Tag Archives: Vir Sanghvi

The cosy world behind the tapes

9 Dec
Barkha Dutt - Inclusive Growth - World Economi...

Image by World Economic Forum via Flickr

Vidya Subrahmaniam in THE HINDU

The public face of the journalist is of a brave, feisty adversary tothe rapacious establishment, not the party animal who will wilt before the charms of the corporate lobbyist

To succeed, a politician has to keep his ear to the ground. Yet success can be cruelly destructive; it is so deceptively flattering that it eventually insulates him from the very thing that has made him a success: public opinion. For the politician, fed on heady tales of his invincibility and listening only to courtiers and attendants, the moment of discovery can be shattering.

The Niira Radia tapes have come as a similar, awakening moment for journalists. At one level, the tapes are about a nation in deep crisis, with a corporate lobbyist shown as being able effortlessly to penetrate and influence decision-making at multiple levels. If this is a mere teaser-trailer, as reports of 5000 more tapes suggest, what more damning, frightening things are we going to learn?

At another level, l`affaire Radia is a stunning indictment of the media, or at least sections of it. Indeed, for journalists caught on the tape, and tried by members of their own tribe for the lapse, the troubling question is about their credibility. Did they go too far in placing themselves at the disposal of Ms Radia knowing she was a lobbyist for two powerful corporate groups, the Tatas and Mukesh Ambani? Forget the people at large, why did their explanations not carry conviction with the rest of the media? And more critically, did stardom and public adulation cause them to lose their way so badly that they could not judge between right and wrong?

That illusions of grandeur and infallibility can affect journalists in exactly the same way they do politicians and film stars has been evident in the discussions held so far. Barkha Dutt chose to face a firing squad of senior media professionals on her role in the Radia tapes and yet missed the opportunity to show remorse and recover the fund of goodwill that had made her an icon. Her point: She would not apologise for a wrong she had not committed and it was entirely valid to talk to a corporate lobbyist and trade information for information. Ms Dutt threw counter questions at her interrogators, suggesting at times that they did not know the first thing about modern-day journalism.

The verdict was that Ms Dutt did herself no favour by acting so self-important. There were the inevitable comparisons between TV journalists and the politicians they attacked; it seemed that both could be brought down by hubris. Also revealed last week was the yawning gap between rank and file journalism and club class journalism, placed on opposite ends during a discussion on media ethics held at the lawns of the Delhi Press Club. Editor-in-Chief of CNN-IBN Rajdeep Sardesai, who was among the panellists, wrongly assumed that he was lecturing to a captive audience. Pitching in strongly for the dramatis personae on the Radia tapes, he argued that sourcing stories from lobbyists, even if not desirable, had become a requirement of fast moving journalism. It was excessive and unacceptable therefore to treat this as a serious misconduct. And then, Mr. Sardesai made a fatal error: He said he detected professional envy in the orchestrated outrage against Ms Dutt.

This was more than what the assembly of journalists could take. They were being portrayed as dull, and plodding in comparison to the savvy new media. The floodgates opened and for the next hour or so, it was the popular TV editor’s turn to listen as reporters tore to shreds the thesis that competitive compulsions had allowed for a variety of liberties in reporting, including tapping corporate lobbyists for information, and even allowing opinions to be formed by this information. Incensed mediapersons related their own experience of being able to break stories without compromising on journalistic sources. A senior print journalist with a stupendous track record in political journalism spoke of resisting alluring baits and finding access to important sources solely on the strength of her hard-earned credibility. Another shouted that not all journalists were in the profession for fame. However, unlike Ms Dutt, the amiable Mr. Sardesai quickly conceded the point, accepting that the lines separating journalism, politics and lobbying had indeed blurred to unfortunate portents for the health and future of journalism. The debate wound up with someone good humouredly remarking that the grassroots media had finally taken their revenge.

