CNN-IBN - Happy Endings

Slowly but surely many Congress members are acknowledging the inevitable; that they had lost connect with the people and therefore did badly in the recent elections. This is dawning upon other parties like NCP, BSP, SP and AAP too. One Congress member from Kerala even called Rahul Gandhi a “joker” for the failure. There are many such jokers in the media too. Like the Gandhis, they too were like kings and queens who sat in their offices and had no connect with people. When they did speak to people, they scoffed at their ideas, sound-bites and tweets. They said SM would have no impact on elections. Now they’re reversing that opinion too. The Indian news media had become the poodles of one family and party. They survived on crumbs thrown at them without really having any real business model. I’ve said before that poodles surviving on crumbs cannot have the nose of a blood hound. They couldn’t smell the churning on the ground. A sorry chapter at CNN-IBN and their parent company Network 18 is coming to an end. Years of hate-mongering has its price. Raghav Bahl has already quit. Rajdeep Sardesai and Sagarika Ghose are reportedly on their way. Here’s what a report says:

First things first! One must compliment Raghav Bahl for putting together a news organisation from scratch. Building an organisation is not easy and takes a lot of toil, patience and passion. It must be painful for him to exit a company that he built but his only mistake, as with others, is not being able to see the writing on the wall. He allowed two of his senior editors to run amok with their political propaganda, lies and bad journalism. He refused to take feedback and measure the pulse of people. A company is built with talent in its early stages but as it grows it also acquires a certain amount of baggage. Such baggage is often confused for ballast. Rajdeep and Sagarika have indulged in extraordinary hate-mongering. They coined terms like “Hindutva laboratory” “Hero of hatred” “Mass murderer”; did they really think people will sit back and watch? In addition, their constant ridiculing of ordinary people and anti-Hindu stance did not endear them to people. N18 had become a slave of the Congress party and when that ship was sinking the entire network became a promoter of AAP. Sagarika, in particular, has indulged in crass skulduggery and mischief on many occasions. She should have been sacked long ago. That Bahl sacked ordinary employees and retained Sagarika reflects poor thinking and poor management vision. The bottle-neck is always at the top of the bottle.

The astonishing fact about N18 is that conflict wasn’t so much on the business or revenue front but more on their political preferences. I had tried to understand their political conflicts in two parts earlier (Part-1, Part-2). It should be of concern to the entire media on why there should be upheavals in a media house as a consequence of political changes. People in news media have political preferences but as news channels life should go on regardless of who is in power and political changes. And it was all out in the public with Sagarika’s mischievous tweets. Let’s follow the sequence. On February 7, Sagarika tweeted about an “evil” that is choking their voices:    

She was on a rant as if some major calamity had befallen journalists. And who exactly is that “Evil”? Obviously, she was referring to Raghav Bahl or Narendra Modi or Mukesh Ambani or a combination of them jointly operating from behind the scenes. Was there anything like that? The same Shivam Vij (whose report appears in the first pic above) carried an article about how “Sagarika can’t criticise Modi anymore”. And then Ram Guha (the family’s Nehruvian sidekick) also made noises about it. This became a major discussion in media circles. What happens then? There is a flurry of emails exchanged between Raghav Bahl and Rajdeep Sardesai. Here are some excerpts with date and timestamp (in blue):

Feb 10 – RB to RS 6.46am

Please see tweet below from Ram Guha. Coming from somebody as influential/credible as him (also one of your closest professional associates), this one is damaging. What’s more, Sagarika’s mail to me yesterday, clearly saying that she has NEVER been “muzzled” over the last 8 years in N18, completely and totally contradicts this. So in all fairness, I suggest we do one of the following things:

1 Sagarika isses a CATEGORICAL denial of this tweet; OR

2 We could release the relevant text from Sagarika’s mail to me, so that this matter is put to rest.

Do let me know how you would like to proceed on this.

