Cuckoo Journalism

I was going to use a harsher variant of ‘cuckoo’ in the title but my bad sense prevailed. Let’s get one thing straight. If someone tells you a conversation is “off the record” then you are ethics-bound not to use or quote it with attributions. This is more so if you happen to be a reporter or a journalist. If reporters break that code, half their ‘sources’ would never talk to them and feed them information, juicy gossip or tips. But in the recent episode concerning Barkha Dutt, Pak PM Nawaz Sharif and Hamid Mir the “off the record” story is not the entire truth. If you intentionally lie or cover-up and then get exposed it is better to admit it with a decent reason for the cover-up. Whining and defending is like quick-sand. The more you extend the lie, the more it drags you in. There are situations when “off the record” simply cannot apply, as we shall see. In the age of internet and communication even words in private meetings can damage an entire campaign. Watch the video (1.03 mins):

There you go! That statement by Mitt Romney that 47% of American voters who don’t pay taxes will anyway not vote for him cost him a lot. Those who tracked the campaign will remember the damage it caused Romney. So who is Barkha trying to fool?

This is a tweet by Numero Uno Rajdeep Sardesai from February 2012. Do you remember the context? During the UP elections campaign Rahul Gandhi suddenly invited editors of many news outlets to a ‘breakfast’ meet. Like a slave, Rajdeep rushed to it at 2.25am, as did the others. It was supposedly an off the record breakfast meet. Now, can a breakfast meet with a political leader with many editors be off the record? Nonsense! But the editors mostly chose to toe the line, become slaves and didn’t report much about what transpired at the meet. This is not journalism, this is absolute cronyism. In a lunch meet the same Rahul “complete nonsense” Gandhi told American Ambassador Timothy Roemer that Hindu terrorism is a greater threat to India than LeT. Is that off the record? Can RG talk crap to a foreign diplomat and claim off the record? It is just as well that Wikileaks exposed him for his stupidity.

So by what quixotic measure is a gathering of a politician and a bunch of media folks an off the record affair? This is the fallacy. An off the record conversation is meant to be one between two individuals. You cannot talk to a group and say it’s off the record because the assorted members of a group cannot be expected to behave uniformly. That is the stupidity of media assumptions. So when Pak PM Nawaz Sharif invited Barkha Dutt, Hamid Mir and some other reporters to a “breakfast” meet in New York on the sidelines of the MMS-Sharif talks there is no way it can be described as off the record. It so happened that at this meet Sharif was upset with MMS talking to Barack Obama about some Indo-Pak issue and called him a “Dehati Aurat” (Village woman) complaining about him. This simply cannot be off the record. Word got out when Hamid Mir told a Pak TV channel about this comment being made to him and Barkha. She denied Sharif made that remark to her. That started the whole problem. Do I trust Barkha? Absolutely not! What Hamid Mir said is quoted by Smita Prakash of ANI. By the way, the discussion on the Pak Geo channel also mentioned how MMS’s position stood eroded after recent events.

I don’t need to put up the video (Youtube) as it doesn’t need forensic experts to verify what Hamid Mir quoted. Cleverly, Barkha later tweeted there is no record of the conversation. Funny, she claims “off the record” and says there’s no record? Fact: There is no record that Nawaz Sharif told anyone that it was an “off the record” meet. Even if he did so, it is invalid. You cannot be PM and expect to gossip with a group and not be quoted. You WILL be quoted. Period! So Barkha goes on a sprint of denials of Sharif having made that “Dehati Aurat” remark about MMS. Here are some exchanges:

Okay, he didn’t say it to her she says. So people like Barkha and Hamid don’t gossip and compare notes on what Pak PM’s say? If you believe that, you can believe the earth is flat. Next she says Rightwing extremists are using a distorted report to abuse Pakistan. Abuse Pakistan? This is the stupidity to which Barkha has degenerated. Caught in mindless denials she even blames imaginary rightwing extremists for her stupidity.