With the Radia debate into its third week, it has become more than apparent that a new kind of journalism has completely rewritten the rules of engagement in the profession. For those working with television, the glamour and fame can be overpowering, with the high visibility translating into throbbing, pulsating fan clubs, enormous following on social media networks and celebrity status on the party circuit. For the likes of Ms Radia, the “celeb journo” is a sitting duck, a vulnerable target both for passing on and acquiring information. News gathered this way slowly and inevitably acquires a legitimacy that eventually allows all lines to be crossed. From this to concluding that news cannot be got any other way is a small step. The trappings of power work similarly for politicians and journalists. Cut off from the rude realities of the normal world, both begin to live in a bubble of their own making. But whereas the politician, used to voter mood swings, will quickly learn his lesson when the truth hits home, the journalist, not tutored in this art, will react in anger and shock and go into spasms of denial.

Journalists who enjoy the limelight must also be prepared for the backlash when it comes. It can be argued that the journalistic indiscretions revealed by the Radia tapes are small change compared to the scale of adventurism on the part of politicians. Yet journalists alone, among a host of players caught on the tapes, have been at the receiving end of public anger: Rapid-fire tweets, emotional, angry lashing out on facebook accounts, chain text messages, black humour forwards, the responses have fed on each other. Partly lynch-mobbish, the fury is in larger measure because of a feeling of being let down. The public face of the journalist is of a brave, feisty adversary to the rapacious establishment, not the party animal who will wilt before the charms of the corporate lobbyist.

Television has hugely expanded this mandate with journalism turning almost vigilantist in the studio; here the fearless, morally superior and much loved anchor is judge and jury to the condemned political class. What the tapes have done is to expose this virtuoso performance as a sham. The combative anchor who relentlessly interrogates and shames his guests on the 9 pm bulletin morphs into an altogether different character on the tapes, entirely at ease with dubious elements. From the perspective of the trusting outsider, the cosy compact between the interrogator, the interrogated and the go-between must surely seem like a rude joke pulled off at his expense.

It does not help that most of those caught out on the tapes have a wafer-thin defence. The one claim that they have all made is that they strung Ms Radia along — as if the hard-nosed lobbyist can be so easily taken for a ride. The question is: What gave Ms Radia the confidence that journalists can be commandeered to do her bidding? What explains the easy familiarity between the hacks and their corporate contact? How is she able to wake up lofty names from their slumber? If, for all her pain and perseverance, Ms Radia only got the journalistic heave-ho, then it is a serious comment on the wisdom of the corporate groups that employed her.

Nor does the privacy argument work, given journalism’s increasingly ferocious appetite for news of any and every kind. Don’t TV eager-beavers chase after their targets, ensnaring them in stings and so on, often without a thought to the damage the telecast might cause to personal reputations? Taped conversations between alleged terrorists are the staple of the medium. Two years ago, TV channels feverishly ran a “sex tape” that allegedly featured a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh functionary. The tape turned out to be a fake but the RSS man lost his job. TV channels on a moral trip on privacy have had no qualms about using salacious gossip involving some of the world’s biggest names, provided by WikiLeaks.

A case has also been made out against Outlook and Open magazine for not following the due process involved in doing the stories, including checking back with the taped journalists. Due process? If the tapes establish anything, it is the attempted subversion of the due process. As the lobbyist of a telecom group, Ms Radia manoeuvres to place a favoured candidate in the Telecom Ministry. She tries to influence parliamentary debate. She makes veiled suggestions about fixing judgments, and she co-opts willing journalists. In one of the tapes, she skewers the news head of a leading financial daily for daring to miss a story; the quaking, quivering news head in turn apologises to her as if she were his boss. Columnists reproduce her lines verbatim, so much so, when the first of the columns appear, Ms Radia and a senior colleague chuckle at the poor journalist’s vulnerability.

Some of the implicated journalists have since been suspended by their organisations. The media must introspect more seriously, following it up with a clear understanding of the red lines, if lobbyists are not to make a habit of bossing us, if people are not to treat every story and every journalist with suspicion.

http://www.hindu.com/2010/12/09/stories/2010120955681200.htm

Related Articles

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Hello, this is Niira

1 Dec
This is a portrait of Mr.Ratan Naval Tata made...

Image via Wikipedia

New Delhi From the website of Vaishnavi Corporate Consulting, the public relations firm run by Niira Radia, a concise statement of what the firm offers its clients:

“Understand mindsets that lead to reporting patterns in news, editorial policies and leanings”

“Effectively represent our views to the media through position papers and regular interactions”

“Hence enable influencing of media views”

Unremarkable PR firm claims? Or a corporate mission statement that’s unwittingly only too apt?

