Hi everyone,
I was looking at my Facebook newsfeed today and something interesting caught my attention. One of India's most well-known journalists, known as Barkha Dutt, is in a controversy because she is accusing a very popular news and current affairs magazine of running a 'smear' campaign against her. The magazine is called Open magazine and has a reputation for doing excellent news features of issues around the world.
So the article they wrote is linked on their website and is called the "The X tapes - Inside the network of lobbyists and power brokers that dictate how this country (India) is run"
To make this short, the article has published transcripts as well as soundclips of Barkha Dutt, and one other journalist known as Vir Sanghavi, who essentially set the agenda and direct the tone and slant of the stories they write. Since they are associated with a popular English channel as well as various print media including The Times of India, they can really influence the way the masses think about certain political groups and individuals etc. To explain this in detail would require me to go into details about the political system in India and the various dynamics associated with it.
Barkha Dutt is obviously going out on an offensive and demanding that Open magazine should verify its facts before publishing things like this. Open magazine on the other hand is holding its own and refusing to back down.
I have heard most of those tapes and it is appalling how easily they can control which direction they can take in a news story. Vir Sanghavi, a prominent journalist as well as social commentator is also embroiled in this controversy. In those tapes, he categorically asks corporate lobbyist Nira Radia, 'what kind of a story do you want?', so then proceeds to tell him how he should potray who as a villian and who as a hero as well how what certain companies are doing is against national interest. And that is, of course, not true. They also seem to be suggesting to have a 'trial run' of an interview, that is, apparently, from what I'm guessing, supposed to be a live interview with a corporate industrialist from India called Mukesh Ambani. They wish to essentially "stage" a live interview.
This expose, as its now being called, is not unusual in India. A few years ago, there was a this sudden trend of "sting operations" where journalists would hide cameras in their clothes/bag and try to bribe politicians and other government officials. Some channels went to the extent of using young women as bait and executed this idea with prominent film directors and producers and then calling this entire phenomenon - "The Casting Couch".
Coming back to this latest issue, since we often talk about the role of the corporations exercising an enormous control over the news, this article corroborates that. Here it's not coporations but one corporate lobbyist who is doing the controlling. Interestingly, none of the newspapers or news channels to which both of these journalists are attached to have covered this issue. Clearly, news and audience attention are both commodities that can be bought and sold.
Here is the link to the article: http://www.openthemagazine.com/
All the taped conversations are in English as well as the transcripts. If you're interested in knowing more about the political dynamics in India and understanding this better, please let me know!