Hundred Crores Not Enough, File A Suit A day...

“The said Article carries baseless allegations/comments about our channel TIMES NOW and also targets our Editor-in-Chief Mr. Arnab Goswami with comments that are derogatory and disparaging in nature. These comments are written and published with a malicious intent against both TIMES NOW and Mr. Arnab Goswami. Under the garb of providing a platform for freedom of expression, you have permitted the publication of such a highly disparaging article that not only reduces our esteem in the eyes of our viewers but also casts baseless aspersions on our credibility as a news broadcaster and thereby seriously damaging and diluting the goodwill and image we have built over the years......While we are certain that you are fully entitled to write or publish any article on the subject of media and its role, this freedom does not clothe you with the right to publish defamatory, disparaging or demeaning remarks against TIMES NOW or any of its representatives. An organization such as yours, which encourages and invites comments from readers, including journalists, and is believed to have been set up to uphold and provide a platform for free expression, ought to have been doubly careful whilst publishing any article/remark against a reputable news channel and its editor”. 

I didn’t write any of the above. That was written by Times in response to an article published by Nupur Basu on ‘The Hoot’ website. “This freedom does not clothe you with the right to publish defamatory, disparaging or demeaning remarks against TIMES NOW or any of its representatives.” It’s like that? Okay! So TV channels have all the right to make or allow disparaging statements or pictures about individuals but not others. In response, The Hoot pulled the article they had written about Times Now’s gory coverage of the attack on Prashant Bhushan. You can’t read the original article by The Hoot since it’s pulled but you can imagine what they must have written. Talk about getting lucky! TimesNow was doing an interview with Prashant Bhushan when the attack happened and spared no effort to play it over and over again.

Isn’t it amazing that the most self-righteous notes and defences usually come from the media? Almost every single day the media gets someone to mouth rubbish about someone else and then they play the victim. Lately, for every sentence that any politician utters the theme is he or she "Takes on"! Takes on? Every statement is like a wrestling match? Don’t shoot the messenger they tell you. Shoot? I think we should shoot them, kill them and bury them in an unmarked grave. That’s as far as the media has gone. So why is there sympathy for the TOI group when someone throws at it a hundred crore defamation suit?

TimesNow has been slapped with a 100-Crore defamation order by a court. Appeal goes to High Court of Bombay and TOI tries to stall it through the Supreme Court. The SC refuses to stay the proceedings. So the Bombay High Court has ordered TOI to deposit 20Crores and furnish a bank guarantee of 80Crores. The cause for this whole episode is the wrongful inclusion of a picture of Justice P.B. Sawant along with other offenders in the Ghaziabad PF scam. The so called ‘Editors Guild’ is naturally very concerned at the turn of events. Here is what their statement said:

"While recognising that the law of defamation is an important qualification of the fundamental right to freedom of expression, the Guild believes that the law of defamation has to be construed in such a manner that it does not constrain the normal functioning of the media," the Editors Guild said in a statement. It added, "An unintentional error because of a technical mix-up is in a different category from malicious or intentional libel. If inadvertent errors were to be met with punitive fines, it would make it difficult and indeed hazardous for journalists and media organisations to carry out their professional duties."

Unintentional error? Alright! And then what exactly are the professional duties of journalists and media organisations. They have the absolute right to peddle nonsense and lies about people and issues and when their ass gets kicked they talk about professional duties. This very TOI once sued a blogger called ‘Mediaah’ and forced it to shut up just because it carried satirical notes about the organisation. This very TOI has even carried silly fake articles about Aishwarya Rai being on a Jerry Springer show on its readers. As for Arnab Goswami…how can the man be possibly defamed? He defames himself every night on TV with his unwarranted kicking and screaming. And yet The Hoot has to shut up because it offends the TOI group. Who can forget the recent episode of misuse of an interview of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar by Sagarika Ghose on CNN-IBN? And they conveniently call it LookLive or SIMSAT and that all channels do it. Pay the price for it!

