles, somewhere I still believed that journalism was about enquiry, raising questions and highlighting neglected issues, about providing a forum for answers to those questions and solutions to those issues, about telling people about things as they are so that they become better informed. And above all facts were supreme.

Today, I am deeply disillusioned with journalism in a way I never have been before. I pick up the papers in the morning and on every page of every paper, I see a complete lack of rigour. Three different papers will have three different versions of the same event. It isn’t about each having an exclusive angle – it’s just that the basic facts will be different. How on earth can that be possible?

Basic facts are wrong. Clearly there’s no fact checking happening at all. Laziness has become the hallmark of today’s journalist, the best example of this being the hoax carried out by Penpricks, the blog being run by a bunch of Goa journalists (see my earlier post on this). All major newspapers fell for it and when they realised they had been had, none of them bothered to apologise to their readers. One newspaper quietly pulled it off its website. No heads have rolled in any newspaper.

One source stories – even concocted stories -- have become the norm now. Reporters will be lazy, will try to cut corners. But shouldn’t someone be ensuring that they don’t? Unfortunately, editors are not just turning a blind eye to this phenomenon, they appear to be encouraging it. Some years back one friend heard about some development on her beat. Being from the old school, she checked it out, found it was wrong and didn’t file the story. The next day other papers splashed it. The bureau chief asked her. She told him the story was wrong. Only to be told “you should still have filed it.” The next day all the other papers carried a denial from the ministry! But that didn’t get my friend back into the good books of the bureau chief or the editor.

Where also is the concern for issues? I don’t mean to imply that journalism should be all about breast beating and bleeding hearts. Developmental journalism, if not done the right way, can be quite boring and let’s face it people don’t have the time to digest long pieces on sombre topics like wasteland development or rural drinking water supply. But to ignore all serious issues altogether? Is that right?

Some months back I had gone to meet Montek Singh Ahluwalia for a story on the economy. He got quite worked up over the fact that just the previous day, he had inaugurated a conference on health and though he had made many important points on health in his speech, all the press wanted from him was a quote on inflation. The next day’s papers had nothing on the conference and he was quoted everywhere on inflation. “I didn’t even say anything significant on inflation,” he lamented as he showed me the bunch of press clippings. The following day he was going to be the chief guest at an event organised by a publishing house. I told him the proprietor-cum-editor of that paper didn’t want serious issues like health and education in the paper.

A friend’s niece quit journalism in four years, saying she didn’t want to write about bubblegum and candyfloss. But that is what journalism is becoming today. A feature on women activists in a respected and leading paper needs to have a repressed sexual urges angle – need one say any more?

And then there are the mistakes – spelling mistakes, grammatical mistakes, missing articles and wrong punctuation marks. My memory goes back to 1983 and The Times of India desk in Bombay, where the chief sub will throw the copy back at us if we made any mistakes. And a year later, to The Times of India desk in Delhi, where we would be asked for written explanations for wrong headings, poor subbing. Those systems have disappeared.

Was everything about those days good? Certainly not. There were a lot of things wrong even then. But the spirit of journalism remained alive. That’s not the case now.

What saddens me most is that the decline in journalism is being presided over by people from my generation.

In 2002, I stepped out of journalism, to write a book and do other things – mainly a lot of editing work and consultancies for UNDP. It was a very enlightening and educative three years. I didn’t miss not being a journalist (I was writing occasionally just to keep my PIB accreditation and when I wanted to sound off on something) and didn’t even bother looking for a job, though a lot of people who thought I was making a mistake would keep telling me to approach this editor, go to that paper. Just as I was wondering how to convert what I was doing into a viable revenue stream, I got an opportunity to work with an editor I had a lot of respect for and whom I had never worked with before. But today, as I look back on these 25 years, I am beginning to feel the first stirrings of regret – that I didn’t work out an alternative career for myself. Let me clarify: not because the editor didn’t turn out to be what I expected of him, but only because of what journalism has become today.

Shameful Silence

The Supreme Court has issued notices to the media on a public interest litigation over the role of the media in the Arushi-Hemraj double case, especially the slanderous reports on the Talwars. It has also suggested that guidelines be drawn up for media coverage of ongoing cases. The Times of India has carried a long article saying this is a case of misplaced priorities and that the police were more guilty in defaming the Talwars than the media. In a related development the press has gone to town over the reinstating of Gurdarshan Singh as IG Meerut Range after he was removed following his allegation at a press conference that Rajesh Talwar had killed his daughter.

In all this, something has been totally ignored – the fate of Krishna and the two other servants arrested for the murder. Has a chargesheet been filed? Has the CBI got conclusive evidence against them? Last I read, and this was some weeks back, the CBI said it knew where the weapon was. So why don’t they produce it and why don’t proceedings against the trio start? Of if there is no evidence against them, why aren’t they being released on bail?

The media is completely devoid of stories on this. In contrast, look at what happened during the 50 days Rajesh Talwar was in jail. There was almost a daily bulletin on him and when he was released there was an outpouring of grief on his wrongful incarceration. But nobody is agonising over the fate of the three servants, let alone shedding tears. Nobody is asking the same questions that were asked when Talwar was languishing in jail. Forget opinion pieces, nobody is even doing a news story on whether their remand period has ended, what is happening to their case, have they got bail. I had dealt with this issue in an earlier post Media Under Trial for Media Trial and the current silence in the media only seems to confirm what I had said toward the end of the piece – that there is a class issue here. Maybe the trio were the real murderers and maybe Talwar had been framed. But if Talwar had to be released for lack of evidence then the same yardstick should apply to these three as well. If the media overkill when Talwar was in jail was shameful, then its silence over the fate of the three servants is equally shameful.

