[Reader-list] ethics of journalism

[Rana Dasgupta]

further to some of the discussions at the recent
crisis media conference, this is interesting.  sucheta
dalal is an eminent financial journalist working for
the express.

R



Selling news or buying silence?

Sucheta Dalal. 

March 05, 2003 



The newspaper world has been cast into turmoil over
the last few weeks. First, there was the furore,
within media circles, over The Times of India group
deploying 'paid content' -- or what in plain words
means -- selling news. The group has a division called
Medianet (see www.indiatimes.medianet.com), complete
with a rate card for the sale of news. For lay
readers, it must be clarified that the sale of news is
different and distinct from paid advertisements,
advertorials or special supplements, all of which are
clearly identified as 'sponsored features,' while paid
news is not. Such spurious news has included gushing
endorsements of flop movies, fashion and lifestyle
products and the promotion of hotels and restaurants
that enter into a payment arrangement with the
organisation. The reader has no clue that the
adulatory report is nothing but a paid advertisement
masquerading as objective reportage or opinion.  



Even while the debate over the ethics of a newspaper
'selling news' was hotting up into a regular war of
words between two of the country's top-selling English
dailies, journalism was dealt another stunning blow.
Last week, the Mumbai police arrested Rishi Chopra of
The Economic Times along with an accomplice (a former
journalist with another business daily) in an alleged
extortion attempt. The duo was trapped accepting a Rs
700,000 bribe which was the second installment of a Rs
2.5 million payoff to kill a report about the
shenanigans of one Poonamchand Malu of Malu Financial
Services. Worse, the pay-off itself had apparently
been haggled down from an initial demand of Rs 10
million to Rs 2.5 million. Although corruption in the
media is no longer news, the actual arrest of two
scribes and the sums involved, marked a new low in
this once honourable profession.  



The two issues are not unconnected -- and not merely
because they involve the same media group. A little
before Chopra's arrest, Ravi Dhariwal, an executive
director of Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd, which owns The
Times of India and The Economic Times had pointed out
in a signed article on the edit page of The Economic
Times that -- 'all those shouting from the roof-tops
admonishing sponsored stories have also turned a blind
eye to the fact that some stories get into their
newspapers, after veiled deals between public
relations agencies and large sections of the media.'
This may be true. Indeed, some TOI journalists believe
that blatant 'planting' of news and photographs by
journalists acting in cahoots with PR agencies had
triggered off the Medianet initiative. Dhariwal's
article labels Medianet an attempt to ‘bring about
more transparency and disclosure to the entertainment
and lifestyle supplements' of the group. But Rishi
Chopra's arrest would suggest the problem is not
restricted to the entertainment and lifestyle
segments. Chopra was a business journalist that too
connected to the research bureau. Also, he is the
third ET scribe under a cloud for shady links with
speculators in the last two years. Two others were
asked to go after investigations by the market
regulator revealed substantial allotment of cheap
'preferential' shares at the behest of tainted market
operator Ketan Parekh.  



This suggests that the answer to corruption is not the
official sale of news, but a serious attempt to tackle
and eradicate corruption. Let us look at the issue
from another perspective. TOI is the world's largest
selling English language newspaper and sells more
copies per day than The New York Times or USA Today.
It has also been at the forefront of breaching the
'walls' that separate advertising, management and
editorial in a newspaper organisation. The group has
frequently shuffled senior employees on either side of
the 'wall.'  



For instance, Chopra, the recently arrested journalist
was designated 'Deputy Manager' in the ET Intelligence
Bureau. A couple of days later Pradeep Guha, a senior
director of the company and its top marketing
executive, had turned 'reporter' and covered the
Filmfare Awards for the TOI. The group believes the
newspaper business is no different from any other
business and likes to refer to its various
publications as brands or products. However, this
logic should work both ways. A reader, as the consumer
of these media products should have the same rights
and expectations. While readers know that
advertisements keep the product cost low, they still
buy a newspaper for its editorial content and not for
its advertisements. This means the reader has a right
to expect that advertisements and news are distinct
and segregated.  



The Times Group claims each of its paid news items
carries the words 'Medianet promotions' at the bottom.
But without proper disclosure to the reader about what
the word Medianet implies, the disclosure is
meaningless. In the absence of such clarity, the
reader ought to be outraged at the attempt to pass off
paid news as the real thing. But readers either don't
care, or newspapers are so habit-forming that they
refuse to dump the product despite their irritation.
In such a situation, the consumer, far from being
king, is totally irrelevant. The entire debate over
the ethics of 'selling' news has revolved around this
simple fact. Every senior journalist writing on the
subject has lamented the readers' apathy. Even in
private e-mail groups, it is journalists who seem
outraged, anguished and disheartened at what has been
described as the 'prostitution' of news; the reader
response is always lukewarm. Some discerning readers
have written to the newspaper in protest, others gripe
privately about the degeneration of the media, but
neither category is willing to go so far as to stop
buying the newspaper.  



It is this reader apathy that allows Ravi Dhariwal of
The Times of India to dismiss the debate in The
Hindustan Times and other publications as the reaction
of 'disgruntled rivals who have failed to compete
every step of the way' and are ‘maligning The Times of
India by their ideological rhetoric.' Dhariwal's
frenzied defence is rather telling: 'If anyone is
committing rape, it is publications that are doing it
(probably refers to sponsorship of editorial pages and
reports) under the cover of darkness. For The Times of
India, it's but a torrid affair with the advertiser,
one that can only culminate in a happily ever after,'
he writes. Clearly, the reader, who pays less than the
price of a cigarette, a cup of tea or a paan, is
totally and completely irrelevant and the group
probably expects him to be suitably appreciative. When
the reader is not discerning, his/her loyalty can
always be bought through low 'invitation pricing' of
the publications or cross promotions, titillating
photographs and stage-managed events.  



The paper's self-confessed love affair is with the
advertiser and its flourishing bottom line gives it
the power to desecrate editorial space and express the
confident view that all other media houses will soon
follow its example. Did someone say the leader guards
the reader? 



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