‘Radia’ctive Indian Media

Satya Sagar

There has been a gross simplification of the issues involved in the exposures in the Radia tapes on the lack of integrity among mediapersons. In order to understand how exactly journalists really function it is necessary to understand the overall context in which they operate and clarify some of the persistent myths about what the profession is all about. Four myths in particular need to be dissected: That it enjoins journalists, more than other professionals, to be ethical, that they should and can be neutral in their reportage, that owners of media businesses are interested in good journalism and that journalism is the prerogative of those employed in the media industry.

The last two decades have seen a rapid expansion of the Indian media industry, making it one of the most profitable sectors of business in the country. Yet, for all the income and influence it has gained during these years the Indian media has also steadily lost its most valuable asset – public credibility and respect.
Apart from the usual sensational, insensitive or inaccurate reportage there are numerous other problems affecting the popular image of journalism in the country. These include blatant promotion of partisan agendas, prioritising ads over editorial content and the phenomenon of “paid news” – selective coverage of politicians in return for cash.
Now, the ongoing Niira Radia tapes scandal has once again exposed influential sections of the Indian media as not behaving like the exalted “fourth pillar of democracy” they are supposed to be but more a corrupt, profit-hungry business like any other. Reputed journalists, who in popular perception were hitherto considered to be somewhat above the morass of corruption that routinely marks our public life, have now sunk to the level of ordinary fixers on behalf of the rich and powerful.
So why has the Indian media come to such a sorry pass? Is the Radia tapes controversy just about a few important journalists misusing their positions at the behest of a lobbyist? Or is it a pointer to larger structural problems with the media industry itself that has leveraged its special position in Indian democracy to further its business and larger ideological interests? Is it possible at all for journalists to be “independent” and “objective”? In any democracy, is not journalism too important to be left to “journalists”?

The Radia Affair
Hundreds of telephone calls, tapped originally by tax officials but leaked into public domain, show lobbyist Niira Radia – a Kenya-born, British citizen – cajoling, hectoring and even brow-beating journalists into obeying her command. Many top editors of national publications and TV channels have been caught slavishly taking instructions from Radia, who handles public relations for corporate tycoons like Ratan Tata and Mukesh Ambani.
That all this manipulation took place in the context of intense competition between business houses for control over key national resources like telecom frequency and natural gas has added a larger dimension to what otherwise could have passed off as mere titillating gossip. The brazen attempts by Radia to influence the formation of the new Indian cabinet after the 2009 general election, through her “eyes, ears and tongues” in the media, have also been pointed out as a clear undermining of Indian democracy itself.

Response within the Media
While the tapes had been floating around in Delhi for several months they came to public attention only after magazines like Outlook and Open published transcripts of the conversations. Even after this it was a while before other media outlets started covering the story showing a clear reluctance on their part to scrutinise behaviour of members of their own fraternity.
After the initial tepid start, however, the response within the fraternity to this expose of fellow journalists acting as couriers between corporations and politicians, has been rhetorically fierce. There have been calls for the “weeding out” of the “compromised” journalists, greater scrutiny of corporate agendas and shunning of professional lobbyists. The media has also been exhorted not to get too close to their sources or enter into quid pro quo deals with them.
For all this fire and smoke it remains doubtful whether the controversy will result in any significant changes in the functioning of the Indian media. Barring one well-known editor who has discontinued his high-profile newspaper column no heads have really rolled. Most of those suspected of practising dubious journalism as heard on the Radia tapes have protested their innocence and held on to their chairs – somewhat like the politicians they were consorting with.
Part of the reason for the lack of a proper shake-up within the media after the Radia affair is really that the rot accumulated over the last couple of decades in the Indian media cannot be undone so easily and standards in the profession seem to have hit a new low.
Tragically, barring some brave exceptions, there are few senior journalists in decision-making positions left to serve as examples of integrity and courage and inspire younger members of the profession. As several columnists themselves have put it recently “hamaam mein sab nangey hein”, implying among other things that if shedding clothes is the minimum qualification for being in the media business, pointing fingers is pretty pointless.

Myths about Journalism
While a lot of the flak that the journalists involved in the Radia scandal are getting is richly deserved in my opinion, there is also a gross simplification of the issues involved with too much focus on the “good” or “bad” behaviour of individual journalists. In order to understand how exactly journalists really function it is necessary to understand the overall context in which journalists operate and clarify some of the persistent myths about what the profession is all about.