Feb 10 – RS to RB 6.55am

This is I believe in response to an article appearing in scroll.in, which is a website run by someone called shivam vij. I have already replied to shivam, saying judge us by actions not innuendo. Can respond to ram too if need be. The point is, and I have learnt this to great cost, that any reply only leads to an avalanche of more responses and attracts even more attention. A denial can easily be issued, alternately, we just have to stay above the noise.

Feb 10 – RB to RS 7.07 am

Rajdeep – this one is too close/credible/for comfort/silence. Ram Guha endorsing this is almost equal to you /Sagarika saying this (especially since Sagarika was in Bangalore just yesterday). A full, formal and UNAMBIGUOUS clarification/denial, of the sort that Sagarika wrote to me, must be issued….. Silence is golden, but not always.

Feb 10 – RS to RB 7.11 am

Sagarika has not met/spoken to ram in a while. Ram is, however, close to a few of those who run the scroll.in website which is an ideologically left website. Ram, like many, has allowed perception to cloud his judgement, and to be fair, he has been a great supporter of the channel at all times. However, a categorical denial on twitter can be easily issued.

Interesting, eh? On February 9 when Ram Guha tweeted the alarm, Sagarika was in Bangalore and claims she couldn’t speak to him. Could be that she was very busy. Do note the time stamps in the emails above. All of it is early morning. I have not seen Sagarika tweeting early morning in the past but it’s possible I may have missed some. But as the transactions in the emails are going on what does Sagarika do? Here’s what she tweet early morning on February 10 to Ram Guha:

Wow! Bahl and Rajdeep are trading emails and Sagarika wakes up to tweet at 7.38am in reply to Ram Guha’s alarm. And what does she now say? It’s not Bahl or Modi or Ambani but ordinary folks on the SM who are stalking her. People on the SM are stalking her? Her story changes from “Evil” threat to “stalkers” on SM in just 3 days. Such is the mischief and lie-mongering of this woman. Anyone who calls her a journalist or employs her as an editor has to seriously have his head examined. But those who have observed her and Rajdeep for a dozen years know well how these two have consistently peddled crap through their channel or their articles. Rajdeep’s lies and hate-mongering goes all the way back to Star News and NDTV when he first covered the Gujarat 2002 riots and then participated in the malicious campaign against Modi. And all this nonsense for what? Because Sagarika and Rajdeep wanted to promote AAP unhindered in their political campaign under the garb of a news channel. So turn everyone – bosses, social media, everyone into “Evil”.

Apart from their own hate-mongering, these two got every charlatan who could condemn Modi or spew garbage against him in whatever form they could. They got “intellectual morons” like Amartya Sen, Amitava Ghosh, Dipankar Gupta and the whole lot to wilfully lie and rubbish Modi for their convenience. This is hardly the conduct of journalists or editors. Everyone has his or her bias but to peddle lies and even paint Hindus as monsters cannot be passed as journalism. And the constant spats with ordinary people on Twitter heaping abuses on them and then playing victim. Where did all this come from? Politicians pay the price for failing to read the people’s pulse and media crooks will not be exceptions anymore. Elections are over but habits die hard. CNN-IBN still continues to lie and twist statements coming from BJP as can be seen in the pic. I prefer not to comment on the finances of N18 or the luxuries in which many editors live at the cost of their sinking organisation because that is not the concern of this site.

There is a flip side to all this that cannot be overlooked. While the liars posing as editors may leave along with founder Raghav Bahl, the idea of Reliance taking over the whole network is not without dangers. In a note Bahl has stated to his employees Mukesh Ambani is a good human being and the company is in good hands. That may well be true and there is no reason to doubt that. But the idea of a corporate giant controlling N18, apart from other networks, is not a healthy turn. The very size of Reliance when all their businesses are put together is phenomenal. There may come a time when anything you purchase or consume will have Reliance behind it or Reliance maybe in the market for the same product with a controlling share. Reliance likes to control every commodity market – from yarn to gas to news to communication and so on. That’s a bigger problem to be addressed separately. Politicians and large businesses (that are not purely news media) controlling the media is a bad omen for citizens.  

