[Reader-list] Combative Indian magazine struggles to sell 'bad news'

[Nitesh Bhatnagar]

Combative Indian magazine struggles to sell 'bad news'

By Sonia Phalnikar
Sunday, January 27, 2008
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/27/technology/mag28.php


NEW DELHI: A glance at a newsstand in any major Indian city reveals a
media market in the midst of a boom. There are frothy tabloids, slick
business papers, racy Bollywood glossies and lifestyle magazines, with
new titles hitting the stands every week. Advertisers are shoveling
out cash and foreign investors are stampeding in.

But the news is not as good for the country's boldest English-language
news magazine, Tehelka. The crusading independent weekly is struggling
to expand and take a bigger slice of a highly competitive print
market.

Like many anti-establishment publications around the world, Tehelka
has garnered only lukewarm support from advertisers and relative
disinterest from readers more interested in upbeat news.

Tehelka, which means "sensational" in Hindi, has lived up to its name
with hard-hitting investigations that have often used undercover
cameras to confront officials and expose corruption. Its crusading
reports also focus on the downtrodden of India.

After beginning as a Web site in 2000, Tehelka rocked the country the
next year with a sting operation in which its reporters secretly
filmed senior politicians and army officers taking bribes and, in some
cases, consorting with prostitutes. The scandal forced top
politicians, including the defense minister, to resign.

"Tehelka has pioneered a new kind of journalism in India," Anil
Dharker, a media critic and columnist who has edited several Indian
publications, said. "It has forced other papers to investigate more
and become more competitive in their reporting."

But shortly after the bribery scandal broke, a government-appointed
inquiry turned its focus on Tehelka. Reporters were arrested and
questioned and the Web site's main financial backer was imprisoned for
two months. Tax raids and judicial investigations followed, and its
staff fell from 120 to three. The site went into debt and finally out
of business.

In early 2004, Tehelka emerged from the rubble as a reader-financed
weekly newspaper. Calling itself the "People's Paper" and promoting
what it called "free, fair and fearless" journalism, it was, and still
is, backed by the intellectual and social elite - writers, lawyers,
businesspeople and activists. Arundhati Roy, Shashi Tharoor and V.S.
Naipaul lined up to support it. More than 200 people became
founder-subscribers by paying 100,000 rupees, or $2,500, to be
associated with the venture.

"Tehelka attracts a very affluent, influential, well-educated
readership in India, which could potentially be very attractive to
both investors and advertisers," Harjinder Singh-Heer, a media analyst
based in London, said.

>From its offices in a swank south Delhi neighborhood, Tehelka's staff
of about 45 journalists combines vigorous reporting, interviews and
straight analysis with essays and columns by high-profile writers and
intellectuals.

"It is crucial to bring stories of people who will never read a
magazine to those who ought to be made aware of them," said Tarun
Tejpal, the paper's founder and editor in chief, a charismatic
44-year-old who has worked for and edited several major Indian
magazines.

The weekly's hallmark remains its sting operations. The footage is
often sold to national television channels.

"That's why people who will never read a magazine in English in India
will still have heard of Tehelka," said Shreekant Khandekar, a media
analyst who said the method also provided a clever marketing tool.

Last year, a Tehelka reporter spent six months undercover in the
western state of Gujarat, where more than 2,000 Muslims were killed
during a pogrom in 2002. The undercover footage showed Hindu
nationalists confessing to murder and rape. The transcripts were
published in November. The next issue, headlined "India Writes Back,"
contained only reader mail, most expressing deep shock. Nonetheless,
the chief minister of the state, Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist
who was implicated in the sting, was re-elected last month.

The weekly's fame, however, has done little to help lift its financial
fortunes. Tehelka has been hampered by a cash crunch. With a budget of
close to $3 million last year, according to Tejpal, the loss last year
was under $1 million.

Tehelka, which sells around 75,000 to 90,000 copies a week and has a
subscriber base of about 30,000, attracts few advertisements. Its
106-page special issue on the Gujarat massacre featured just three
ads. Last year, ad revenue came to around $750,000, Tejpal said.

Its main rivals - the English-language political news magazines
Outlook, India Today and The Week - are backed by large media groups
and, in one case, a business conglomerate. The market leader, India
Today, has a circulation of 1.1 million each week and a readership of
more than 15 million, according to its Web site.

To bolster its position with potential advertisers and improve its
visibility on newsstands, Tejpal reinvented Tehelka once again in
September and changed the tabloid-format newspaper into a magazine. He
said the new look has already increased interest from advertisers.

But Tejpal acknowledged that Tehelka's tendency to rock the boat might
still put off investors. "There's a certain reluctance to be
associated with us because we are seen as people who create trouble
and get into the wrong side of money and power," Tejpal said.

The problem is not confined to India. Around the world in emerging
economies with troubling records on press freedom, the critical,
independent media are failing to sell ads.

"Advertisers and big business houses in many developing countries
often don't want to take the risks involved with doing critical and
investigative stories," said Vincent Brossel, head of the Asia desk at
Reporters Without Borders, a media watchdog based in Paris.

The first Malaysian independent news Web site, Malaysiakini - or
Malaysia Now - has faced government raids and its reporters are
routinely harassed, according to its founder, Steven Gan. It is
financed primarily by 10,000 subscribers who pay $5 a month to view
the site. Though it has made a small profit in past years, Gan said
attracting advertising was a struggle.

"In Malaysia, there's a nexus between politicians and companies," he
said. "Since we report critically on the government, we're not getting
a lot of advertisements."

Likewise, Radomir Licina, senior editor of the left-of-center Serb
daily Danas, or Today, which was set up in 1997 by a group of
journalists and still owned by them, said the newspaper had stopped
getting advertisements from companies whose business practices were
criticized in its reporting.

Undeterred, Tejpal is again taking Tehelka into new territory. To
reach a wider audience, he recently introduced a Hindi language Web
site. About 180 million Indians are estimated to consider standard
Hindi as their native tongue. There are plans to expand the content to
other Indian languages.

"We want to have a louder voice, be more visible and revive public
discourse that's touched rock-bottom levels in this country," Tejpal
said.

In his search for a cash injection, Tejpal is engaged in his first
professional round of financing with Indian investors, with a target
of $5 million to $10 million. Over the years, he has mainly raised
capital from personal contacts by diluting equity in his media
company, Agni Media, which owns Tehelka. He remains the single largest
shareholder.

Tehelka may yet strengthen its foothold in the media, but some doubt
whether its overtly political message fits the zeitgeist in modern
India.

"Psychologically, Indians are on such a high with the economy
booming," Dharker, the media critic, said. "They are in no mood to
hear bad news. And that's what Tehelka offers."