Sunday, December 5, 2010

Bright side of Media : Gopikrishnan (Pioneer)

Note : More often than not, I try to stay away from airing my views and instead stick to providing a perspective. But media is a long time grouse of mine and will make an exception.

The contrast between the disgraceful and inspiring sides of media has never been as stark as now. With the so called "prominent" media personalities overwhelming the airwaves with their theatrics and showmanship, it turns out there are still a few who silently do the real work.

While several media persons have played the role of watchdog in the 2G Spectrum allocation, one person that stands out is J. Gopikrishnan at the Daily Pioneer. Kudos to a certain unnamed whistleblower, jounalist Gopikrishnan and the management of Pioneer for staying true to the mission.

Here are excerpts from a chat with Gopirksihnan in The Man who felled the King (Nov 16, 2010)
  • We sensed a scam when Swan and Unitech started offloading shares at whopping prices of `4,500 crore and `6,200 crore in September 2008. Bureau chief Navin Upadhyay asked me to dig for information and luckily we got a great whistleblower, who knew the ins and outs of the Telecom Ministry. He once told me the PM was totally unhappy with Raja and had summoned him to ask what was going on.
  • Slowly, the whistleblower narrated the entire range of corruption in the Ministry. Those days, Minister Raja was making false claims that he had followed his predecessors. This young Government officer told me about the parking of funds in front companies by the Minister and his associates in the name of relatives. He told me who the actual beneficiaries of the scam were, including corporates, politicians and lobbyists.
  • This officer asked me to talk to my Editor and get his consent and only then would he reveal further. The Editor told me to go ahead and the whistleblower became a goldmine of hidden information for The Pioneer. Days and nights of discussion and checking the authenticity of facts happened in his office and at many crowded places in the city, once it became important to avoid detection.
  • After finding out the gamut of front companies dealing in real estate, we decided to expose Raja’s ill-gotten wealth. Chandan Mitra and Navin Upadhyay saw all documents and decided to go ahead with the series. The first story appeared on December 11, 2008, on Raja’s main real estate front company, Green House Promoters. The details of other companies and hidden irregularities in the spectrum scam were published over the following days.
  • I met Raja (A Raja, the now disgraced minister of Communications and IT) after the first report, as directed by the Editor. He alleged that I was being funded by his rivals in the party and even told me some names. He was visibly shaken asking me how I got the details of his personal assets. He requested me to avoid writing. My reply was that I had been deputed by the Editor only to take his version, nothing else. Raja agreed to speak, but repeatedly requested me to stop writing further on this.  
Interestingly, unlike the news media like NDTV and IBN which are backed by well-endowed entities, foreign or domestic, Daily Pioneer had to sweat it all the way. Pioneer came close to a collapse owing to financial hardships in 1998. It was revived by the dogged efforts of Chandan Mitra and his team, and has grown to set a fine example of journalistic traditions.

Readers may recall my sentiments in the post "Rann : Brutal and Taunting". It in some sense reminds me of the battle Pioneer waged for survival. Here is the story of Pioneer's revival in the words of Chandan Mitra himself : "Mission Impossible : The Pioneer Story". Excerpts below.

