Opinion Whose Line Is It Anyway?

Times has done a great job of exposing drivers,astrologers and bakers who have been unwittingly running shell companies from fictitious addresses. But the campaign also doubles up as a coverall fig leaf. Simply by keeping the Gadkari investigation at the top of the news list,Times can legitimately put the Jindal reverse sting on the back burner. It needs to,because the Jindal tape is deeply embarrassing for the group. It puts one of media’s worst-kept secrets on the record for the first time.

The plot is quite simple. Representatives of Jindal Steel and Zee News had been talking about running an expensive ad campaign in return for damping down news on the coal scam. Each party says the other made the offer but this aap pehle controversy need not detain us. What is of interest is that there was a misunderstanding. Jindal’s men thought they would have to shell out Rs 20 crore over five years. Zee’s reps,news editor Sudhir Chaudhary and business editor Sameer Ahluwalia,strongly believed that the figure was Rs 20 crore per year over five years,or Rs 100 crore. At the meeting,Team Jindal protests that hiking the price tag by a factor of five is absurd. What follows is an embarrassment to the Times Group.

Sameer Ahluwalia waves a copy of The Economic Times at Team Jindal. “A paper you probably read,” he says. “At least we’re doing a proper,transparent deal with you,not running a paid front page story. Delhi Times,Bombay Times,poora paid hai,A to B (sic).” His colleague chimes in with: “Madhur Bhandarkar has to pay to be interviewed. Aamir Khan told me that Medianet (a controversial Times Group brand launched in 2003 to sell editorial space) asked for a deal about 3 Idiots; they would give four stars.” (The paper’s review actually gave five stars.) He points to a Vodaphone ad in a newspaper: “The next time they’re caught out – for actually doing something wrong – they’ll tell the paper,we’re working together,in a way. We’re your clients…”

Advertiser pressure is an occupational hazard that journalists have learned to live with. Sometimes journalists win. Sometimes the lions win. But this game is not the same as discussing strategic deals in advance with advertisers which would erase news. And you have to be stupendously stupid to say more than you must in the course of a shady deal,and force collateral damage upon innocent bystanders like Khan and Bhandarkar in a disaster you’re making up as you go along. For all the gory details,see the whole footage of the secret camera at ibnlive.in.com.

Zee has questioned the authenticity of the recording but it’s on the back foot nevertheless because you simply do not send editors out to talk business. Especially editors who crudely convey the impression that all of media is up for sale. On the other hand,was this a case of corporate pique? Jindal’s men were incensed by a five-fold price hike. If the price was only doubled,say,what are the odds that we would never have heard of the deal?

pratik.kanjilal@expressindia.com