One may change cars, change cities, change jobs and even change spouses but many people don’t change the easiest person to change: “the self”. No matter where Rajdeep or Sagarika go it won’t make a damn difference. This is true for many other crooks posing as editors in the media. I wonder what lessons they have learned. From their communications it doesn’t look like they’ve learned any. They will bring the same filth to the table and I doubt they are capable of learning any lessons. They sank CNN-IBN and they will sink someone else. There are no happy endings.

CNN-IBN's Political Conflict - Part 2

Previous part to this story, from December 2013: “The political conflict at CNN-IBN”

In a tribute to John Lennon, Elton John sang “Empty Garden” referring to Lennon as a wonderful gardener who weeded out tears and grew good crop and refers to his killer: “It’s funny how one insect can damage so much grain”. That’s true for any organisation or body. One insect is all it takes. News channels are meant to inform and educate the public. If they are into crooked acts in their kitchen, it is in public interest to know what’s going on; even if some are private business entities. Therefore, the goings-on in every news channel that claims to be doing public service are liable for scrutiny. On the flip side, every business must watch for the insects and rats that float in their offices and board rooms. Here’s a tweet from Sagarika Ghose when the Tarun Tejpal incident broke in November 2013:

Interesting, eh? “Many of us journos have faced harassment…” she says. The sick statement implies she speaks for many when she doesn’t. It implies she knows those who suffered but she didn’t speak out for them. It also implies she herself may have suffered silently. At whose hands? It implies she is some sort of “victim” too? And what does she fear? She doesn’t hesitate to slander those she doesn’t like and heap wanton abuses. After all that, she does a camouflaged “Saving Tejpal” act too.

“Aan – men at work” is a Bollywood movie loosely inspired by Brian De Palma’s “The Untouchables”. But there is a particular scene in “Aan” that shows how to put your bosses and other top leaders in a tight spot if they are a hindrance to you. That’s what Akshay Kumar does when he drops a mischievous hint to reporters on how they will be transferred if they leak names or speak up. Let’s watch the video (1.30 mins):

So Akshay Kumar gives the media a vague hint and tells them if he reveals information he and his men will suffer. This is because his boss doesn’t allow certain investigations. Clever, isn’t it? Somewhat like this tweet by Sagarika:

Oh, there is an “evil” out there stamping out free speech and silencing independent journalists who should unite. Ahem! Who is she trying to put in a tight spot? In case you aren’t aware, this tweet was made probably after a private meeting at CNN-IBN’s office between Raghav Bahl, Rajdeep and Sagarika. How do we know? Patience! We will find out. And who is this “evil” that Sagarika is hinting at? Well, presumably, the same evil that other cronies like Ashutosh and Nikhil Wagle keep ranting about: Narendra Modi. The implication is that Modi is pressurising CNN-IBN or Raghav Bahl through some other powerful people. Snitches and Rats are bad for business and healthy work atmosphere but the news media does depend on snitches and rats. It’s their job. Soon after the “evil” tweet by SG on February 7, someone promptly puts out an article with a sensational headline on February 9:

Shivam Vij who wrote that article tweeted about it. It is fair to assume Vij was not present at the meeting between the 3 senior folks at CNN-IBN. So who gave him this juicy input to put out a story? It has to be one of the 3, right? And who, among those close to the CNN-IBN couple, picks up this article quickly and makes noises about suppression of free speech? Well, that would be family friend, the Commie Ram Guha. SG was in Bangalore on February 9 for some show but didn’t meet or talk to Guha. Believable? By some strange coincidence (?), Rajdeep puts out a tweet about NaMo and Nemo on February 8 (which too was after the duo had their meeting with Bahl):

