The Indian Express responds to Yogendra Yadav’s online post

Indian Express responds to Yogendra Yadav's post questioning the 'unethical behaviour' of the journalist.

Responding to The Indian Express report ‘AAP sting politics: To target Yogendra Yadav, critics in party play tape of call with journalist‘ (March 3, 2015), AAP leader Yogendra Yadav has posted online the following: Indian Express story raises vital questions regarding ethics of public life, but sadly in a one sided manner. It rightly questions the practice of clandestine recording of a journalist’s call. It is also justified in questioning the dubious practice of making such recording public, and that too to settle intra-party squabbles.

But I fail to understand why Indian Express shied away from questioning the unethical behaviour of the concerned journalist herself. Why did she report on a breakfast conversation that was clearly understood to be not for reporting? Why did she reveal her sources to an interested party? And worst of all, why did she drag me, who had never given her any such information? It is particularly sad, because Indian Express had evidence in their hand that proved the complicity of their colleague. They had email testimonies from two other journalists present in that breakfast meeting. They are on record saying that the sensitive information about Haryana disclosed in the article was never discussed at the breakfast meeting. Why did Express choose to suppress this part of the story?

Since, I’m at the receiving end of both these unethical practices, may I hope that those who raise larger ethical questions will not be selective in their moral judgement.

The Indian Express replies:

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The “email testimonies” from two journalists Yogendra Yadav refers to were, in fact, sent to this newspaper on the night of March 2 by Rajeev Godara, an advocate who is the AAP spokesperson for Haryana. This came after Yadav told the newspaper that the emails were on their way. The Indian Express carefully scrutinised the emails in which the two journalists condemned the AAP for recording a phone conversation with a journalist without her knowledge. Nowhere do these emails say that “sensitive information about Haryana”, as Yadav puts it, was not discussed at the meeting. One of them only says he wished Yadav had actually given them “some juicy tidbits”.

Chander Suta Dogra, reporter for The Hindu (now with The Indian Express) whose conversation was recorded by AAP without her knowledge, adds:

Yogendra Yadav has raised three questions concerning me.

One, why did I report on “a breakfast conversation that was clearly understood to be not for reporting”? I was invited, along with four other journalists, to meet Yogendra Yadav over breakfast at the Chandigarh home of an AAP office-bearer. Since Yadav was the chief spokesperson of the AAP, I decided to attend the meeting. As a reporter who had been covering politics for many years, I realised this meeting was not an invitation to a casual chat over breakfast. This meeting took place on August 15, 2014. I did not file any news report regarding the meeting, storing the conversation as an input for a larger report on developments within the AAP. Thereafter, I interviewed several AAP workers before writing an Op-Ed article for The Hindu which appeared on August 29, 2014 – a full two weekslater.

Two, Yadav wants to know why did I reveal my “sources to an interested party”. Considering that nine people were present at the breakfast meeting, there was no element of confidentiality. Since he was the chief spokesperson of AAP, one assumed that the party was aware of the breakfast meeting. As a responsible reporter, I am fully aware of the sanctity of a relationship between a reporter and a source.

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Three, I never “dragged” Yadav into this. His name was dragged by his own party colleagues who recorded my phone conversation without my knowledge and then made it public.

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