TV 9, please explain

Corruption at TV9

In our 'Illiterate TV journos' (March 13) post, we suggested: But why do not public-spirited media like TV9 turn the cameras on themselves? TV9 did just the same on Thursday, a sting-op within its office and caught its Chief News Coordinator Rajasekhar accepting a bribe of Rs 5,000. The management summarily dismissed him. Subsequent probing is said to have shown that Raja had Rs 14 lakh in his bank account.

The three-year-old news channel’s sting op on its staffer is unprecedented in apmedia history.

After completing its first-of-its-kind mission, the management enthusiastically circulated the news about this shameful incident among the media personnel. Naturally, the extreme action-excessive enthusiasm sequence has raised doubts among the media fraternity. Many believe that there is more to this than meets the eye. Some insiders link the latest development to the recent “attack on media” incident at MNR College.

Immediate comments heard among mediamen include 1)Why was Rajasekhar subjected to such extreme action, it reeks of vengeance and not punishment 2) Why is that the management that let off Karim lightly acted so harshly in Rajasekhar's case? 3) Did TV9 take the public and media fraternity for a ride with its hulllabaloo over the "attack" on its staff?
More on this later. Mail us at vikram.apmedia@gmail.com

PLOTTING SCAMS

The best part of being a journalist is the amount of privileges that one gets to enjoy. From gifts handed out at press conferences to sumptuous lunch and dinner to… aha… the best of it all, free plots from the government of the day.

Every journalist worth his ink, crows about morality in public life and how politicians and other crooks have besmirched the society with their acts. But they rarely talk about their own reputation and the favours they seek and get. The biggest handout that every so-called journalist looks for is a plot from the government. When it comes to getting a free or subsidized land, it does not matter which government is in power. It does not matter how corrupt the government is or what its credentials are.

Spineless journalists in cahoots with their association/s use every trick in the book to get land for themselves and their friends. From plots in Road No 3, Banjara Hills to the Journalist colony in Jubilee Hills and now the land at Gopanapalli, everything goes in the name of being a member of the fourth estate.

How can a journalist who has been bribed with a subsidised plot claim to be fair in his job? Will he dare write against the same man who gave him a plot of land at a throwaway price?

Now a petition has come up in the Andhra Pradesh High Court questioning on how government could give away free / subsidized land to MLAs, Judges and Journalists. That judgment should be out soon, and with it will tumble out a number of skeletons.

Many journalists have sold their plots within a year of being allotted the same. What is worse is that the Registration department has allowed the plots to be registered in violation of the standing rules. This has happened with the plots allotted near Gachibowli, with the journalist association bosses taking bribes in cahoots with non-journalists who have brought these plots.

Now, the time has come to ask the courts that these registrations need to be cancelled and the land to be reverted back to the government. Let us see how many newspaper editors will dare carry a story on the mother of all scams. If they don't do it, we know that everyone is involved in this crook business.

An RTI petition is being filed seeking to know who owns the plots allotted to journalists and when they were sold and registered. Shortly, those names will be on this site. With it, the reputation of some of the so-called big names in journalism in the state be exposed, and they will join the august company pickpockets, cheats and rowdy-sheeters.

Watch this space. Something big is about to happen.

NTV gets going

We hear NTV got the licence on Tuesday. What’s more, the channel has cheered its staff by attracting talent afresh from the existing channels.
Padahaaru anaaala Telugu Juliet Soujanya is out of ETV2. The sweet-looking girl next door that we watched both on ETV & ETV2 handling news bulletins and other prograames is joining NTV. The new channel has offered a decent salary hike to lure the fair, slim, boy-cut girl with an indelible dimpled smile. Soujanya has handled all programmes with ease and flair and will surely be an asset to NTV. Also joining the new channel is another ETV2 star anchor Himabindu. Word on the street is that popular anchor of TV9, Anusha is also on the verge of joining NTV. Wow, the channel is making rapid progress. It’s interesting to see what’s next from the SR-KSR duo. Meanwhile, RP @ TV9 is making big promises to his team to keep the flock together. We will update once we get more info from TV9. We will also have the gist of the fax from MNR College about attack on TV9...soon.

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Illiterate TV journos

Let's deliberate on media and sting operations in the backdrop of recent attack on TV9 crew by staff of the MNR Medical College at Sangareddy. The TV9 team was manhandled when they attempted to carry out a sting operation. Seen from any angle, the incident shows media in an extremely poor and negative light. First, freedom of expression does not cover a sting job which is a clandestine job and violation of the rights of others. Second, under the Constitution, there is no freedom of expression separately for the press. It is the right of a citizen extended to the press through a Supreme Court judgment. If it is a crime for a citizen to capture images of people without their consent or notice, it is a crime for the press also.