Off-TV Rajdeep is generally known to be a nice guy and I have said often that there are two Rajdeeps. So Rajdeep may have thought his tweet would be funny but it ended up being seen as more abuse on NaMo. And why not? Since simple comments and analogies by Modi have been taken out of context and twisted heavily by both Rajdeep and Sagarika all through the last many years. Consequent to the article by Vij and the alarm by Guha, Raghav Bahl was naturally angry. People in the know mentioned heated exchange of mails between Bahl and Rajdeep. To add insult to the injurious “leaked” tweet tip (and some snitching) that led to the article “Why Sagarika Ghose may no longer criticise Modi anymore...” the internal communications also seem to be leaked to some folks and it makes sorry reading and tells the story behind the whole drama by Sagarika. I will narrate from the exchanges (in brown) that happened very early morning on February 10.

Bahl to Rajdeep:

RB asks Rajdeep to see Guha’s tweet and calls Guha somebody as influential/credible as him (also one of Rajdeep’s closest professional associates), claims it is damaging. RB mentions a mail of Sagarika’s which clearly says she has never been “muzzled” over the last 8 years in N18. And RB demands that: 1 Sagarika isses a CATEGORICAL denial of this tweet; OR 2 They could release the relevant text from Sagarika’s mail to RB to the public, so that this matter is put to rest.

Rajdeep to Bahl:

Rajdeep responds by referring to the article by Vij in scroll.in, and says it is a website run by someone called shivam vij. Rajdeep quotes his tweet to vij denying any such pressures. The tweet Rajdeep is referring in his response to Bahl is the one below:

Bahl to Rajdeep

RB says Guha saying this is as good as Rajdeep/Sagarika saying this (especially since Sagarika was in Bangalore the previous day). A full, formal and unambiguous clarification/denial, of the sort that Sagarika wrote to RB should be issued, he says. And then RB says if not, the full text from Sagarika’s mail should be put out in the public domain since Sagarika’s mail so clearly implies that the truth is totally different.

Good point by Bahl. Did Sagarika meet Ram Guha while she was in Bangalore? She was doing some show at the Infosys campus as I recollect. If she hadn’t met him did she interact with him? I believe that it’s unlikely that Sagarika wouldn’t have given at least a little phone call to dear friend Guha. And why is it that Guha so deliberately puts out a tweet? Since Rajdeep and Sagarika are such “close” friends would he not care to at least ask them about the stupid article before tweeting about it? Surprising? As with the article by Vij, Guha’s tweet is also meant to deliberately embarrass Raghav Bahl and I am in absolutely no doubt about that. Let’s snitch some more. Having learned about the trouble brewing Sagarika quickly replies to Guha with a “sorry” tweet:

Rajdeep to Bahl:

Rajdeep confirms Sagarika has not met/spoken to ram in a while and that Guha is close to a few of those who run the scroll.in website which is an ideologically left website.

So all that balderdash of Guha’s leftist leanings having “lapsed” does not hold. And he’s a close friend of those running that website. Fantastic! He is still as much a Commie as he was and appears to be a willing participant in this game going around Sagarika, Shivam Vij and himself. “The boss shouldn’t be given a chance to sneeze” says Akshay Kumar in that video. Doesn’t he? And that would prevent chances of any transfers or any other action on those leaking stories to the anti-Modi brigade. Do note, Bahl is clearly indicating there should be a categorical denial by Rajdeep or Sagarika and he also implies that he would release parts of an earlier mail by Sagarika which mentions there is no muzzling at Network 18. It gets more intriguing.

Rajdeep to Bahl:

Rajdeep wonders why issue it to all media and attract even more attention to an article which has appeared on a fringe website.  Says they chose the same path when the Caravan story was published… and that response should be measured and fitted to the publication/medium on which they are used.

Bahl to Rajdeep:

Bahl claims the problem is Ram Guha’s “endorsement” – and that Guha has personally charged him by using the word “proprietor” and refuses to be so charged. Bahl’s mind is made up – either this is retracted publicly by Guha, or Sagarika, or Rajdeep  – or he shall act to clear his name. Rajdeep again gives him a reply on how to go about this withdrawal tactfully and painlessly.