And being asked more questions by many others her story suddenly changes from outright denial to “unethical to report on an off record conversation”. Where was the need to say “unethical” if the Dehati comment wasn’t made by Sharif? Then suddenly memory returns and Barkha drags herself further into the quicksand by stating there was some story about how a village woman settles her fight. So Sharif was narrating some stupid story without some context? Who is lying here? It is quite obvious isn’t it? If Sharif had a reason to narrate that village woman story the reason is pretty clear who was being called a “Dehati woman”. But Hamid Mir had already poked holes into her story since the video quoting him appeared on Youtube. So you see, now we have to fix Hamid Mir too. So I reasonably estimate that calls might have been furiously exchanged and poor Hamid was badgered into making some concessions. Here are some more exchanges:

So Hamid does a flip-flop to bail out Barkha and she claims victory. Only problem is that it doesn’t wash. The damage was done. Late night on Sunday Barkha used her home channel NDTV to do a “Radiagate” type defence once again where she claimed she was innocent and Sharif didn’t make the Dehati comment. But Hamid doesn’t alter the fact that Sharif shared a joke which Barkha calls a “village tale”. So that is ample evidence that Barkha was indeed there when Sharif narrated the story. Why all this fuss in the first place? Barkha could have simply said Sharif said something uncharitable about MMS and she didn’t consider it fit to report or quote and that would have been fair and ended the matter. But trust habitual bad drivers to crash over and over again. And blame the car!

Let’s go back in time a bit. When the Radiagate story broke Barkha claimed she was just “stringing along a source”. Anyone believe that? Okay, naturally the people who put out the tapes, Open Magazine, had serious questions that Barkha could never answer. If indeed Barkha was stringing along Niira Radia for a story then where was the story? That would have been a bomb of a story but where was it? Hartosh Bal of Open mag did ask the question:

“The context in which Barkha was talking to Radia is important. Negotiations were underway between the DMK and Congress for places in the Union Cabinet. Barkha makes the claim that Radia was a valid news source for the DMK camp. Among the portfolios on offer was telecom, and Radia was the top PR representative of the Tata Group of Ratan Tata, which has a major interest in the telecom sector via its firm Tata Teleservices Ltd, and also of the Reliance Group of Mukesh Ambani, which had a direct interest in the sector via Reliance Infocomm before the Ambani brothers split. For any political journalist worth her salt, the alarm bells would have gone off at this stage, and should have led to one of the biggest stories related to government formation in this country: ‘Tata telecom PR chief handles negotiations for telecom portfolio.’ Did you happen to see this story on NDTV?”

Well? Did you ever see that story that Cabinet berths are being brokered and lobbied for? So Barkha cannot claim innocence then and she cannot claim innocence now. This is not journalism, this is Cuckoo journalism. Oh wait! Memories are short. Barkha doesn’t tire talking “ethics” when she has demonstrated practice of precious little of that. Let’s go back in time again. Remember ‘To Sir Creek with hand-in-glove’? Since she claims “off the record” conversations are to be kept off the record I would like to ask her how she claimed that the Sir Creek Agreement was ready and then Pak PM Yusuf Gilani was just waiting for MMS to visit Pakistan to sign and announce it. Here’s the video (0.46 min):

In the panel discussions in the video above, Barkha claims Gilani told her about the agreement being ready to sign. Did he? Or was she fibbing? If Gilani tells her in “ishaara” (hints, signals) was it meant to be a clear on-record statement? And if that was the hint which he gave where exactly has Barkha reported this on NDTV or any of her articles on NDTV or mother goose Hindustan Times? Nowhere! So it appears that an agreement was clandestinely prepared; obviously implying GOI was aware and Barkha suppressed that from the public and boldly claims it on a Pak channel. Mind you, the text of the interview with Gilani has been posted on NDTV’s website but there is no mention of the “agreement”. Convenient ethics? It’s cuckoo journalism!

Barkha has a history of frequently interviewing Pakistanis like Imran Khan, Parvez Musharraf, even Imran’s Mom or any Paki of position. Her constant obsession with Pakistan is indeed beyond reason or explanation. I wonder how many “off record” conversations passed during those interviews. As fate would have it, on both occasions (Sir Creek and Dehati Aurat) the issues fell right into the lap of Narendra Modi. In the campaign for Gujarat elections in December 2012 Modi used the Sir Creek episode to slam MMS and Congress. On September 29 he used the Dehati Aurat slur to slam MMS and Congress again (coupled with RahulG’s complete nonsense rant on the Ordinance protecting criminal politicians). Modi also slammed the journos without naming Barkha but nobody missed it. For the 11 years that Barkha and others of her club have trolled Modi, he finally returned an unforgettable spanking that is not going to be drowned in a hurry by Barkha.  

