Have stings replaced news?

The anchor held up a piece of paper and shouted down a politician with the precious words: "I have this secret information." A rival channel did its own bit of smirking: "Our sting operation will give you the whole story."

It will not. This too is fed information. The reason there is a surfeit of 'stings' — how can a formal letter by a cop to his bosses be called a sting operation when he has written it and sent it? — is because newspapers and TV channels have saturated the regular routes and want to entertain. Many of the readers and viewers too wish to be entertained, and news stories, however controversial, become more interesting when they stink.

Sting operations get a whole lot of points by a gullible public that assumes those blurred video clips are done as an act of public good. No one bothers to check out the motives behind these moves. It is high time we made the mainstream media answerable, but the alternatives are not always as above-board as they appear simply because they too depend on the largesse of sponsors, advertising and benefactors.

A few noises are being made now about some of these exposés. I wish it had been done earlier, too. Then we would have been spared this rush and rash of scoops where dirt covers only more dirt.

I've said it in earlier pieces, and instead of repeating myself I shall reproduce two extracts, one from 2010, the other from 2007. [Unfortunately, opinions do not qualify as scoops and exposés!]:

Stings that stink, 2007, Asian Age Op-Ed:

Have sting operations changed anything? Have people stopped having their palms greased? Is there more awareness about wrongdoing? Are the culprits shunned by society?

You know the answers. They have, on the contrary, become even more important.

A reporter of a Delhi television channel tried to expose a teacher for forcing her students into prostitution. It turned out to be fake. It was done on the prodding of a businessman as a planned strategy to hit out at the teacher for owing him Rs 100,000. He called up a reporter who we are told harangued her to make a few quick bucks by getting into the flesh trade and supply women. It is said she fell for this bait. A colleague of the reporter was sent as a potential girl ready for the job.

The whole story sounds bizarre. Would a woman in a respectable profession be so gullible as to get into criminal activity? If there is any truth, then why has it been labelled fake? This is not a big channel. Had it been one of those fancy ones, do you imagine anyone would have made such a noise about its lack of authenticity? The reporter has been arrested. I would like to know what is being done to the channel owners. This isn’t just a sensational story. It is about an issue that concerns women and any sensible person. Sting operators cannot get away with it.

Is this about vigilantism at all? (In 2005), there was an exposé where 11 Members of Parliament were bribed to pose questions in the House. The website carried tape recorders and cameras to catch them red-handed and a TV channel aired what they thought was a complete travesty. These clippings were later shown in Parliament. Newspaper reports were dramatic: "Parliament was stunned into shamed silence."

Does Parliament feel no shame when elected members throw slippers and chairs at each other? Has no ministry ever been shamed for taking kickbacks by giving a contract to an undeserving company?

And who were the MPs who were paid Rs 15,000 to just over a lakh for asking questions? Were they important enough names? These nobodies suddenly got notorious fame as "the dirty eleven." I can lay a bet that even if they were not bribed and were told they would be given some media coverage, they would still have done what they did. The sting operation only helped make scapegoats of a few unknowns to let the real sharks march around like saints. A whitewash job has never been simpler.

The real scoop was this, and it had been reported in this newspaper: The television channel gave the sting operators about Rs 58 lakhs. Less than Rs 10 lakhs was spent on the entire operation. The bribe amount was less than Rs 3 lakhs. Other expenses were about Rs 5 lakhs. The equipment was available on loan. Was the balance money returned to the TV channel? Does anyone know?

There should be transparency regarding sting operations too. Jaya Jaitly, who ought to know, had made an interesting comment, that it would be honest if a person went to these sting operators and told them that someone was taking money for asking questions or getting things done; the snoops could then accompany the person and catch the culprit in the act.

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Would they do a sting operation on cultural organisations or famous "respectable" artistes who get special privileges? What about nominated MPs from the "world of arts" who use their position to further their personal causes? What about NGOs that misuse foreign funds? What about media houses that take money from socialites to promote them?

The media as middleman, 2010, CounterPunch

Journalists have often got prime posts in social organisations or are sent on junkets; many of the hugely respected senior names conduct all their ‘investigations’ over the telephone, which means they are fed information by interested groups. What about owners of channels who get elected and become MPs?

To push the envelope (no pun intended) further, what about freedom of speech? Does the industrial house not have the freedom to lobby? Does the lobbyist not have the freedom to push her case? Does the journalist not have the freedom to act as a go-between?

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Political stooges have always existed, only the level of subtlety has altered their persona. You just have to spend some time in any of the intellectual hubs in Delhi and you will see a journalist supping with a politician or a bureaucrat. There are TV channels that have given preference to young recruits merely due to their proximity to and sometimes family connections with such powerful people.

The (Radia tapes) revelations have become such a talking point, ironically, because they have been exposed with much flourish outside the mainstream media in India. Internationally, the Washington Post mentioned ‘paid news’ and reported that The Foundation for Media Professionals plans to host a conference on journalists as power brokers. The organisations’s spokesperson said, “We are actually happy that these practices have come out in the open. It forces us to address the problem. We as journalists sit in judgment of others all the time. We should hold ourselves to a higher standard.”

Journalists are fallible and their standards should be decreed by ethics and not morality and most certainly must not become a ruse for nobility. The self-examination should also raise questions about the media conducting kangaroo courts and making a spectacle of helpless common people.