Myth No 1: Journalists Should Always Be Ethical: In an ideal world this expectation from the members of the Fourth Estate is naturally understandable. But then in reality the ethics of journalists cannot be neatly separated from that of the overall society they live in or come from. Why should anyone expect the media to uphold high standards of ethics when everyone from our top generals and judges to movie stars and cricketers are members of the same “hamaam” club and caught misusing their power every now and then? In other words, the proportion of rotten journalists in the profession is not very different from the general ratio of worthless creatures in other professions in the country they come from.
The argument goes that journalists are part of a “special” profession and should be somehow more ethical than others in the country because of their assumed responsibility as “watchdogs” of democracy. This too is mistaken, as safeguarding democracy is the job of every citizen – high and low – and not just of journalists.
I am not saying there are no ethical journalists or it is not possible for journalists to be ethical anymore but only pointing out that the average member of the profession can only rise as high as the overall social values that prevail around him/her. In my opinion the last two decades of economic (and as far as corruption is concerned, moral too) liberalisation in the country have had a tremendous impact on the actual practice and values of journalism.
Twenty-five years ago when I joined as a reporter with the Indian Express in Bangalore, moving later on to the Economic Times, the Indian media was a creature well on the way to getting tamed but still feisty in parts.
It was just a decade since the infamous Emergency, which politicised an entire generation against Indira Gandhi’s attempt at dictatorship and underlined the importance of democratic institutions and processes. The following years had seen a spurt in new publications, the birth of the “investigative” journalist and greater coverage of a slew of hitherto neglected concerns from human rights and environment to gender and dalit issues.
Poorly paid and ill-equipped they may have been, but there were enough journalists around both in the English and regional media willing to use their professional skills to challenge social injustices, fight corruption, support the underdog and further Indian democracy in whatever manner possible.
It was a time when there were broadly two kinds of people entering the profession. One included those who could not get a job anywhere and sought refuge in journalism – the kind that believed a free lunch was more important than the free press. The other category consisted of those who were motivated by more abstract concerns – some trying hard to become writers or poets, some with strong ideological leanings trying to change Indian society through journalism and yet some more with direct political ambitions.
Journalism was not really a “viable career” then and you chose to become one either because it was your passion or due to a complete lack of choice. It was a low income, uncertain profession and no “respectable” family would have wanted their offspring to marry a journalist but this was itself a badge of honour that many of us scribes wore in those days.
I may be idealising all this a bit of course in my nostalgia but all I wanted to say was that journalism was quite a different profession even two decades ago when the scale of comfort, corruption or compromise in Indian journalism was nowhere near what it has reached today. Now there are unfortunately a greater number of people in Indian (or for that matter also global) journalism who think news is yet another lucrative commodity to sell and make a good living out of.
With rising salaries, perks and influence, there is a mercenary character that has entered the ethos of the profession today whereby journalists are happy to use their skills to further their own and their employer’s profitability at the cost of their own integrity. This is something that can change only with the transformation of the values of Indian society and cannot be repaired with empty rhetoric about the need for “ethical journalism”.

Myth No 2: Journalists Should and Can Be Objective and Neutral in Their Reportage: Freedom from bias of any kind in course of duty is one of the most oft-repeated maxims of modern journalism around the world. Whether such neat “objectivity” is at all possible in practice is a completely different question altogether.
The reality of day to day journalism is, however, that the reporter is never a mere observer but also a participant in either the events he/she covers or the context in which it happens. The bias could be ideological, commercial, religious, linguistic or even reasons of sheer professional incompetence through the failure to see the real importance of a particular story. In the era of 24×7 television, fierce battles for Television Rating Points and grabbing eyeballs the bias could arise even from sheer desperation to get “something” to fill up the perpetual news “vaccum” the media industry has artificially created.
Talking about media bias, one of the least discussed themes in the Indian context is about the caste composition of the profession. A 2006 survey1 of 300 senior journalists in 37 Hindi and English newspapers and TV stations found 71% of the top jobs in the national media were held by people from the “Hindu upper castes” who form just 8% of the country’s population.
In sharp contrast, the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), who are estimated to constitute around 40% of the population, account for an “abysmally low” 4% of top media jobs. In the English print media, OBCs account for just 1% of top jobs and in the Hindi print media 8%. According to the survey, dalits and adivasis “are conspicuous by their absence” in the top echelons of the profession.
Apart from all this, there is also the fact that journalists can be easily “managed” by those in powerful positions with very simple strategies. As one senior Indian bureaucrat told me many years ago, there are three distinct approaches adopted by those in power to keep the so-called “free” press completely pliant.
The first way to deal with a journalist getting close to the truth is to bribe him/her with money, favours of different kinds, promises of plum posts, etc. Many journalists, victim to the same pressures of mass consumption as everyone else, succumb to the temptations of such baksheesh.
In a profession where information is the main commodity being marketed, the more sophisticated journalists also routinely get bribed with “scoops” and other special bits of “insider” information from their sources. While these journalists pretend that they are the ones who are “cultivating” their sources, it is very often the clever source who is “planting” stories and reaping an entire “harvest” of lies through the scribe!
If the journalist persists with telling the truth, the second tried and tested method used to silence him/her is to physically threaten him/her or get them actually beaten up. Again in the developing world this happens only too often with many journalists losing their lives or limbs every year.
The third and apparently the most effective method to get a journalist to lie on your behalf is to pump their egos and lavish them with praise in public. That, said the bureaucrat, will keep the scribe completely servile to your every command for nothing really moves them more than the delusion that they are somehow very important to those in power!