Predictably, the bimbo who can’t survive a day without uttering some nonsense jumped in gladly. Sagarika Ghose claims using the allegory of a village story was a low level discourse to slam the PM. It doesn’t occur to this Cagetory5 moron that the same media which is crying foul not only distorted but for days misused and abused an ordinary analogy of a “Puppy” by Modi to claim he abused Muslims. The practitioners of gutter journalism are having a bad time. No matter how much Barkha tries, this is humiliation she brought upon herself with her mindless denials and cover-up attempts. This is not the first time either. NDTV should have sacked her long back.

The Cuckoo does not build its own nests.  The female Cuckoo uses nests of other birds to lay her own eggs and leaves the parenting to the other birds. Quite a species, wouldn’t you say?

NDTV's Wardrobe Malfunction

This had to happen! When the Supreme Court ordered the Zakia Jafri petition against Narendra Modi back to the lower courts in September 2011 it had struck a devastating blow to many media channels and their campaign of lies over Gujarat 2002. I wrote then that “The make-up and mask of Chachi 420 wasn’t meant to last forever”. For long it has been a known fact that NDTV is a crony media channel which exists to support and defend the Congress party no matter what. Several posts on this site, including “Tainted? Have a chat with Barkha” or “NDTV: Evolving the Gandhi” and many more chronicle NDTV’s unacceptable claim of “Independent and honest”. In the latter post I even wondered why NDTV has a Congress panellist at all in debates when the whole channel acts as a panellist for the party. NDTV had also made this claim of “independent and honest” in the case they filed against AC Nielson and the group for TRP ratings claiming a damage of over 1 Bn dollars.  

On March 1 it took a couple of seconds for the wardrobe malfunction and for NDTV to completely stand exposed as a Congress crony. I doubt Barkha Dutt or anyone at NDTV can anymore claim “error of judgement” for Radiagate or any other misdeed. This was a discussion moderated on NDTV Hindi by Nidhi Kulpati. She was the original media celeb when Zee TV burst on to the scene with their Hindi news channel. She later shifted to NDTV. On Nidhi’s panel were Vinod Sharma (Again, why do they need him?), Sambit Patra of BJP, KC Tyagi of JDU, journalists Abhay Kumar and Purnima Joshi. The BJP was having a national meeting in Delhi and the panel was discussing its internal affairs. Out of the blue there is a prompt in Hindi at 30.30 minutes in the video to the anchor or a panellist to “defend for the Congress party”. Well, NDTV were defending and campaigning for and defending the Congress all these years no matter what, so the prompt was surprising. It’s a wardrobe malfunction that bared more than just body parts. It bared the character of NDTV. A very observant Rohit Baranwal captured the moment and put it up on Youtube.

Listen to the video carefully from 55 seconds onward. I have specially increased the volume at that point so it’s not missed. The prompt in Hindi is “Congress ke taraf se defend kar dena”. Brilliant! Many observers of the channel have often been asking the question to BJP leaders why they even appear on this political mouthpiece. This is particularly so for their top leaders like Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj. A political preference by a channel is not a crime but to go to the extent of fixing debates, as debates have always been fixed on certain channels, is breaking journalistic ethics and character. Then again, NDTV is not the only one. We just have to wait for a wardrobe malfunction from a couple of more channels. 

Ego

I logged on to Twitter early ‘yesterday morning in the night’ and found this funny story going around. This was about some Litfest. No no, not some Literature Fest! This is about a Litigation Fest. And it involved someone threatening some people they’d have to face the law for their tweets slandering a senior BJP leader. Well, who could it be but Barkha Dutt; the champion of defamation threats. Some people are smart enough to learn from the mistakes of others. Some people are dumb not to learn even from their own mistakes. What can we do, no? Anyway, let me cut the story short and let you read the whole stuff which is storified here. If you fell off your chair laughing, don’t sue me, I’m not the one who tweeted all that.