Does the name Uma Khurana ring a bell? Live India news channel ran a story on her in 2007. “The undercover operation, aired Aug 30, showed Uma Khurana, a mathematics teacher at Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya in central Delhi, running a prostitution racket involving students. Immediately after the channel aired the video footage of the sting, 41-year-old Khurana was arrested on charges of immoral trafficking, was badly abused and assaulted by a mob, and later was dismissed from the government service. A week later, the sting was found to be a hoax as the woman shown as a student and a prostitution racket victim turned out to be an aspiring journalist. The channel's reporter Prakash Singh, who carried out the operation, was also arrested Sep 8 last year. A trial court later absolved Khurana of all charges. Khurana filed a defamation suit against Live India, holding it responsible for putting her through “mental agony, humiliation and harassment”.

 

Well, later on Uma Khurana withdrew the defamation case. Maybe there was an out of court settlement and so be it. Since when did the media possess the moral right to defame people and carry absurd stories? Quite recently both TimesNow and CNN-IBN provided a platform to the notorious Sanjiv Bhatt and allowed him to call a Chief Minister a “common criminal”. Sensational stuff, but did they stop to think that the man was actually defaming a person without any reason or rhyme? No! The media derives immense joy and pleasure in airing such statements and bringing on people of dubious characters on their debates. Do they really care about their viewers or readers?

The Broadcast Editors Association (BEA) is concerned against the orders being passed against the TOI group. Even some stray jerks like Foundation for Media Professionals is concerned and they issued a statement: "If defamation is presumed even in mistakes honestly made without malicious intent the news media will be crippled with fear..” Why not? The rogues in the media must be crippled with FEAR! They have so far been fortunate to get away with a lot. It is not so much as genuine mistakes that offend viewers but it’s the general trash and biased coverage of events that offend viewers. Some channels need to shut down. Channels like NDTV and CNN-IBN are fountains of biased and deliberate mischief that need to be served with such suits almost on a daily basis. Hiding behind such spurious terms as SIMSAT and LookLive is as good as perpetrating a fraud on viewers. Even Justice Markandeya Katju who has rapped the media severely has been sympathetic to the plight of TOI and the 100Crore fine. Have we also forgotten how Barkha Dutt and NDTV tried to browbeat an ordinary blogger? Who or what gives these people the right to constantly molest and outrage the intelligence of the viewers?

Let the hundred crores just be a start. There are no journalists running the TV channels anymore. There are celebrities like Arnab Goswami, Rajdeep Sardesai, Barkha Dutt, Sagarika Ghose and many more who seem to believe they have the divine right to peddle nonsense every night. Justice Sawant may be a prominent individual who has pulled up TimesNow but that will be the day when ordinary viewers start filing cases against the media. A case a day will keep them on their toes. A hundred crores is really not enough!

The Fearless Extortionists

Truth! One used to say “Experience truth first” and the other used to say “Get paid for telling the truth”, and still probably does. Yes indeed, that’s that tag team of NDTV and Tehelka. NDTV, of course, has dumped that tag line of experiencing truth and I really don’t know what Tehelka’s latest tag line is. But they were both together at a recent event. The ‘Tehelka Thinkfest’ in Goa (November 4-6). It is somewhat like the Jaipur Literary festival except that in this event people were supposed to THINK!

The extinct tagline!

Let’s give a thought to Tehelka first. This is a tabloid, much like the extinct News of the World (NOTW) with all the masala minus the tits. Its greatest accomplishment? The sting operation it carried out on army personnel and politicians exposing corruption through use of prostitutes and money. In any other mature democracy Tarun Tejpal and his actors would be in jail for invasion of privacy, secretly filming and recording people and maybe even entrapment. Since then they have also called themselves ‘free and fearless’! That was during the NDA regime around the year 2001. Following that sting operation Tehelka faced govt ire and a string of legal cases that nearly sunk it. It took an election in 2004 for the Congress to come to power and a letter from the UPA head Sonia Gandhi to rehabilitate this tabloid.

Yes, it was a letter from Sonia Gandhi that may have resurrected this fearless tabloid that speaks the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Well, as long as it is about others mostly and sometimes you do have to take their truths with generous buckets of salt. Recently,  allegations about Tehelka’s Tarun Tejpal acquiring a property in Goa has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Never mind that! Haven’t we heard similar stories about Prannoy Roy and his properties in Goa? There you go, again something that Tehelka and NDTV share in common. But what should concern us how Tehelka arm twists even a Chief Minister of a state to fund its THINKfest! Here’s an excerpt from a report in the Deccan Herald which makes horrible reading:

After several preliminaries and high-power calls—some of them from Sonia Gandhi’s political adviser Ahmed Patel —''Tehelka'' publisher and chief operating officer Neena Tejpal met Chief Minister Digambar Kamat in Goa weeks ahead of ''Think 2011'', the magazine’s ‘festival of ideas’ that was held here from November 4 to 6……..

