Barkha Dutt breaks silence in NYT interview

For 15 days, as the media storm over the Niira Radia tapes raged around her, NDTV’s star-anchor Barkha Dutt opted to speak to the world through an official press release, an online essay, and a pre-recorded inquisition by print editors.

Dutt declined to appear on a Karan Thapar show and in a Headlines Today debate, and even spurned on-screen advice from Sanjaya Baru of the Business Standard to apologise and move on.

Now, she has broken her silence in an interview with Lydia Polgreen of the New York Times:

“I look at some of the conversations, and I do feel I should have been more alert,” she said in an interview on Friday at the studios of her television station, NDTV.

“I should have been more skeptical. I should have known better.”

Photograph: courtesy Lynsey Addario/ New York Times

SMS IPUB4 to 51818* for Journalist of the Year

The Pioneer's special correspondent, J. Gopikrishnan (second from left, with mike in hand), who brought the 2G scam-tainted telecom minister A. Raja to book, at a colloquium at the Asian College of Journalism in Madras on Wednesday, 1 December 2010 (photo courtesy: The Hindu)

 

The publication of the Niira Radia tapes by Outlook* and Open magazines has seen the usual clutch of usual suspects—and “suspects” many of them truly are—hog the limelight and shine in reflected glory.

All, except J. Gopikrishnan of The Pioneer, the journalist who (aside from Paranjoy Guha Thakurta) kept pegging away at the 2G spectrum allocation scam, story after story, eventually bringing about the resignation of the telecom minister, A. Raja.

Thankfully, a small correction is on the way.

On Wednesday, Gopikrishnan took part in a colloquium on the Radia tapes organised by the Asian college of journalism (ACJ) in Madras, where he lamented that he had been on the 2G case for nearly two years with very little response, before the tapes burst on the scene and grabbed the attention of the entire nation.

Gopikrishnan has also been nominated for the CNN-IBN “Indian of the Year” in the “public service” category. To vote for him, sms IPUB4 to 51818. Conditions apply!

* Conditions apply

Photograph: courtesy The Hindu

Image: courtesy IBNLive.com

Also read: The Pioneer journo who brought A. Raja to book

Everybody loves (to claim credit for) an expose