The glorification of Tehelka’s West End operation in the English media does not confer legitimacy on what it did or on what prospective copy-cats want to do. To think that anybody would welcome you when you declare you are there for a sting operation is the height of imbecility. It shows that the crew lacked minimum media literacy and the failure of their bosses to brief them on the meaning and sanctity of privacy. TV channels are releasing into the wide world reportorial virus that is fatal to citizens’ right of privacy.

While on briefing, I remember Sagarika Ghose, who is an experienced journalist, heckling the foxy Ram Jethmalani. She asked him why he was defending Manu Sharma, principal accused in the Jessica Lal murder case. Her very first question spelt her nemesis. She asked, "In defending Manu Sharma, are you in some sense defending the indefensible?" She must first be clear whether she is contesting the case as morally indefensible or legally indefensible. If morally, she must tell us who sets moral norms and who polices and enforces them. In the absence of any such mechanism, the question sounds juvenile, especially when the TV media have begun acting as courts of first instance. If legally, she must know that all the legal remedies have not been exhausted yet in this case. It is only uninformed judicial charity that encourages media to tread on its toes.

A few days before this incident, the Supreme Court asked journalist Vijay Shekar and the Zee television channel to explain why they should not be prosecuted for conducting a ‘cash-for-warrant’ sting operation that caught an Ahmedabad magistrate issuing warrants against the President, the then Chief Justice of India and two others. “Such mischief cannot be allowed to tarnish the image of the lower judiciary," said a bench of the court on which sat, among others, Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan also. The bench rejected the petitioners' plea that their objective was to expose ‘cash-for-warrant scams’ in the lower judiciary. Such a rebuke should have come as early as the first Tehelka strike involving an NDA minister, even before the judiciary itself became the target of a sting.

Undercover reporting has two aspects: journalism and jurisprudence. Vir Sanghvi of the Hindustan Times outlined the journalism aspect, “Sting operations with concealed cameras constitute a huge black hole at the moral centre of Indian journalism and it is important for us to sift fact from fiction and wrong from right.” This ethical element is the heart of government’s planned guidelines for the broadcast media. Investigating agencies often carry out sting operations but they are done on the basis of a complaint from an aggrieved person, and not by trapping public servants with bribes and going beyond the limits of acceptable journalism.

The success of the first sting spurred scores of small-time clones to specialize in images of unabashed sleaze and forgettable crime. Now, even a mobile camera phone can do it. The BJP proved that a sting operation is no great shakes by trapping Ajit Jogi, employing the same methods that trapped Bangaru Laxman.

Fortunately, few newspapers thought a clandestine sting operation was a legitimate exercise of freedom of expression. Where information can be gathered without resort to trickery reporters need not look for short cuts. Sucheta Dalal and Chitra Subramanian did long and painstaking research without snaring anyone. Is the West End story of greater consequence than the Bofors story of Chitra Subramanian and the Harshad Mehta story of Sucheta Dalal? Were they less enterprising that they had toiled for months to get at the bottom of truth?

How dangerous and devastating sting enterprises can be will become clear when some TV crew creates a Gujarat-type riot only to be able to report it. Staged sting operations do not fall under any of the three categories of reporting familiar to media: Scheduled, like press conferences or public meetings and conventions; unscheduled, like accidents or outbreak of violence and investigative, when media on a hunch that something against public interest is brewing commission a story. Can you imagine P Sainath manipulating a weaver into committing suicide so that he can write a story about it? Manufacturing news is not a category of reporting known to media.

But why do not public-spirited media like TV9 turn the cameras on themselves? Why do not they uncover conspiracies that end up in cable TV operators killing each other? Or, find out how night shift women journalists are victims of aggressive overtures from male colleagues. Find out how editors dish out junkets to reporters or how newspaper owners doctor accounts to cheat wage boards. Are media buildings safe in the event of fire? Most media houses are owned by profiteering (not profit-seeking) moneybags. And, corruption and money are like Siamese twins.

Every year Transparency International tells us what these staged operations seek to tell us: there is corruption in the country. Karnataka Chief Minister Kumaraswamy openly said that the Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise (NICE), which is executing the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Project, had attempted to "purchase" him using a former minister and a journalist as intermediaries. Here, the electronic media crusaders can find out the identity of the journalist, using the methods they habitually employ. No. They won’t do it because it calls for the patience of a Sucheta or Chitra. It also means self-flagellation. There is no instant glory in it. TV channels have won laurels for their Mumbai blasts coverage. They should not forfeit audience faith by faking reality.