He denied there had been pressure from Delhi for him to support the festival,  which has been shadowed by a controversy, or that a deal had been struck for “Tehelka” to hold off an expose on illegal mining in Goa. “No, no, that’s not true at all,” he said……

                                     

Neena Tejpal, sister of “Tehelka” editor Tarun Tejpal, was business-like and downright arrogant with the Goa chief minister, leaving his aides quite stunned. “If Tarun was here, he would have asked for Rs 1.5 crore. How much are you willing to give?” she asked Kamat quite bluntly, a government source told Deccan Herald. The source expressed shock at Neena’s tone and tenor, considering she was talking to the chief minister of a state. An embarrassed Kamat asked his aides to see which departments could be tapped for funding the fest and the chief secretary finally came up with a figure of Rs 50 lakh for the magazine’s event.

“Tehelka”, which prides itself for its investigative and public interest journalism, has been accused by theatre personality Hartman De Souza of burying a report on mining in Goa by its former correspondent Raman Kirpal because of the negotiations with the Goa government on “Thinkfest”. Tejpal has strongly denied the charges. But a government aide said after the meeting with Neena Tejpal there was a strong buzz in the secretariat that Kamat was keen to oblige the “Tehelka” people because they have some “explosive material” on him.

Tejpal is on record stating that the reporter, Raman Kirpal, was actually fired for ‘non-performance”. Maybe Kirpal himself was expected to negotiate with the Goa CM on funding of the Thinkfest with his unpublished report and didn’t get anywhere. Otherwise, it’s hard to explain the firing of a reporter who seemed to have an explosive report on the mining scam in Goa.  So far there is also no news of any response from Tejpal on the Deccan Herald report. Couple of years ago Tehelka also published an article about the 26/11 attacks by one Raveena Hansa which supported conspiracy theories similar to the ones that Digvijay Singh supported with the book “26/11 An RSS Conspiracy” by Aziz Burney. In that case, Tehelka pulled that article from their site and claimed never to have carried it. That’s as truthful and as fearless as a tabloid can get. So just like the shady undertakings of the NOTW the fearless Tehelka is now up to dirty tricks that characterises much of our media outlets. It is surprising that Deccan Herald stopped short of calling Tehelka’s dirty tricks outright ‘blackmail’.

The participants at the Thinkfest may or may not be aware of the shady dealings behind the event and its funding. However, it’s always good to have a TV channel as a media partner for such an event. And who better for such a partnership than NDTV.  Amazingly, if it was indeed a Thinkfest I cannot see any sense why rest of the electronic media needs to be excluded unless, of course, you need any more convincing that the best thinksters or thinktankers come from the stable of NDTV. So you had Barkha Dutt, the queen of telly trolls, conducting interviews, debates and what not.

Why NDTV? That has something to do with history. Way back in 1998 the CBI had filed a case against Prannoy Roy for defrauding Doordarshan to the tune of 5 Crores. It is not clear till today what exactly happened to that case and how it got buried. Never mind that. One thing is pretty clear that there is a way to make merry and have your thinkfests and parties at the cost of govt funds. Are we expecting media that owes its existence and activities to the funds of govt. to be really reporting the truth? Will they be fair and fearless? Fat chance!

Fact is, the media has moved on from being as corrupt as the govt. to organised racketeering. Time will tell whether Tehelka will respond to the report by Deccan Herald but so far there has only been silence from the free, fair and fearless one. This one has come out in the open. Should you plan to be a journalist you might even want to read the Dummy’s guide to extortion. One will never know how many fearless extortionists in the media are out there.