Hollywood singer-actor-producer-director star Barbra Streisand has something unique about her. She has not just won an Oscar (for being a ‘Funny Girl’) she has an internet phenomenon named after her. It’s called the ‘Streisand effect’. Briefly: “The Streisand effect is the phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide or remove a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, usually facilitated by the Internet”. When Streisand attempted to suppress pictures of her mansion being put out, her protests brought about even more attention to her bungalow which otherwise would have been ignored. Isn’t BD just like that? When BD tried to suppress and sue Chaitanya Kunte over his blog titled “Shoddy journalism” about her 26/11 reporting she made him and his blog all the more famous. She also earned the contempt of a huge population on the net for trying to suppress Kunte’s free speech. She initially tried the same with Open Magazine when they broke the Radiatapes but didn’t have the stuff to take any legal action.

Vinod Mehta’s Outlook magazine too had published the tapes. Mehta, therefore, appears to have permanently earned the ire of BD. Er… sort of a “Rift” between two staunch Congress supporters.  Not that VM gives a damn. It all started with a tweet, on February 13, from one @AnkushJain100 (who has since deleted his Twitter account). That tweet took the fancy of Lalit Modi, the former IPL guy, who retweeted it. And that was enough to send Barkha into her black cloak and collar and threaten the people involved of being “liable to a libel case” (liable to libel - rhymes well, doesn’t it?).

Hmm! Now, what were these guys talking about? I had no idea at all. There was another retweet from Lalit Modi which linked the problem that started it all. This tweet finally brought me to Vinod Mehta’s memoirs titled “Lucknow Boy”. Although many have said it’s a very sweet book and story about a boy, I had absolutely no plans of reading VM’s book. But trust BD to be stupid enough to force me to read at least one paragraph from that book. That’s the Streisand Effect! And this is the damning paragraph that was at the heart of the problem. This is nothing new and has been on the internet since VM published his book. So what exactly was BD yakking about?

If you read Ankush’s tweet carefully, all he suggests is that Arun Jaitley colluded with Barkha Dutt. It’s a valid allegation, not libel. The self-righteous BD then started chastising Lalit Modi over what she calls “utterly irresponsible and scurrilous attacks on a senior BJP leader”. Haha! Imagine, media celebs often known to make many an irresponsible statement on political leaders, especially of the BJP, are suddenly worried about statements on Arun Jaitley. Ahem! I guess it must be the influence of Valentine season which spreads love and affection all over. I hope Jaitley calls her up and thanks her profusely for rushing to his aid. Anyway, if at all there is really an injured party here it is Arun Jaitley and not BD. 

So why the hell is BD threatening libel cases? And is there really libel or defamation here? Ankush and others were referring to and quoting something VM has written and published. VM is a man with years of experience in the media to know a lot of behind-the-scenes titbits. His book or that paragraph is neither banned nor under any court order. No court has declared it defamatory. There is absolutely nothing wrong in quoting VM. And as long as Jaitley or BD have not denied VM’s story, rejected it or challenged him in a court of law there is no reason to disbelieve what VM has said.

Let’s talk legal. Please do note carefully that VM says BD “pleaded” with Jaitley not to mention the Radia intercepts in his attack on the govt. BD, whose Twitter profile also says “wannabe lawyer”, pleaded with Jaitley. (Oh… some lawyers were also referred to as pleaders, weren’t they?). Why was she pleading with him? Any answers? VM says Jaitley was on the “verge of”. So did Jaitley avoid mentioning the Radia-conversations because of BD’s pleading? If yes, then Jaitley does have a lot to answer for. Consequently, the BJP has a lot to answer for because Jaitley holds a top position in the party and the parliament.

This habit of threatening others, especially those who are helpless, usually comes from arrogant people who do not possess the guts to take on those in power. They suck up to them or fear a backlash and prey on those who cannot hit back or don’t have the time and resources to engage in a legal battle. BD didn’t have the guts to take on those who exposed her in the Radiatapes originally like she first threatened them. She doesn’t have the guts to take on Vinod Mehta. In trouble, she begs and pleads with Arun Jaitley. Why does she get so worked up and riled? It has an explanation in this oldie from Elton John (3.48mins).

There! That’s the reason: Well maybe it was childish, foolish, before-schoolish, immaturish, lose your coolish. Ego!