The Stung Editor

Today’s Economic Times has a snippet in its gossip column, Through the Third Eye, which says that the editor of a well-known English daily was privy to the cash-for-votes sting and had promised to publish details of the scandal in the paper. But he developed cold feet. ET puts this down to the grapevine and refrains from mentioning the editor. But here’s my guess – Shekhar Gupta of Indian Express. I arrived at the name through a process of elimination.

I first thought of Chandan Mitra, editor of The Pioneer, who is in the Rajya Sabha on a BJP ticket. But then I figured that he’s would not have backed out, precisely for that reason. Somehow I felt the BJP would have preferred to involve a more widely-read paper than Pioneer. Now, it could not have been the extremely pro-Congress Hindustan Times. Nor could it have been The Times of India. The snippet says the editor backed out. Times of India’s editors don’t have the power to take such decisions. So it could only be the Indian Express.

Of course, I have limited myself to the Delhi papers, so I could well be wrong. But of the well-known non-Delhi papers, BJP couldn’t have gone to the pro-left Hindu. The Telegraph is confined to Calcutta. DNA, maybe? Unlikely. I don’t see my ex-boss Jaggi being privy to these kind of things. So the needle points firmly to Shekhar Gupta. Now if only someone will confirm it for me.

The Stung Sting

The case of the so-called cash-for-votes sting operation is getting curiouser by the day, and it’s difficult to decide who is right and who is wrong.

To recap, on the day of the trust vote in Parliament, three BJP MPs waved wads of currency in the well of the House, alleging that Amar Singh of the Samajwadi Party and Ahmed Patel of the Congress had tried to bribe them to abstain from the vote. Later BJP leader L K Advani said that the BJP had taken the help of a news channel to conduct this sting and that he would reveal the name soon. CNN-IBN then came out and said it was the channel and that it had handed over the tapes to the Speaker.

With speculation that the channel had been armtwisted into not airing the tapes, CNN-IBN later clarified that it had intended to air the tapes but its investigations were not complete and that the BJP MPs had jumped the gun. Among the rumours was one that Anil Ambani who held some stake in CNN-IBN had pressurised it not to air a tape that incriminated his dear friend Amar Singh. The BJP is now saying that CNN-IBN had promised to air the tapes hours before the trust vote but it had reneged on that commitment. It has now decided to boycott CNN-IBN until it airs the tapes. However, it was not banning CNN-IBN from its press conferences.

The Editors Guild has condemned this as pressure tactics and says it infringes on the freedom of the press. Indian Express in an editorial has said this “also raises ethical questions that hark back to the issue of a political party’s democratic responsibility. The BJP might just end up as a double loser”.

First I am surprised the Editors Guild has been so quick to condemn the BJP for boycotting the channel. Because I didn’t see any Editors Guild statement when commerce and industries minister Kamal Nath banned CNBC-TV18, CNBC-Awaaz and Crisilmarketwire (then part of TV18) from his press conferences. All because one CNBC-TV18 anchor was needlessly aggressive while interviewing Nath during a brouhaha over cement prices. Nath’s aides would selectively go up to journalists from these three organisations and request them to leave. I myself was witness to one incident during a conference on WTO at the Maurya Sheraton. The press information officer was on phone and was saying CNBC is not allowed. The matter was later sorted out (how, I am still wanting to know) but this was a patently undemocratic act by the minister. The anchor was insufferable that day and Nath was right in getting angry. But banning the channel was not the answer. There are other ways of handling this. He could have complained to the editor, gone to the Press Council or simply boycotted the channel the way the BJP has decided to do. But how can he ban a news organisation from his press conferences? Press conferences by ministers are not private parties at their residence where they are free to pick and choose the invitees.

Kamal Nath did what he did. What was the rest of the press community doing? Even as his aides went around tapping CNBC reporters and cameramen on the shoulder and escorting them out, other print and television journalists sat quietly and attended the press conference. One walkout by all of them would have brought Nath to his senses. But to come back to my question – why was the Editors Guild silent then?

Separately, this particular sting – like all other stings – raises several questions which journalists must grapple with. Should journalists doing stings get into deals with their sources about when to publish/air the sting? But it’s all a question of give and take; the source has a reason for helping the journalist so some assurance will have to be given/some deal struck. Without the source’s help, the sting cannot be done. There will be no easy answers to these.

That said, the whole controversy over whether the channel was pressurised into not airing the tapes, whether the tapes had conclusive evidence (as the BJP claims) or not sufficient evidence (as CNN-IBN claims) will get sorted out only if the tapes are aired at the earliest. If they have conclusive evidence, it will become obvious that CNN-IBN was pressurised. The channel will only earn sympathy. If the tapes are inconclusive, then the channel will come out as a strong adherent to journalistic ethics and gain everybody’s respect. The BJP will end up looking silly. So it’ll be a win-win for the channel.

Anyway, here’s a link to an interesting point made by Jaya Jaitly in Indian Express, about the double standards in dealing with the Tehelka tapes on arms deals (where she figured) and the CNN-IBN tapes. http://www.indianexpress.com/story/343534.html