Radia is at the centre of a growing controversy where the basic storyline revolves round questions on her influence and the mindsets of some media professionals. News magazines Open and Outlook published transcripts of Radia’s conversations with politicians, industrialists and journalists. Radia’s conversations with journalists have led to questions about media ethics, and some of the journalists whose conversations with Radia have been published have both defended themselves and asked questions about the tapes leaked so far.

There is now a central government-ordered inquiry into the Radia tapes. There’s also a petition in the Supreme Court filed by Ratan Tata asking the question whether the publication of the Radia tapes aren’t a violation of privacy rights. Tata’s companies are among Radia’s clients, as are other big corporate groups including Reliance Industries headed by Mukesh Ambani.

THE CONVERSATIONS

The published transcripts feature Radia’s conversations with senior editors based in New Delhi and Mumbai. Journalists identified in the tapes include Vir Sanghvi, Advisory Editorial Director of HT Media (publisher of Hindustan Times); Barkha Dutt, Group Editor, English News, NDTV; Prabhu Chawla, Editor (Languages), The India Today Group; Shankkar Aiyar, former Managing Editor, India Today; and M K Venu, who was then Senior Editor, The Economic Times, and is now Managing Editor of The Financial Express, a sister publication of The Indian Express.

Radia’s conversation with Sanghvi and Dutt seem to have happened around the time the UPA-II government was being constituted in early 2009. The transcripts seem to indicate that Radia was seeking Sanghvi’s and Dutt’s help in securing the telecom portfolio for the DMK’s A Raja and to keep another contestant, former telecom minister and DMK member Dayanidhi Maran, at bay. Also, the tapes feature discussions around the legal and corporate battle between the Ambani brothers on the KG basin gas pricing.

From the published conversations, Sanghvi and Dutt appear keen to help Radia and also offer to mediate between the Congress and the DMK.

For example, Sanghvi says: “We’ve made a basic offer, if Karunanidhi responds to us and tell this that he would like to respond directly, he would like to talk to Ms Gandhi. He spoke only to Manmohan Singh. We would be more than happy but we’re not going to chase them now. We’ve told Maran that also they’ve to come back to us and tell us what they think of our offer. And apparently the DMK is getting very bad press in Chennai.”

In one of her conversations with Radia, Dutt is heard asking the lobbyist what she (Dutt) should tell the Congress; the context was that the Congress and DMK appeared to have reached a deadlock on the portfolio distribution issue. Dutt asks Radia: “Oh God. So now what? What should I tell them? Tell me what should I tell them?” Dutt is also heard offering to speak with Congress leaders on the DMK’s behalf and even promises action on their requests. “That’s not a problem. I’ll talk to Azad (reference to Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad). I’ll talk to Azad right after I get out of RCR (apparently, referring to the Prime Minister’s residence, Race Course Road).

One of Radia’s conversations with Sanghvi also deals with the gas dispute between the Ambani brothers. In one instance, Sanghvi seems to be asking Radia on what he should write in his weekly column, Counterpoint, in Hindustan Times. “What kind of story do you want?” he asks Radia.

Sanghvi’s Counterpoint that appeared in the Hindustan Times on November 28 said the column is being discontinued for an indefinite period.

The conversation with Venu relates to the placement of a certain news story that Radia wants published. Venu tells Radia if she wants better coverage she should give the story to CNBC, a business news channel.

Chawla is heard discussing the row between the Ambani brothers with Radia. Radia appears to have called Chawla to seek his opinion on the ongoing tussle and the two talk about courts and developments within the government on the issue. “Abhi tak Supreme Court ka, between you and me, kuch finalise hua nahin?” asks Radia. To this, Chawla says: “Finalise ka matlab kya hai? Bhai, Murli Deora bhi jayega court mein. Prime Minister is also putting pressure on Murli Deora to settle it. Because ultimate it is national loss na, as you put it.”