"False history gets made all day, any day, the truth of the new is never on the news." (Adrienne Rich)

© Farzana Versey

Why stings stink: Jindal vs. Zee

Jindal shows his evidence: Pic: The Hindu

The media is shocked. An industrialist-politician has done a sting operation on them. What is less shocking, but rather amusing, is how some of the media people are getting so self-righteous. As though they do not know what happens in the big cabins in their own offices. In fact, the reportage at different news outlets shows their own agendas quite glaringly. People have short memories or selective memories.

Here’s a report from The Hindu:

In what’s being called a reverse sting, Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) chairman Naveen Jindal has released video recordings which allegedly show Zee editors trying to extort Rs. 100 crore in return for the channel not airing damaging stories on coal block allocations involving his company.

At a dramatic press conference on Thursday, Mr. Jindal, who is also a Congress MP, distributed a CD with a 14-minute montage of footage, which he said was culled from hidden camera recordings of a series of meetings in mid-September between JSPL executives and Sudhir Chaudhary and Samir Ahluwalia, editors of Zee News and Zee Business. Claiming that this was the first time an Indian corporate was exposing media malpractice, Mr. Jindal said: “The government gives channels a licence to show news. They are not given a licence for extortion or blackmail.” JSPL has filed a criminal case against Zee, alleging extortion, and says it decided to make the videos public only because the channel was accusing the company of blackmail. JSPL officials indicated they were also likely to file a defamation suit against the media group in the next few days.

While Mr. Jindal is absolutely right, it is arrogant to even mention about the government giving a license as though it is a favour. Besides, would he have had the same opinion if the channel were giving his company favourable coverage? The answer is evident in his statement that he made the videos public only because the channel accused his company of blackmail. This indicates the possibility that the meeting might not have been for extortion but as a transaction.

Anyone in the media who is pretending that such deals do not take place is lying. Individual media persons might be clean or not involved, but a few things are obvious:

• News depends on advertising; the lines between the two are blurred 
• Every single media house has its own agenda and political slant, and the staff is expected to follow it. There might be the occasional story to appear ‘balanced’, but that’s about it.

In this sting, there are two aspects. The politician wanting to silence a channel and the channel willing to do so for a price. Which one is worse?

Politicians have always used the media, and the media has deluded itself into believing that it is all-powerful. This is not new. Go back to the days of The Indian Express and Ramnath Goenka ‘making’ Arun Shourie who unmade a government. Without any sting operation as we know it now, the cement scandal was exposed. Arun Shourie did not last in the Express, and A.R.Antulay got discredited for a while. Indira Gandhi, his boss for whom it was alleged the whole scam was, remained untainted.

It becomes almost a quid pro quo that when you are exposing one political party the others can use that news. It is obvious. You watch TV panel discussions. They have someone from the opposing groups, who invariably manage to snigger. And the circle continues. These kangaroo courts try to influence the gullible public, who would anyway not have much immediate stake in, say, Jindal’s business or what Zee TV does, as it did not in the past when other sting operations and CDs became public. 

This rigmarole is essentially political and grist for a channel war.

“Anyway, it is not something which I am asking you which is out of the world, out of the blue,” says Mr. Ahluwalia in a conversation near the end of the video. “If you actually look at it, it’s actually a win-win for both of us… Honestly, I am saying when we do a relationship with people, when we do a relationship with an advertiser, it’s a relationship in which I will give you more than even you can ask.” The Zee editors claim they are not the only media outlet which works like this. “At least we are doing a proper transparent deal with you, at least we are not doing a front page story which is paid for….”

The word “advertiser” was used. An editorial team doing the work of the advertising team may seem unusual, but it is fairly common. In some ways, I am glad this is out, because instead of being sanguine the other media houses should be worried.  Are they? When you read big fat editorials and watch big fat debates, just think about what could be hidden, not what is stated. The louder the indignation, the more reason they have to not be outed themselves.

Headlines Today Managing Editor Rahul Kanwal said:

“Stunned silence in the newsroom as journalists watch the Jindal-Zee sting operation. Anyone who indulges in extortion should be exposed…Not correct for Editors to be discussing revenue deal with a corporate at a time when channel is running series of exposes on the company.”

And what about other times? What about the possibility of other channels being happy because they are already protecting the ones opposing Coalgate?

CNN-IBN deputy editor Sagarika Ghose said:

“I joined journalism over 20 years ago, fresh from Oxford, idealistic about being part of India's great free press. Sad, shocked today.”

Had she remained in the UK, wonder what she’d have to say about the News of the World leaks and where that Oxford-earned idealism would go.

There is a counter-offensive:

Responding to the Jindal CD on their channel, Zee’s editors said they were the ones conducting a sting operation to show how far Jindal would go to suppress the story, adding that they had taken a “dummy” contract with them…In a joint statement released later in the evening, the Zee editors called the Jindal CD a “deliberate attempt to malign and defame” them, to “prejudice” the ongoing investigations, and to “silence the growing demand for an independent probe in the Coalgate scam.”

Why have they kept quiet? What mahurat were they waiting for?

The politician-journalist nexus always existed, but now it has become worse because they can be ‘friends’ more easily. Paid news is only one aspect. I don’t understand why the media gives awards to politicians. I don’t understand why the government allots land for media persons to get housing. Does anyone check on the credentials on the Press Club members and even office bearers?

And beat me with a feather, but how many people in the media will reject a Rajya Sabha seat or a place in some fancy government panel?

There is much to be silent about because there are strong lobbies working everywhere. That is why even casting the first stone is done as a herd, so that the ripples are diffused. 

(c) Farzana Versey