Asianet journos, editors must declare assets

On the day the Indian Express in New Delhi has exposed how the “paid news” rot runs deep in BJP-ruled Chhattisgarh, Rajeev Chandrasekhar‘s Asianet News Network (ANN) has announced steps “to restore confidence in media” and urged all other media companies to follow suit:

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PRESS RELEASE: In the current backdrop of some cases and allegations of Paid News, extortion in some isolated media companies, the spotlight is on the Media brands and the professionals working in them.

Asianet News Network (ANN) believes that for the large part, the Indian media and the Indian journalist are worthy of the trust that is reposed in them by the millions of Indians that consume and trust the news from their favorite sources.

ANN already has a strong Code of Conduct and Ethics policy in place, which is an intrinsic part of the employment contract of every team member.

Nevertheless, recent incidents have turned the spotlight on the media’s conduct and values. So it’s necessary to do more to earn further the trust of Indian news consumers.

In this connection, ANN’s three news brands—Asianet News (Malayalam), Suvarna News 24×7 and Kannada Prabha—have today announced that they would add the following to its already robust ethics policy and editorial and newsroom guidelines:

a.    Will disclose the ad sales and revenues during the months leading up to and during elections
b.    Will disclose all ad sales and revenues accruing from political parties and politicians
c.    Will ensure a mandatory disclosure of assets of senior editorial staff

Suresh Selvaraj, CEO, ANNPL said today “Our news brands Suvarna News, Asianet News and Kannada Prabha enjoy high credibility amongst our viewers and readers. Our leadership position in our markets is a direct consequence of the high trust in our news and in our team. These initiatives show that we will continue to do whatever it takes to increase the credibility and reach of our news coverage, investing further in not just infrastructure, technology and talent – but also in ethics and values.”

Illustration: courtesy C.R. Sasikumar/ The Indian Express

Also read: South media baron among top political donors

Media baron donates most to parties after Birlas

‘Editors and senior journalists must declare assets’

Editor declares assets, liabilities on live TV

Income, outgo, assets, liabilities, profits, loss

A paper without ‘paid news’ for north Indians

It is the season for southern English newspapers to head North.

Deccan Herald is due to print out of Delhi from December. And nowThe Hindu, “the most readable daily in the world” which already prints out of the national capital, has added another printing centre in the North, with a potshot at those who “serve up news that somebody else has paid for”.

Image: courtesy The Hindu 

Also read: Good morning, your paper is free of paid news

Coming soon: A Deccan Herald edition from Delhi

Should ‘media corruption’ come under Lokpal?

The more-than-just-a-neutral-observer position taken by sections of the media on the Anna Hazare agitation has clearly begun to rile politicians, and at least two of them cutting across party lines have argued in the last couple of days that the media too must be brought under the purview of the proposed anti-corruption legislation.

Exhibit A: Union minister for law and social justice, Salman Khurshid.

According to a report in The Hindu, Khurshid asked Headlines Today executive editor Rahul Kanwal as to why media corruption should not be investigated under the Team Anna version of the Lokpal bill.

“Do I need to go back to the Niira Radia tapes? Now you are asking why the government has not investigated. If we go ahead with the investigation, we would be accused of being insensitive. If we do, there would be a mass moment for the media.”

Exhibit B: Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Again, according to a report in The Hindu, Mulayam’s demand that the media also be brought under the Lokpal was met with thumping of desks by his colleagues.

“We [Samajwadi Party] suffered in the hands of media [during the polls],” he said during a debate on corruption. Even as a section of the treasury and opposition benche demanding that “media corruption” be also inquired into by Lokpal, Mulayam went on to state that it had become a practice for electronic channels to collect money during polls and air views in support of one party.

Also read: POLL: How has the media covered Anna movement?

Photograph: Television reporters deliver their piece to camera at the Ramlila grounds in New Delhi, against the backdrop of the stage on which Anna Hazare is fasting for the Lokpal bill

‘Editors are lobbying on behalf of corporations’

Corruption in the media is as old as, well, Malabar Hill, except that stories of individual transgressions—journalists and editors seeking cars, houses, laptops etc—have now been supplanted by stories of institutional transgressions.

Writing in the Financial Times, London, the historian Ramachandra Guha puts his finger on a newer and more insidious form of media corruption:

“The Republic of India today faces challenges that are as much moral as social or political…. These (corruption scandals) have revealed that manner in which our politicians have abused the State’s power of eminent domain, its control of infrastructural contracts, and its monopoly of natural resources, to enrich themselves…. This activity cuts across political parties—small and large, regional and national.

