“Business Journalism is all about money”, is the 1st thing that my Professor who is also an editor for the Businessline, The Hindu told us in our Business journalism course. What my professor tried to do with that introduction was to tell us to be ready to look at the financial implications with every political decision, charitable act by the big names etc. But we couldn’t help but look at the pun in his statement, after class we went on to discuss the five-star-hotel press conferences, sample gifts from corporate, paid holidays etc that was a part of business journalism.
So if we were to think in the same lines as what my professor told us, then is “political journalism all about POWER”. Well maybe not, but the last two weeks of newspaper headlines tells me so.
Barkha Dutt is not any Tom, Dick or Harry in the Indian industry. For many Indians she is to the Indian media what Sachin Tendulkar is to cricket. So hearing power broking and lobbying allegations against Barkha is not digestible in the 1st gulp for many. But then reality is a B****, and the tapes are there for everyone to hear. What to believe and what not to believe is the question.
No I have not taken sides, neither Barkhas nor the critics. But I feel the cover up/clarification technique taken up by Barkha was one taken in haste and has only added to the fire.
Barkha in her personal statement in the NDTV website tried to defend herself by saying “As journalists we deal with different kinds of people, who sometime solicit information and at other times, provide news leads. Unless we believe in only press-conference driven journalism, the need to tap into what's happening behind-the-scenes in the corridors of power involves dealing with a multitude of voices”.
Not only did Barkha try to clean up her image by herself but NDTV too came to her rescue by writing an article against Open magazine’story which put Barkha in bad light with connection to the Radia tapes in their official website stating, “to caricature the professional sourcing of information as "lobbying" is not just baseless, but preposterous.”
NDTV even went on to publish in their website the SMS messages exchanged between Barkha and Manu Joseph, Open magazines editor. These messages try to question Manu’s ethics as a person i.e. telling Barkha something, and doing something else. But if that was supposed to take away the attention from the issue itself, then I can only say “sorry NDTV, the trick dint work”.
NDTV then made a brave move by inviting the main critics and experts in the field to a talk show, where the guests could ask questions to Barkha on the incident, and she would clarify(defend) them on camera. I believe “the idea” by NDTV was a good one, contrary to what many renowned journalists think. NDTV tried to show that they were transparent, and by trying to get all three sides of the story (accused, accuser and expert) they were doing good journalism in the process. Moreover it was a plan to save their senior editor’s face. But unfortunately the plan did not work.
Barkha who is normally seen grilling politicians in her show “the buck stops here” was made to exchange seats and was in turn made to defend herself on the “BarkhaGate” accusations. And that was not not easy for her. As much as she tried to keep her cool, and act a participant in the discussion, she could not hold back her instincts. She did loose it in between, her emotions were evident withevery nod of her head and twitch of her nose.
The Open magazine editor, Manu Joseph infact had a good time, he stole the show and managed in sailing it the way he wanted. He got to ask the question he wanted to ask her, which he knew she dint have the perfect answer for, and thus he succeeded in making the statement he wanted to without saying too much. Barkha tried to bring in the issue of whether publishing “raw material” like telephone transcripts was in the lines of Journalists ethics. That is a debate in itself, but to get to the bottom of the lobbying scandal many of the ethic gurus have made an exception to overlook the ethics of publishing the tapes.
Both the articles in the website, and the NDTV talk show dint serve the purpose they were supposed to. While many journalists have remained silent on the whole controversy, a few have spoken in favor of Barkha. The Hindustan Times has decided to suspend Vir Sanghvi's column Counterpoint after tapes of his conversations with Niira Radia surfaced last week.
Will Barkha suffer a similar plight? Or will she be able to convince the entire nation that she was just speaking to a source to get her story?
All said and done, this is one case that asks Indian journalism to wake up, and start mending their ways or more skeletons in the closet will be exposed and more tapes shall be leaked soon. God save us all. Period