Another norm of ethics as well as law that TV channels should respect is not to show people who do not want to be seen in a poor light. For example, undertrial prisoners being taken to court in handcuffs. How would you like it done to you? Why was Rajdeep Sardesai so sensitive about being seen escorted by the police to the UP Assembly to answer charges of contempt of the house that he went to the Supreme Court to seek an exemption? Why does not he tell his reporters not to show any person without his consent? Do not they have the same kind of dignity that Rajdeep has? The only way to stop these daily invasions of privacy is for the Supreme Court to step in and award deterrent punishment to big fish.

Sting operations are legitimate where there is a clear indication of crime or impending crime. “Between 'snaring' or 'tempting' people into accepting 'gifts' or 'bribes', where a cause of action does not exist, and exposing corruption regarding specific deals, a vast gulf exists. Not to recognise the significance of this difference would be a grievous mistake,” said M K Narayanan, security adviser to the government. Consensual relationships are common and media are not moral police. They better tell the people of this country whether this mushrooming of millionaires in the country that excites them no end has anything to do with alleviation of grinding poverty in the country.

TV5 steals the thunder

In the race for an early launch, TV5 might be the first past the post. After having all clearances in place, the channel has launched its ad campaign. The buzz has created some excitement and people are coming out of the woodwork. Kandula Ramesh and Kranti, to name a couple. Kandula, the job hopper who has experience across the media spectrum, (Eenadu, DC, Suprabhatam, Teja, Lycos,.. the list goes on...!) is back in action at TV5. We remember he did not work magic when with a channel the last time, at Teja. Let's see if Kandula, a close associate of IS, does wonders this time around. Kranti, who quit TV9 to foray into politics is back to media. He made a mark when at TV9 and will not take long to hit his peak. Bhaskar from Delhi might return to city to join the channel. So it's interesting to see who would outperform between TV5 and NTV. Last heard, NTV has recruited 44 editorial staff and is set to start training classes for the newcomers.

Meanwhile, Karim officially put in his papers at TV9 on Wednesday. The guy is in troubles up to his neck, say friends at TV9. Colourful "stories" are doing the rounds about his real estate misadventure and of course other escapades. One of the two new channels might consider him, after all a "known face" would be a safe bet for a new entrant. Will his personal life mar his professional prospects? Might. Rajinikant who stepped in Karim's shoes at TV9 might continue the 7pm bulletin or might be relieved. Aalapati Suresh might be a dark horse. Let's wait and watch.

Attack on Media: The biggie is making big noise about media coming under attack. You and I think he's crying wolf! After all, look who's taking the brunt of the attack -- the small fries and the footsoldiers. One Editor is arrested in Karnataka. Let's see if Rams and Duas care to stand by such country cousins. The Hindu has this report on the incident. Pls check. (http://www.hinduonnet.com/2007/03/06/stories/2007030607220300.htm)

Andhra Prabha carried an article by, who else, the grand old man of Telugu Journalism Dr ABK. A must Read. http://www.andhraprabha.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=APV20070307060719&Title=Articles&lTitle=%AAy%F9ry%CC%C1V&Topic=0

We will soon take a serious look at the attacks on mediamen and where and how things are going wrong.

Travails of talent:

Talent can be your best friend and your worst enemy. Mostly, depends on who the boss is.

On a sultry evening, we met this guy sitting alone in a bar frequented by desperate newshounds like us. We soon identified this bloke as the one who used to work with a national daily where he was appreciated by some and despised by others for the same reason!! He writes well.

We could see this guy was glum and low. Job blues? We contacted our "moles" and probed. It took some time for us to get into the details, but our insiders nudged along to get into the bottom.
And alas! The story we got from inside the House next to graves was quite creepy. The man, who we thought was on a torpor, was in fact working for a daily in the neighbouring state, bringing out an edition and writing articles in the edit page columns.
An ex HT editor and now the national head of all their metro supplements was impressed by this guy's pellucid and impressive way of writing and took him into the House and offered him an independent position. But, it never gave him chance to use his creativity. Still, we hear the chap enjoyed that as he was not under the infamous metro editor from the House.
A fair skinned lady (single and bold!) who had targets to meet, tried her best to torture him when she was unable to perform well. Bigwigs joined hands with the fair sex, spent their evenings together in places where our P3P took notice and nattered around.
Then came the news of the closing down of the particular department where this wrecked soul was working, out of the blue.
The lady editor of the supplement was fast enough to act. Though in all the other centres people are waiting to get fresh letter from the company, this woman, say insiders, already started making him writhe with insult engaging juniors to dictate terms.
We hear that people who know his potential are out with offers and this guy is seriously planning to quit! Here's wishing you luck buddy... Get out of the Ghost House and you will surely go places.