“It has tainted the media too, with influential editors now commonly lobbying pliant politicians to bend the law to favour particular corporations….

“[The] current wave of corruption scandals will put at least a temporary halt to premature talk of India’s rise to superstardom. Such fancies are characteristic of editors in New Delhi and businessmen in Mumbai, who dream often of catching up with and even surpassing China.”

Also read: Bangalore journos named in site allotment scam

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Cash transfer scheme is already here for journalists

Media houses are sitting on plots leased at one rupee!

Anti-corruption campaigner’s “error of judgement”

The WikiLeak cable on the journalist who…

‘Editors, senior journalists must declare assets’

‘Good morning! Your paper is free of paid news!’

In this era of mercenary managers and predatory proprietors, brave is the editor who can actually stick his neck out—at least in public—and vouch for the virginity of his product. But Aditya Sinha, the new editor-in-chief of the Bombay daily Daily News & Analysis (DNA), clearly doesn’t mind taking the risk.

At least, if nothing else, to send a signal to managers and proprietors who have hired him.

The masthead of the paper now sports a seal affirming that the paper is free of the latest scourge of Indian journalism—paid news. And this, in the cradle of the newspaper group that is seen to be the motherlode of all things negative about the profession: medianet, paid news, private treaties and what have you.

For the record, DNA, under its previous editor R. Jagannathan, had kicked off a front-page campaign in 2009 against paid news with a set of advertisements.

Also read: Time to drop the “A” from DNA?

Aditya Sinha on the world view of Delhi journalists

Just in case you have a view on ‘Paid News’…

A DAVP advertisement which appears in several newspapers today eliciting evidence on “paid news”.

Also read: The paid news of India: guess who monetised first?

Free, frank, fearless. No, grubby, greedy, gutless

Editors Guild on paid news, private treaties

The decentralisation of ‘paid-for’ news begins

‘Quantitative growth vs qualitative improvement’

Editorial in Business Standard:

“These exposes [of paid news, nexus between media professionals and corporate lobbyists, etc] are, however, only the tip of an iceberg of professional misconduct in the Indian media.

“The unprecedented quantitative growth of media in the past decade has overtaken qualitative improvement. The enormous improvement in financial compensation has, paradoxically, blunted the edge of professionalism. But these problems pale into insignificance against the rising tide of corporate and political influence, interference and control in the media.

“An increasing number of television channels and newspapers and news magazines are either owned by politicians with parallel business interests or business persons with political affiliations. These and the growing dependence of the media on advertisement revenue are undermining the independence of the fourth estate.

“The good news, however, is that increasing competition and an expansion of the market have acted as built-in stabilisers. The wider range of media options does empower readers and viewers. Competition is, in the final analysis, the best guarantor of quality and professionalism. In the medium to long term, however, Indian media must depend less on advertising and more on subscriptions to be able to liberate itself from the pressure of vested interests”

Read the full editorial: Bonfire of the vanities

Also read:Has media credibility suffered a body-blow?

‘Go to bed knowing you haven’t succumbed’

 

How much more interactive can it get?

The lineup of questions for readers to answer in the Open Space column of The Times of India.

Income, outgo, assets, liabilities, profit and loss

With journalistic integrity, both individual and institutional, increasingly under question with the spurt of paid news, private treaties, mediating, brokering and other wheeling and dealing, there have been growing calls for journalists to also declare their assets and liabilities, much like politicians, judges and bureaucrats.

Ravi Belagere (in picture), the colourful and sometimes controversial editor of the Kannada tabloid Hi Bangalore!—whose ad-free menu is a heady cocktail of crime, cinema, sleaze, politics and literature—has been doing just that on the pages of his paper for years now.

Every September, the popular and prolific Belagere, who also writes and publishes books, hosts television shows, acts in movies, and runs a school on top of his journalistic duties, publishes not so much a list but a confessional of what he holds and what he owes.

This is Belagere’s deeply personal “P&L statement” for the year gone by (translated from the original Kannada), published in the October 7 issue of Hi Bangalore!.

If nothing else, it offers a start.

By RAVI BELAGERE

“It is account-giving time once again.

“For someone who rode to Bangalore on his motorcycle with Rs 380 in his pocket, if I am anything today, it is because of Hi Bangalore!. For 15 years, I have been a humble servant of you, my reader, and it is my duty to present my accounts before you, my master.

“Except for two buses which I purchased for Prarthana School, I did not obtain any moveable assets  this year. For my personal use, I have a Skoda and Volkswagen, with the Skoda being put to greater use. But, as you are aware, in the second-half of the last year, my movements were restricted [due to an illness].