Sack Sagarika

Dan Rather, an internationally acclaimed journalist, was the first to break the assassination of John F Kennedy. He also covered Watergate and many wars. In 2004 he ran a report about military records of George W Bush using documents which later turned out to be forged. Rather did the morally right thing, he quit CBS in 2006. His only fault was that he hadn’t fact-checked the story and the documents, although there is still no concrete evidence that the documents were unreliable. That was probably a rare mistake from Rather in career spanning over five decades. What does it say about journalists in India who continue to not only hold on to their jobs but continue to sermonise the nation as if their character were soaked in the purest of waters?

We first had Barkha Dutt, the Radiagate hero, stringing along a lobbyist and indulging in power-brokering who continues to moralise the nation. We now have Vir Sanghvi, another Radiagate hero, who now claims the tapes were doctored and he is innocent. This is the same brazenness with which politicians hang on to office despite being tainted with acts of corruption. If I have consistently maintained that a corrupt media is more dangerous to democracy than corrupt politicians then the media doesn’t stop providing more evidence to that belief.

Most Indian businesses are family-run and owned. But it is a common practice among many corporate entities to not employ two or more members from the same family, at least not in the same department. There is no particular reason behind this practice except for the belief that all the acts of the members may not be free from prejudice if they were from the same family. And what if your spouse also happens to be your boss in a news media enterprise? It then makes it all the more likely that sometimes even trash can be passed off as journalism. In all the posts on this site I have never once referred to Sagarika Ghose as the wife of Rajdeep Sardesai. I have always referred to her as the deputy editor. However, now I do believe the deputy editor must go. That any other Managing Editor in the seat of Rajdeep Sardesai would not tolerate the outright rubbish that Sagarika churns out so frequently. The latest one really has to be the last straw. That Rajdeep himself has a lot to answer for is another story.

Media is not a private body as the Editors Guild would have the Standing committee on Lokpal believe. The power to influence people, opinions and even elections is not in the private domain. There is a strange streak in Sagarika Ghose that leads her to believe that people are idiots and can be fooled all the time. That there are ordinary people and there are elites and she stands independently as an observer. Her boss should have repeatedly told her that she was part of the elite. On 9^th November on her programme ‘Face the nation’ Sagarika ran the debate “Sri Sri on 4 day yatra in UP: should spiritual leaders take part in anti-corruption campaigns? FTN 10pm”. There were a few usual panellists along with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. Except, SriSri wasn’t there!

First of all, the clear answer to SG’s question is anybody in this country is free to run a campaign against corruption at any place and at any time of his or her choice. Sagarika doesn’t have any moral business to question the rights of SriSri. This country’s values have been built on the spiritual cleanliness which outsiders find easier to recognise than people like Sagarika. The right question would now be: Does Sagarika have any moral right to continue as a journalist?

Sagarika Ghose conducted the debate as if SriSri were live on the programme and was responding to the comments made by other panellists. That wasn’t all, when panellists made a comment she even turned to SriSri to seek his response. What was being used was footage from a previously recorded interview with SriSri and suitably edited to make it appear as if he was responding live. This is nothing short of blatant mischief and fraud on the viewers. This is something CNN-IBN’s Cyrus Broacha does on his comedy show where the viewers are aware of the interviews being fake.

Some days back SG ran a debate on whether Justice Katju, the new PCI chairman, should apologise for calling journalists “uneducated”. I hope she now realises what exactly Katju was referring to. Not done with that, she frequently passes judgements on judges of High courts and Supreme Court some of which may actually be an act of contempt. In a recent article, ‘The Elite’s on trial’, here is what she wrote:

“The 2G trial too is one of India’s “million mutinies”. The overthrow of bail jurisprudence, the CBI’s failure to provide comprehensive evidence so far, the many weaknesses of the case beyond its rhetoric, have been highlighted by several legal experts. It is no longer even clear how much “loss” there was to the exchequer, with the CAG’s R1.76 lakh crore figure now being systematically questioned. Yet the 2G accused, before the trial, before proof of the money trail, appear to already have been declared guilty”. This not only reflects her terrible lack of understanding of the law but it also appears the article was written without a thorough scrutiny of the judgement by Judge O.P.Saini which denied bail to Kanimozhi and others. She probably implies that Indians simply want to hang the rich regardless of evidence or sense of justice.