Myth No 3: The Owners of Media Businesses Are Interested in Good Journalism: To understand the financial stakes involved in the Indian media industry today just consider that according to one estimate gross revenue of the Indian media business grew by an estimated 10fold from 1991 to 2005 while advertising revenue as a whole expanded sevenfold between 1991 and 2004. From being a modest sized business even in the 1980s the Indian media has now turned into an economic giant, with a turnover of over $6 billion (Asia Media Report: A Crisis Within, 2006).
All this growth has not come through an improvement in the quality of journalism in the media but mainly using aggressive marketing techniques to expand circulation of newspapers and TRPs in the case of TV news channels.
One such marketing approach that some leading newspapers began in the early 1990s was of giving away their publications at well below cost price to boost circulations. Other newspapers, in order to compete, have had to follow suit resulting in loss of circulation revenue, which once used to be a significant portion. This, in turn, has led to an unhealthy dependence on advertising within the media.
According to one estimate (ibid) advertisements on average occupy more than 20% of newspaper space. For the bigger or leading papers, the ratio is 60% or more, while for the English language press, the ratio is 6% plus.
Such dependence means less and less autonomy from the corporate interests which buy advertising space or time. Fierce competition for a share of the market in the Indian media has resulted in trivialisation of content as less and less space is available for serious journalism. Many smaller publications that have tried to promote good quality journalism have had to fold up or compromise in order to survive under the pressure of the market.
In the light of the changed nature and scale of the Indian media industry any discussion of journalist ethics therefore has to move beyond the level of mere individual hacks and their personal values. The ordinary citizen needs to understand that the biggest obstacle to the media’s ability to tell the truth today are the owners of the media business themselves, who impose a huge amount of censorship on their employees for political or corporate reasons.
It could be a media house trying to win concessions and contracts from the government that kills a piece of news that may adversely affect its relations with the ruling regime. Or it could be a large corporate house that threatens the media owners with withdrawal of lucrative advertising if it went ahead with the broadcast of damaging information.
Given the overwhelming dependence of the media industry on advertising revenues such factors can have a devastating influence on the work of ordinary journalists employed by media houses. Advertising, which mostly consists of promoting half-truths and lies about commercial products anyway, cannot really be expected to support honesty about anything anywhere.
In fact one of the key reforms within the Indian media that is needed urgently is full transparency about both the business links and interests of the media owners as well as the assets and perquisites that journalists derive from their jobs. If the media can demand such a standard of politicians, bureaucrats and everyone else they should also be subjected to similar public scrutiny. Given the disproportionate power and influence journalists and media houses often wield there should be public accountability and checks on their abuse of power and position.

Myth No 4: Journalism Is the Prerogative of Those Who Are Employed by the Media Industry: Even in an age where every aspect of our lives has been taken over by some corporate entity or the other the idea that only those working for corporate media houses somehow constitute the tribe called “journalists” is especially pernicious.
The fact is that communication in different ways is the fundamental ability of every human being and mass communication is the right of every citizen. Journalism in other words is too important to be left to the “media industry” and if democracy is to be preserved in any society everyone should practise journalism in whichever form they can.
While till recently there were severe financial and technological barriers to ordinary citizens trying to spread their take on what constitutes news and what does not all this has changed considerably in recent years.
The dawn of the internet era and the proliferation of various other communication technologies has already revolutionized how “news” is produced and disseminated in the developed countries. Today in highly wired countries like the US, Japan and South Korea internet blogs and publications have higher readership than printed newspapers while it is just a matter of time before web-based news channels take on their satellite or terrestrial counterparts.
Even in the case of the Radia tapes scandal mainstream media was forced to take up the issue and discuss it only after a sustained campaign by hundreds of outraged and anonymous “netizens” campaigned through social media networks.
So today, if many members of the Indian public believe that the media, which is supposed to be the fourth pillar of popular democracy has become in fact the fifth column of corporate autocracy I will say you are absolutely right. I will caution though that this has become possible only because as societies we have too readily given up the citizen’s right and indeed responsibility to inform others and be informed ourselves, entirely to the corporate media.
This is not unlike the way we have given up the task of looking after our health to the medical industry, our fight against injustice to the legal industry, the education of our children to the education industry, the governance of our societies to both governments and corporations. If the media in our times has become powerful and corrupt it is “WE THE PEOPLE” who are to blame.
So stop complaining and start doing journalism wherever you are!


Notes
1 http://www.socialjustice.in/documents/Caste in the newsroom/Upper castes dominate national media.pdf

(Courtesy EPW, VOL 45 No. 52 December 25 - December 31, 2010)

Satya Sagar (sagarnama@gmail.com) is a journalist, writer, videomaker based in New Delhi.