  • The story began on January 17, 1998 when I was called to Mr LM Thapar's Amrita Shergill Marg house for an "important discussion." LMT and Gautam grimly informed me that given the group's financial position and spiralling losses of the paper, it had been decided to close it down.
  • We began hunting for buyers in real earnest with Sanjeev helping me with elaborate project reports, revenue projections and other forms of financial wizardry, none of which I comprehended those days. We met all kinds of prospective buyers ranging from NRI barons to Okhla printing press owners, real estate dealers and self-styled confidants of corporate bigwigs. We were too naïve to realise that all the effort at documentation and presentation of our case was a complete waste of time and energy.
  • In 1999, we failed to pay salaries for five months in a row. The staff still hung on, believing in The Pioneer's destiny. The spirit refused to evaporate. Whenever it threatened to, we replenished it by pooling in for office parties that continued into the wee hours. Friendly MPs and MLAs obliged by allowing us to use their lawns, often joining us in the merriment amid prognostications of doom.
  • What amazed me was some top-notch journalists actually came and joined The Pioneer in full knowledge of the situation. Hiranmay Karlekar and A Surya Prakash were among the notable ones. In 2000, Amit Goel, former corporate bureau chief of The Economic Times, also enrolled in our adventurers' club.
  • At least on 10 occasions, I was advised to cut losses, sell out and set myself up as a columnist, TV personality or seek employment with another established group. Several times, I seriously pondered the option, especially when at the end of the first year of our operations we notched up a loss of Rs 2.78 crore without the remotest idea how we would ever cover the deficit. But the loans came just then. Another time, I had virtually made up my mind to sell out only if somebody agreed to just pick up the losses. I even negotiated. But somewhere, it hurt. I felt humiliated at the thought of giving up.
  • When I still go out myself seeking ads for The Pioneer I never feel any sense of shame or dishonour because we are still waging a war to save an institution. Purists may disagree, but I must honestly admit that at times old-fashioned ideas of the strict line between editorial virginity and commercial promiscuity need to be crossed for the greater good. But quitting after an admission of failure? Going back to taking dictations from the management? Letting this historic publication die or fall into avaricious hands? Pleading for somebody to be sacked or employed? The old adage of a hungry, free bird as opposed to its well-fed counterpart in a golden cage keeps us going.
  • Our readers have been The Pioneer's greatest source of strength. We did not reduce our cover price of Rs 2 when both the market leaders cut theirs to Re 1. And we offered just 16 pages against their 32. Still, we did not lose even one subscriber. For a significant number in Delhi and Lucknow, The Pioneer remains the paper of choice for its quality, not raddi value. Arguably, we cannot afford the latest technology; nor can we hire enough journalists or marketing staff at prevailing industry salaries. Each time there is a shake-out in the media with the launch of new TV channels or publications, we lose good people. But we haven't lost the will to rebuild. And I know that as long as we don't give up the battle, nothing can stop The Pioneer from pulling through in yet another miracle.

Ugly Side of Media : Barkha

This post is triggered by recent disclosure, that has mostly been kept out of main pages by the Indian media. But, here is the first of several of the tapes, thanks to Open Magazine.




One of the previous posts, "Rann : Brutal and Taunting", ends with the following commentary on media, which is vindicated by recent expose.
  • Here is the List of Padma Shrees : Lookup the achievements of the Padma Shree awardees for Journalism to see the decline in matter of couple of years.
  • 2006 : Sucheta Dalal, Mrinal Pandey
  • 2008 : Vinod Dua, Rajdeep Sardesai, Barkha Dutt  
About the awardees
Sucheta Dalal is a financial journalist who has to her credit co-authorship of book "The Scam: Who Won, who Lost, who Got Away".  Mrinal Pandey is a writer and prominent journalist, who spent several years looking into the conditions of rag-pickers, domestic help etc, among her other accomplishments.
 
In contrast, Barkha Dutt, the Group Editor of NDTV, has a list of controversies that is longer than her achievements. It started with her coverage of the Kargill war, where her actions purportedly lead to death of 3 soldiers and resulted in dismissal of a colonel, while Ms. Dutt kept climbing ladders on her so called "coverage of Kargil". Thanks to NDTV's Prannoy Roy, she continued to muzzle opposing views with law suits and supposedly contributed to several deaths due to irresponsible and sometimes factually incorrect reporting. And yet she was awarded the Padma Shree somewhere in her sensational career.

If one is still wondering how she became the chosen one, the answer lies in the series of tapes now available on Youtube. Here are the transcripts from Open Magazine "Tell me what should I tell them.". 

While on the topic, also exposed is Vir Sanghvi, selling his column space to Radia. Open magazine transcripts of the conversations are here: "What kind of story do you want?".

Accountability
Barkha Dutt seems to have weathered the storm with NDTV (Prannoy Roy) and IBN (Padma Shri Rajdeep Sardesai) trying hard to defend the indefensible.

But there is hope. Vir Sanghvi is now removed from the position of "Advisory Editorial Director" at HT Media and his weekly column "Counterpoint" is, in the words of Vir, "taking a break"!