Media or Market?

Here are more perspectives about “When Business meets Media.” It actually means wearing two hats as a Supreme Court bench consisting of chief justice K G Balakrishnan and justice Ravindran observed recently. When Harish Salve, counsel for Margadarsi Financiers, attributed mala fide to chief minister Rajasekhara Reddy, chief justice Balakrishnan commented, "Financial institutions are always in trouble. Why can’t the government intervene?” At another point, justice Ravindran, who was part of the two-man bench, said, "When the chief minister commits a mistake you pointed it out. Similarly, when you did wrong, the State government has acted. Your client (Mr Ramoji Rao) is wearing two hats. One is as a newspaper owner and the other as a proprietor of a chit fund company. When, according to law, only an incorporated company can collect deposits, Hindu Undivided Family (HUF) cannot carry out such business. If the RBI has issued some instructions that means everything is not right.”

The Press Commissions foresaw this tussle long ago. The second Press Commission has strongly recommended the delinking of the press from its connections with other industries. In the context of industrialists venturing into printing of newspapers with a profit motive, some members of the commission pointed out the need to have journalists and their newspapers independent of any influence from the barons of industry. With this in mind, it was suggested that either owners of newspapers who were involved with other businesses and industries delink themselves from the latter, or else sever their connections with the press.

It is in the best interests of the readers to free the press “from steamrollering of the commercial process so that it may mean maximum amount of freedom of expression for the maximum number of people. It is because of the close hold press barons have on a majority of daily newspapers that the content of the newspapers they own subserves their monetary interests, said Jan R. Hakemulder in his book Print Media Communication.

The clash of media-business interests is not a new phenomenon in Indian journalism. The pioneers are not Ramoji Rao or Girish Sanghi. They had illustrious forbears like the Dalmias, the Birlas and Ramnath Goenka. While the first two negotiated successive governments with élan and finesse Ramnath Goenka tried to be both a media hero and a businessman. That did not work. Goenka had several newspapers and also jute and steel interests. He had top Congress leaders and ministers (Kamaraj Nadar and T T Krishnamachari) taking care of his interests. But when Indira Gandhi nationalized the Indian Iron and Steel Company in which he had a large chunk of shares and which he was planning to take over, he turned against the mainstream Congress known as Congress (I) in those days. The government also took over his National Jute Company. The Antulay witch hunt in the Arun Shourie era also had a similar background. Who does not know Ramnath Goenka’s thirst for real estate?

One of India’s biggest real estate barons, the Raheja group, which owns the Outlook weekly edited by Vinod Mehta, also had problems with the government. Mehta raised the bogey of freedom of press when tax officials raided the offices of the Raheja group. Why should the Editors’ Guild which is purely a professional body come to the rescue of Ramoji Rao whose business and not media interests are hurt by Andhra Pradesh government’s actions? It is not only owners but individual journalists too who are torn between duty and avarice. It is well known that senior journalists seek favours for their owners and smooth out problems with the government.

But a much wider perspective is the convergence of media and market. Take a look at the media space that Ramoji Rao is in control of. His Telugu daily Eenadu is published from 23 centres, three of them extraterritorial – Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi. He publishes Vipula and Chatura, two literary magazines, Annadaata, a magazine for farmers and Sitara, a film weekly. His ETV has an all-India reach with 12 regional channels. ETV also provides digital entertainment to Indians living in the US with ETV Telugu, ETV Bangla and ETV Gujarati entertainment channels. His Ushodaya Movies has produced several box-office hits. The world’s largest film studio Ramoji Film City is owned by him. This is his media clout reinforced by other interests like Priya Foods, Kalanjali and Margadarsi Financiers which now is under AP government’s scrutiny. Ramoji Rao is a combination of media and market power.

We will understand Reddy-Ramoji Rao tussle more readily if we see media as agents of power. This is how Herbert Altschull saw the media in the early eighties when he wrote a book by that name. The Altschull thesis and Noam Chomsky’s theory of manufacturing consent do not hold any more. Today, media imposes a consent. Everywhere, Murdoch-type media empires are emerging taking advantage of liberal financial climate globalization has fostered. Today, there is really no meeting point between the interests of the media and the interests of their constituencies. They disseminate not what the publics need but what the publics want.