THE ORIGIN OF THE TAPES

Open and Outlook have said the tapes and the transcripts are courtesy a petition filed by Prashant Bhushan, an advocate, in the Supreme Court seeking an investigation into Radia’s role in the 2G scam. The two news magazines have said these tapes were from official phone taps that happened between May 11, 2009 and July 11, 2009.

According to a senior income-tax official who was part of the team involved in the phone-tapping, the I-T department was investigating cases of tax evasions and I-T violations by Radia and her various PR agencies. As part of the investigation, the department, after a go-ahead from the Home Ministry, tapped Radia’s and some of her associates’ phones between August and October 2008 and May and July 2009. Meanwhile, the Central Bureau of Investigation was investigating several bureaucrats and individuals in the 2G scam case.

During its investigations, the CBI came across Radia’s name and asked the I-T department if it had any information on her. In a letter, dated November 16, 2009, Vineet Agarwal, Deputy Inspector General of Police, Anti Corruption Branch, CBI, wrote to Director General Income-Tax (investigations), Milap Jain, asking if the I-T department had “any information or records pertaining to any middlemen including Ms Ni(i)ra Radia, regarding (the) award of UAS licenses”.

In response, Ashish Abrol, Joint Director of Income-Tax, apprised Agarwal that the I-T department has been tapping Radia’s and some of her associates’ phones.

In his letter, dated November 20, 2009, Abrol wrote to Agarwal: “From conversations it appears that Ms N(i)ira Radia might have had some role with regards to the award of Telecom licenses…There are some direct conversations between Ms Radia and Telecom Minister (Raja)…” Abrol asked the CBI to collect the “extracts” of the conversations from his office.

On November 15, 2010, Bhushan filed a case in the Supreme Court with a copy of the “extracted” conversations and sought Radia’s interrogation in connection with the 2G scam. When asked about where the tapes came from, Bhushan said, “I cannot reveal the identity of my source. All I can say is that these conversations were tapped by the I-T department and the tapes were submitted by the CBI before the Supreme Court.” Explaining why he filed the petition with the tapes, he said: “The CBI has had these tapes for around a year but it didn’t bother to interrogate Radia in connection with the 2G scam.”

According to the I-T official, there are close to 6,000 pieces of conversations, out of which nearly 1,000 have got leaked.

MEDIA RESPONSES

No journalist named in the tapes has disputed the fact of the conversations with Radia. “I am not denying these conversations (with Radia),” said Sanghvi. “But at the same time, I am mystified about the source of these tapes and also the timing of the leaks,” he said. “It has been suggested to me that somebody in the government may have leaked these tapes to set the media on itself,” he said. Another journalist named in the conversations said: “The selection of the tapes and the manner in which they were released also make it seem like a case of corporate rivalry but in any case, the leaks have managed to deflect the ongoing debate on the government’s silence on 2G scam to the media.”

When contacted, Outlook’s editor-in-chief Vinod Mehta did not want to speak on the issue and the magazine’s editor Krishna Prasad regretted “not sending in a response” to questions sent on email. Open’s editor Manu Joseph, in response to a questionnaire sent by this newspaper, sent a note saying: “Open is sure of the authenticity of the recordings. That is the reason it ran the story.”

The journalists in question have denied any wrongdoing. Venu has initiated legal proceedings (civil and criminal defamation) against Outlook arguing that the magazine’s insinuation that he was part of the lobby — that “put Raja in the Cabinet” — was incorrect and defamatory since there’s no reference to Raja in the transcripts.

In a statement on NDTV’s website, Dutt said “the one sentence being used to damn me, ‘Oh God, What should I tell them’, is in fact two separate sentences, neither of which are related to A Raja or the telecom portfolio at all. When transcripts are edited and capture neither tone nor context, the message is severely distorted.”

She said that “the magazines that published the tapes themselves have flouted several principles of good journalism… They didn’t cross-check anything before publishing the said tapes”.

Some media veterans see the issue differently. “Nobody can deny the existence of lobbyists and PR people in the political or corporate space. It is a fact that journalists have to deal with such people while chasing stories and powerful people. There is nothing illegitimate in this,” said B G Verghese, former editor of Hindustan Times and The Indian Express. “There is no suggestion of corruption or any wrongdoing on the part of the journalists in the tapes. If at all, they come across as willing listeners and this is no crime.”