Bahl to Rajdeep:

By now Bahl is furious and stops taking calls from Rajdeep. He says “I am in no mood to “talk” about this. Bahl asks an important question: how did a private conversation, known only to the three of them, get into a “leftist” website of Shivam Vij? He swears with his “hand on his heart” that he did not share it with them.

So who put out the juicy titbits to Shivam Vij? Your guess is as good as mine and it doesn’t take an Einstein to figure out. More importantly, from all the exchanges that I have read thoroughly, I have found no truth in the “Evil” that Sagarika is trying to peddle. It is true Raghav Bahl is a business man who is now more oriented towards Modi (millions of others are too) but Rajdeep says “go by our actions”. Are the mails circulating genuine? I would think they are. Going by actions alone neither Sagarika nor Rajdeep have stopped their anti-Modi shows or rants. If I remember right, there was a recent programme at Jamia where Sagarika provoked Muslim youth to heap more trash on Modi. It is important to note that even if this duo of Rajdeep-Sagarika toned down half their rants against Modi it still would amount to a huge negative campaign.

So what Sagarika was essentially doing through her “Evil” tweet is what Akshay Kumar does in that movie; to sound a warning indirectly to her bosses and the public in general about fake suppression of journalistic independence. Having tweeted that and attracted some sympathetic concern she attempts to create suspicions in the minds of people. I would read such tweets and articles (such as those by Vij) as collective “ambush-journalism”. If a deputy editor of a news channel plays so much politics over her own channel and issues inside it, then how good is the trash she delivers on TV?

Both Rajdeep and Sagarika (and probably Bahl too) have been Congress cronies all these years. When the masters had become a political liability both these people shifted allegiance to Arvind Kejriwal and AAP. What they want is not real journalism. What they want is not delivery of fair news and discourse. What they want is to trash the politicians they don’t like, peddle lies and distortions about them and promote those they think will nurture their own security and future. Don’t look too far, all this has been neatly explained in “The AAPSucker Proxies”. 

Bahl has a twin problem on his hands. Someone leaks discussions to a “fringe” website and then someone leaks mails to many media folks. He has to maintain journalistic honesty and also business profitability. Sagarika provides neither journalistic sense nor business sense. Events have shown she is not only a bad journalist but also undermining her channel by stupid statements. Whether “personal political preferences” should rule over journalistic principles is a choice Bahl will have to make. So far, it’s the public that gets a poor ride in all this. It’s funny how one insect can damage so much grain.

IBN - The Bottleneck Is Always At The Top

On the face of it the following two tweets from members of CNN-IBN looks innocuous and routine programme information. One from Ruchira Singh, who handles the Social Media accounts for them and one from Rajdeep Sardesai:

A closer re-look based on other information that is now coming out of the TV18 group tells a deeper story. Why on I-Day would a news channel just leave a good part of the day with recorded programmes of Bollywood songs? That too some of it in the prime-time category!  There seems to be a deep churning of sorts within the group. Their CEO, Dilip Venkatraman, has reportedly quit last week and internal sources have been leaking stories of massive retrenchment at the group, fashionably styled as “restructuring”. Here’s what The Hindu reported on August 16 (excerpts):

“Highly-placed channel sources, all of whom insisted on being anonymous, have told The Hindu that the network will ‘cut costs and human-resources by around 30 percent in each department’. There was no confirmation of the figure till late on Thursday evening, with authorized officials refusing to comment. Insiders said it was ‘almost certain’ that contracts of over 150 employees in IBN 7, and over 200 employees in CNN-IBN, would be terminated. A knowledgeable source said, “For a story, a reporter, cameraperson, equipment, a vehicle, a driver has to be deployed. Costs in each of these categories – staffing, production, and infrastructure – will be cut.” It is learnt that senior editorial staffers in key divisions like sports, entertainment and research may face the axe”.