The giant waves of globalization released by constantly coalescing market forces make all the difference to media and their original function. Most media, print, radio and TV, (with honorable exceptions) disseminate values that override the concerns of a majority of the population. The content we read, hear and view has little relevance to the alleviation of centuries-old illiteracy and poverty of the millions. The hysteria about Oscars in Indian media is a representative specimen of media priorities that anesthetizes not only the leisured classes to problems concerning the poor but the poorer classes themselves to what is their problem. You will see that with the exception of few old-type newspapers almost all the media are selling globalization directly and indirectly.

On the other hand, specially in today’s scenario where media unabashedly declares that their content is geared to what people want but not what they need, where the dialogue is top-down and one-sided, where the audience is condemned to consume content not of their choice but that which is determined by the interests of the media owner, media can be said to have abandoned their public service function. Whereas a Chandrababu Naidu or a Rajasekhara Reddy cannot continue to be in office by merely attacking each other, a newspaper attracts audience by attacking the government deluding the people into believing that they are playing the role of a watchdog or adversary. Vijay Mallya is more honest. Asked why he is buying up newspapers, he said, "The reason I am buying into the media is that in India, it is an essential part of management of our business - it’s my insurance policy."

When Business meets Media

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Ramnath Goenka and Ramoji Rao: Who's the ideal margadarsi (role model)?

Business and Media have nothing to do with each other. Try telling that to Sobhana Bhartia, Uday Kotak, Saharashree Roy, Aroon Poorie, Sharad Pawar, Srini Raju, Subash Goel, Girish Sanghi, Ramoji Rao or the late Ramnath Goenka.

For these business barons, media is just another business venture, just like cement or running a bank. They had other businesses to run and a newspaper or a television channel was all about profit and loss. Forget the old time talk of a newspaper being a harbinger of social change and a defender of truth and freedom. Bullshit. It's all about money, honey.

A newspaper is not just about ink and newsprint. It's about hundreds and thousands of people who eke out a living. Naturally, a newspaper has to make money. It has to pay for the land on which the press is located, spend on buying the printing equipment, buy newsprint, pay electricity bills, and of course, the salary of its employees. Naturally, all these require money. Which is possible only if the owner of the newspaper has some business other than his dream of a newspaper to start with.

If a newspaper does not make money, it has only one choice – shut down. When bad times dawn, the same fire breathing political leaders and armchair social activists who talk about freedom of speech will not pay the salary of newspaper employees. Ask employees of Udayam (now in limbo), Andhra Prabha, Indian Express and Vaartha. They will tell you about heartless owners who do not pay salary for months on end.

Being the owner of a newspaper or a television channel gives an aura of respectability. Even if the owner is a crook like Girish Sanghi. He used the power of the written to hijack the paper from its original owners, and walk around like a messiah. Hobnobbing with political class, he soon wormed his way to Lyuten’s Delhi and got a membership of the Rajya Sabha. Today, no one questions this man on why he does not pay salary to his employees. Or why he lobbies for builders who violate all rules and regulations. Why? He is a newspaper boss and an MP too.

It’s a sad reflection of our times when political parties start handing out tickets to crooks in the guise of media bosses for having supported them in ‘their’ cause. There are people like Rajiv Shukla and Chandan Mitra who made it to Parliament based on their political affiliations. Whoever said that ‘politics is the last refuge of the scoundrel’ said it right. But then not everyone is a scoundrel.

The late Ramnath Goenka was a man who was an exception to this rule. A colossus, he stood up for what he believed in. For him, fighting the establishment was a passion. One, which got him into the bad books of ruling elite, more often than not. But Ramnath Goenka stood by editors, who were fine men of letters and ethics like BG Verghese and Arun Shourie.

Instead we have men like Venkatram Reddy of Deccan Chronicle who owns expensive cars, over a dozen race horses, and a number of failed businesses including one called Annapurna Foils. It always helps to deal with bankers and politicians if you are the owner of a newspaper. Reddy Jr had briefly stepped into the shoes of his late father to serve out the reminder of his Rajya Sabha term. When he does not get something done his way in his business, he wears the hat of a newspaper owner. Nobody dared ask him why his name does not find mention as the publisher of DC. That's another story of how a newspaper belonging to a Tamilian family was ruthlessly hijacked by Reddy senior.

Now, a debate has erupted on the role of Ramoji Rao, Margadarsi and Eenadu. It’s about a thin line that divides on where the role of a businessman ends and that of a newspaper editor starts. Should one keep newspaper business and other ventures separate? Can an attack on one be construed as an attack on the other? Can a businessman-newspaper owner hide his othher businesses under the cloak of being a defender of the freedom of press?

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