The issue has received some play in the US media, with The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post having reported on it. There have also been responses from media observers. “There is a clear clampdown, an orchestrated silence, in the media on this issue. Television news channels, which will pounce on the slightest hint of a controversy, have not even found the issue worthy of examining, forget about chastising people from their own fraternity,” said Santosh Desai, a columnist and CEO of Future Brands, the company that manages all the brands owned by retailer Future Group.

“Even if no quid pro quo is established, there is a clear evidence of power broking in the conversations. Journalists (in the conversations) seem quite comfortable in the role of players and those who peddle influence…they seem at ease in a space that they are not supposed to be in. And this is neither good for journalism nor for the democracy,” said Sevanti Ninan, an independent media observer.

Vir Sanghvi /Advisory Editorial Director with HT Media Ltd (publisher of the Hindustan Times and Dainik Hindustan)

In at least three instances, Radia is seeking Sanghvi’s help in reaching out to the Congress leadership and Sanghvi assures her of help. Sanghvi also seems to be discussing the content of his yet-to-be-written HT column. An email to Rajiv Verma, CEO, HT Media, asking him about the company’s stand on the tapes did not elicit any response. On November 28, Sanghvi, in Counterpoint, his column, announced that he was “taking a break” from writing the column. “I do not deny that these conversations happened, but the tapes have been doctored and the context tampered to give the conversations a certain slant,” he told The Indian Express.

Barkha Dutt / Group Editor, NDTV

Radia seems to be seeking Dutt’s help in resolving a logjam between the Congress and the DMK, and Dutt says she will communicate Radia’s and her bosses’ stand on various issues to Congress leaders. Said Dutt, “I never passed on any message to any Congress leader. But because she was a useful news source, and the message seemed innocuous, I told her I would. Ultimately, I did no more than humour a source.” In a statement, NDTV Group CEO and executive director Narayan Rao said, “To caricature the professional sourcing of information as ‘lobbying’ is not just baseless, but preposterous”.

M K Venu

Senior editor of The Economic Times at the time of the conversation; now managing editor of The Financial Express, a sister publication of The Indian Express

Venu and Radia discuss industry gossip; Radia seeks Venu’s opinion on whom she should give a certain story to. Venu says she should give it to an organisation that will display it prominently. Venu has initiated legal proceedings (civil and criminal defamation) against Outlook arguing that the magazine’s insinuation that he was part of the lobby — that “put Raja in the Cabinet” — was incorrect and defamatory since there’s no reference to Raja in the transcripts.

Shankkar Aiyar

Managing Editor with India Today at the time of the conversation

Discusses Cabinet formation of the UPA-II. Radia communicates with him on the portfolios that DMK wants for itself in the new government.

Ganapathy Subramaniam

Senior Assistant Editor, The Economic Times

Shares with Radia the placement of reports in the newspaper.

When contacted, a spokesperson of the Times Group said: “Media should refrain from publishing private conversations that merely serve to titillate and can damage individual reputations… A story has to go through many editorial filters before it appears in ET, which is often frustrating for PR agencies…We are watching the situation and reserve our right to act against individuals and publications if they harm the image or credibility of our brands.”

Prabhu Chawla

Editor (Languages), The India Today Group

Chawla’s conversation with Radia is about the gas dispute between Mukesh and Anil Ambani. Radia seems to have called Chawla to seek his opinion on the gas dispute case being fought by the two brothers in the Supreme Court. Chawla and Radia discuss the possibility of the Supreme Court judgment being fixed. Aroon Purie, chairman and editor-in-chief, India Today Group, didn’t respond to an email from The Indian Express. In a statement, Chawla said: “The 13-minute conversation had nothing to do with the controversial 2G of A Raja. Niira called me as she said ‘to seek my expertise’ on the ‘Battle for Gas’ between the two Ambani brothers. I merely told her that the earlier the brothers put an end to their private battle, the better it will be for the public good.”

Related Articles

Tags: , , , , , , ,