A business sustains itself on a proper revenue model and survives on earning some profits for its stake-holders. In financial terms a 1000-day test is applied for loans and funds for a company to break-even and earn profits. Considering the IBN group was launched in 2005 (although their CNBC channel was launched earlier) it has been 8 years as the group kept absorbing poor financial returns backed by more and more investments in times of trouble. More inflow of funds may keep a business from folding up but not necessarily ensure profits. In such scenarios it is usually the frontline and smaller earners who pay the price.

Remember when Jet Airways sacked some 1900 of its employees overnight? They had to take them back due to protests by the employees and major coverage to the protests. In contrast the retrenchment at IBN is neither going to be covered by their peers in media and will be reported frugally in the print media. It has always been the case that when companies run into trouble the ones to be sacked most easily are the lower level or frontline employees. In the case of Big Bazar when they faced financial problems the first ones to be sacked were the check-out counter employees and even the bagging-boys at the counter. Actually, these employees are the least expensive in the organisation. The top guys who collectively draw a package almost equivalent to hundreds of the lower level employees usually get to stay.   

The problem is not unique to the IBN7 group. Other channels too are facing the music. NDTV, which has been in the red for many years, retrenched many employees sometime back. The first problem is lack of programming itself and the second is lack of a proper revenue model. While claiming to be national channels the IBN or NDTV are nothing more than local Delhi channels. Their programming is centred merely around Delhi and about politics. When the season is on they throw in Cricket and a regular dose of Bollywood. The rest of the country hardly exists. For a national channel low viewership is a serious problem. When the Assam riots were on, Rajdeep Sardesai famously said “tyranny of distance” as the reason for not covering the story on time.

If one adds up all the “news” content of any TV channel the actual content would not amount to more than one hour of news. The same news gets recycled for the rest of the 23 hours since they like to believe a 24X7 channel is the only competitive route. For an international channel like CNN, which was the first as a 24-hour cable channel, the reporting starts from around the globe. For Indian viewers, it usually starts from Hong Kong or Singapore, then to London, to New York and then to their main studios. Thus there is a world-coverage of news and important events. Even so, CNN itself has been sliding in ratings in the US too. In contrast the Indian news channels which call themselves “national” don’t even get viewership from all across India. English channels like CNN-IBN, NDTV or Times Now are not aired in many B-category cities. Most of these cities have local language channels or in the North they have the Hindi channels providing service. And where the business channels are concerned they really don’t have much news to offer. Whatever share prices or business information they scroll at the bottom of the screen is what most viewers watch them for. That scrolling part is now being done on all news channels so specialised business channels also make little sense.

The biggest crime of all is a lot of inaccurate news and fake news that is frequently aired by these channels. That and the propaganda-based programmes and debates which have taken a beating at the hands of Social Media. Some of these channels have built themselves around “personalities” alone and when these personalities get tainted by bogus programmes and comments the channel takes a beating too. It would be more honourable for a channel to sack editors and anchors tainted by such deeds than to sack lower level employees. Some of the people tainted by Radiagate still continue in their jobs as if nothing happened. It now appears that a channel will find it hard to survive merely on English news content as it definitely seems to reduce the reach. Some might decide to go bilingual which may be a better option. What is happening to the news channels is quite similar to the airline industry. Hundreds of air-hostess and cabin-crew training companies had come up all over the cities when the airline boom started. Except a few, almost all of them have now shut shops.

Rajdeep Sardesai may appear in promos with grand lines like “credibility over chaos” or “news over noise”. But advertisements don’t sell. I am not sure most viewers accept the credibility part. I am not sure most viewers accept even the news over noise part, considering CNN-IBN has one of the shrillest anchors in TV history. As for credibility, the group may have to first wonder what got them into “chaos” themselves and how to get out of it. They may sack hundreds of lower level employees but the chaos and noise doesn’t come from them. The bottle-neck is always at the top of the bottle, not the bottom.