I have said often that it’s not possible to hide in the tech-age. Faster than she could say SriSri people on Twitter quickly pointed out the recorded interview of SriSri being misused by Sagarika on her programme. She later tweeted that it was a bug and that FTN will carry a full apology to the viewers and to SriSri. I believe one can apologise for a mistake or an error. This was neither a mistake nor an error but wilful deception. The apology can pass but if Rajdeep Sardesai has any moral decency left in him he has to let his deputy editor go. Willingly perpetrating a fraud on the viewers is not a mistake that can be covered up by an apology. It is far too serious a crime. It is time for Rajdeep, the Managing Editor, to sack Sagarika. 

PS: Those who missed the episode on CNN-IBN can watch it here on YOUTUBE

Vir Sanghvi - In Defense Of The Corrupt

By Ram Valmiki

It’s very important to know the personal opinions of journalists as that is what influences how they report events or news.  There are many in Indian MSM who are incapable of reporting without their personal biases. Vir Sanghvi is just one of them. It is not a big secret, at least among netizens or as they put it “Internet Hindus” that VS is biased towards Congress and Government. In his recent posts on his blog titled “Don’t blame media, Mr. Kejriwal” and “How the govt lost its way, and its face” he so openly defends the corrupt government and tries to peddle the lie that it’s actually the government that brought out the scams into public. The title chosen for his second post is very misleading.

“I am prepared to agree with Kejriwal when he says that the Shanti Bhushan CD was part of a conspiracy. We know now that the CD was faked and the refusal of the Delhi Police to recognise that it was a cut-and-paste job suggests a certain level of official complicity even if the CD itself was made by non-governmental sources”

Yes Mr VS, it does suggest government conspiracy but how many from your MSM has really taken on government about this issue. The very idea that there exists possibility that a government can conspire against the citizens is disturbing. VS and MSM should have concentrated on this area rather than going behind the Team Anna. Just because CD was made by non-governmental sources does not in any way lessen the sin if those sources were prompted to do so by government?

“ Unless Arvind Kejriwal can somehow convince us that the government hypnotised Kiran Bedi into filing fake reimbursement claims, it is hard to see how this is part of an official conspiracy. The most he can suggest is that official agencies helped in unearthing the evidence. But if this is proof of a government conspiracy then surely he is also a co-conspirator with the government when he makes statements based on reports issued by such government bodies as the CAG. Just because the government digs up accurate information – as the CAG did in the telecom scam – and this information is used by the media and concerned citizens it does not follow that there is any conspiracy”

I could have never imagined an experienced editor and journalist would be able to dole out crap logic ever if I had not come across these posts. It’s really amazing that though “official agencies helped in unearthing the evidence”, what is more surprising is these “official agencies”  one fine day had a dream and then went on to dig stuff of selected people who happen to be criticizing the government.  I am not aware of any complaint against Bedi that led to “official agencies” to investigate and dig up the mess of Bedi. If VS is aware of any such complaint, I would like to know because it’s really frightening to know that “official agencies” can unearth evidences just to please the political masters.  In lay man’s language that would be termed “witch hunting”.

CAG providing his report is NOT similar to “official agencies unearthing evidence” in case of Bedi. It’s the duty of the CAG to audit and provide report of government expenditure. CAG did his routine job and fortunately for India, CAG is a very honest and upright gentleman unlike MMS. Comparing CAG’s job with “official agencies” is totally out of context. As per the law “official agencies” require governmental permission or formal complaint or court order to “unearth evidences”. In Bedi’s case media has not reported any complaint or court order that prompted “unearthing” exercise and hence we have no choice but to believe the government conspired.  CAG does not take orders from executive branch of the government (ministers) where as “official agencies” do.

VS continues his new found CAG argument in his next post as well. We will look into that but before that, let’s just LOL at the statement by him: “On the other hand, you could argue that in the UPA’s second term, the scandals that have emerged have all been uncovered only as a result of the government’s own efforts.” Either VS thinks all his readers have no IQ or VS thinks by vomiting such crap will make him an intellectual journalist.  I mean, how in the holy god of secularism’s name he concludes that a government involved in scandals will uncover its own corruption. On second thoughts, has govt promised him Padma Bhushan next year?