“There is a Maruti Omni in the garage for the use of the office staff. The Ind-Suzuki and Bullet motorcycles that are so dear to me, continue to remain parked there.

“I did not buy any new clothes either but I did buy books as if they were going out of fashion.

“I purchased a house-site in ‘Karishma Hills’ on the outskirts of Bangalore in the name of [third son] Karna and work on a new house has begun. I have bequeathed my Padmanabhnagar house, Amma, and a flat to my daughter Bhavana. The other house in Seshadripuram is already with my other daughter Chetana. At the moment, my wife Lalitha, mother-in-law, children, grandchildren, me and the dog stay in our Banashankari house, Ammi Jaan.

“Last year, I had purchased a house that [woman Friday] Nivedita had bought and donated it to Seena (nick name of Srinivas), who has been with me and been my shadow for nearly 30 years.

“As for my office, my friends keep teasing me,  ‘This is your Brindavana’. In Brahmin patois, Brindavana means final resting place. This office is my own.

“I have only one bank account, at Karnataka Bank, and have debts of nearly Rs 4 crore.

“Last year, I paid income-tax of Rs 54,44,450.

“Both the newspaper and the publishing house are in the black. The monthly employee costs of Hi Bangalore! is about Rs 4,20,000, and Nivedita is the highest-paid employee.

“There are 349 employees in Prarthana School which has 5,900 students. Their annual wage bill is Rs 2,00,82,000. Prarthana has four buildings of its own, and a small playground. Besides, I have rented two rooms. This year,too, principal Sheela was honoured by the government for the 100% pass-rate in SSLC.

“As you are aware, I devote a portion of my profits for poor students and the sick and ailing. Several children, all the way up to engineering and medical students, are availing the scholarship instituted in the name of my friend ‘Sitanadi‘ Surendra. The good news this year is that one of the girls is appearing for the IAS. Tens of heart and kidney patients, cancer victims, HIV-afflicted are benefitting from the donations.

“All the money for these ventures comes from you, the reader. My task is merely to distribute it.

“This year, thanks to my laziness, I did not write a single book. The publication of O Manase suffered hiccups for the same reason.

“From the moment Hi Bangalore! was born, my friend R.T. Vittal Murthy has been with me through thick and thin. He is my biggest asset.

“After this declaration, what more is there to admit?”

Photograph: Karnataka Photo News

Also read: ‘Editors and senior journalists must declare assets’

Jessica Lal verdict proof that Indian media works

The Supreme Court of India has upheld the life sentence awarded by the Delhi high court to Manu Sharma, the son of Congress leader and former Union minister Vinod Sharma, for killing Jessica Lal, who had declined to serve him a drink after the bar had closed in Delhi, in 1999.

Manu Sharma’s counsel, the noted criminal lawyer Ram Jethmalani, had argued that his client had been specifically targetted and maligned before and during the proceedings by the media, which proclaimed him guilty even after the acquittal by the trial court.

Rejecting this argument, the SC bench said:

“Certain articles and news items appearing in the newspapers immediately after the date of occurrence did cause certain confusion in the mind of the public as to the description and number of the actual assailants/suspects. It is unfortunate that trial by the media did, though to a very limited extent, affect the accused, but [was] not tantamount to a prejudice which should weigh with the court in taking any different view.”

The veteran editor T.J. S. George writes that in his “misplaced protestations against the media”, Jethmalani lost sight of the fact that, for once, “trial by media” achieved something good, beyond anything he could have achieved.

“The media in India today is not exactly a clean entity. It has become, generally speaking, dubious in its motivations, mischievous in its pretensions, and plainly guilty in many of its practices.

“Large sections of it are corrupt.

“Amoral ideas have been institutionalised by the biggest players with fancy labels like “private treaties” and “paid news.” The guilty in the media too should one day be brought to justice.

“It is a bit of a miracle that a media that has abdicated its responsibility is still able to do some public good. It is the nature of its work that makes this possible.

“Malpractices, misdeeds and criminalities dot the activities of our governments, our politicians, our businessmen, our film stars and even our sports bodies. A great deal of this is brought to public attention only because the media, by default or otherwise, dare publish information the guilty try to suppress. We only have to recall the numerous scandals of recent times to appreciate the value of this service done by the media.

“The Jessica Lal case shows how the media, warts and all, and public spirited citizens and alert judicial authorities can work in tandem to keep at least a few of our influential criminals out of harm’s way. Justice is higher than a lawyer’s interest in his client. “

Read the full article: ‘Media is amoral, but it works’

Infographic: courtesy The Telegraph, Calcutta

View: Karan Thapar‘s award winning interview with Jethmalani