“Let’s take 2G. The scandal only broke as a result of a report by the CAG. You may or may not agree with the CAG’s computation of the loss caused to the exchequer (and it is now clear that even within the CAG’s office, there were disagreements), but you cannot dispute that if there had been no CAG report, there would be no 2G scandal.” This is such a blatant lie that VS is trying to sell here. The scandal was in public even before the CAG report. PILs were filed and Subramanian Swamy moved SC long before the CAG report was tabled. If anything, the CAG report only confirmed the monstrous size of the scandal.  Here is the list of events and timeline as per Wikipedia. Yes Wikipedia is authentic reference, as it constructs the time line based on media reports.

…May 4, 2009: An NGO Telecom Watchdog files complaint to the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) on the illegalities in the spectrum allocation to Loop Telecom.

….May 19, 2009: Another complaint was filed to the CVC by Arun Agarwal, highlighting grant of spectrum to Swan Telecom at throwaway prices.

….May, 2010: NGO Centre for Public Interest litigation moves the Delhi High Court seeking investigation into the scam by SIT or CBI.

….Sept 13, 2010: SC asks government, Raja to reply within 10 days to three petitions filed by CPIL and others alleging there was a Rs 70,000 crore scam in the grant of telecom licences in 2008

….Sept 24, 2010: Swamy moves SC seeking direction to the PM to sanction prosecution of Raja.

The SC has numerous times pulled up CBI for shoddy investigation. If not for active role of SC and petitioners like Swamy, the scandal would have been easily buried by the government. Saying government uncovered the scandals is nothing but a joke. “The current CAG, an honest and upright bureaucrat called Vinod Rai, got the job because the UPA Cabinet chose him. His candidacy was strongly pushed by the former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram who knew Rai from his career in the finance ministry.” Justice Santosh Hegde was appointed by the government headed by Yedurappa. This is similar to Vinod Rai being appointed by the UPA government. Fortunately both of them have done justice to their assigned duties. This in no means absolves the governments of their sins. How would have VS responded if BJP claimed that it was their government that uncovered mining scam? It cannot get funnier than that. “So it is with the arrests. Who would have thought it possible that Spectrum King A. Raja would spend so many months in jail. Who would have imagined that the CBI would have the guts to arrest the daughter of M. Karunanidhi, an important Congress ally at a time when the government depended on the DMK’s support for its survival?”

CBI had no choice after being pulled up by SC. With various petitions that Swamy filed with documents he possessed, CBI had to act. Let us ask counter question. If Swamy did not really have possession of documents he claims he has, is he insane to move SC to seek permission to prosecute Chidambaram and also showing intention of even inducting MMS? “In the end, all of the uncovering of the scandal, all of the investigating and all of the arresting has been done by branches of the government. And yet, nobody believes that this government has any interest in uncovering the truth or in fighting corruption. The credit is given to the courts (who can only act once the CBI brings cases to them), to the media and to the opposition. The government itself gets no credit at all.” I don’t understand why VS is so hell bent on using illogical arguments in proving government is anti-corrupt. Is not this the most corrupt government yet? A government that indulges in corruption can no way uncover its own corruption. VS is either acting innocent or its time he took sanyas. I would prefer second option for him for his own good as well as the country.

 “So here’s what the truth is. No, this is not the most corrupt government is history. It is headed by a decent and honest man. And his government has uncovered most of the corruption cases we read about. But this is a government without a visible leader. The Prime Minister has made the mistake of sitting back and watching while his allies have made money. And now, while he should be associating himself with the clean-up, he cowers silently at Race Course Road.”

Well yeah you are right VS. Seriously, if PM was silent when his allies made money, he is as much responsible. That only means for him more than national interests, saving government was important. It’s not surprising though. We are already aware that to save itself, congress can indulge in horse trading. It is an art it has mastered. Cash for votes scam is another hot topic now.

With the title of his second post he misleads the reader to believe he is criticizing the government whereas all he does is mindlessly defend the government. Then he ends with questioning leadership of the government. It is clear where he is heading with his arguments. With Clown Prince rumoured to be made party president and Diggy already announcing in public that it’s high time sycophants like him are ruled by Clown Prince, it’s an attempt to create grounds for MMS to exit and Clown to claim Gaddi. After all, it’s not surprising if Congress realizes that they may not return to power in 2014 and Clown prince would have to wait god knows how many more years to sit on gaddi.