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I was always worried I would die without knowing enough about Arindam Chaudhuri. But last week, The Hindu and Tehelka put me at ease. Thanks to these two highly respected publications, I will leave this world armed with better information about the management mogul, his life and his works.

Arindam, the management guru turned academic turned author turned editor turned film producer has a way of staying in the news.  The latest is a 110-page “success book” titled “Discover the Diamond In You” that he wrote in five days flat on his mobile! That was provocation enough for these two publications to do lengthy articles followed, a few pages later, by paid advertisements from Arindam’s IIPM. (That’s another way of staying in the news.)

At 48, it’s a bit late for me to try to succeed at anything based on the wisdom of a book written in five days on SMS and, anyway, Arindam says he has written it for the young, in their language and idiom. If the diamond in me is destined to go to the grave without being discovered, so be it.

At least, I’m getting some serious insights into the life of a “discovered” diamond (more about that in a while). The Hindu wrote a glowing piece and aptly titled it “This gem’s aglow” (Metro Plus, Dec 10). “Anyone seen Arindam Chaudhuri without an impish grin on his face? Anyone? Well, chances are pretty bleak considering the man believes in turning every calamity into an opportunity,” the article began. The calamity in reference is the economic slowdown and the opportunity is the five days’ time that Arindam could afford as a result to tip-tap the book on his mobile (because he can’t still handle the desktop).

I quote him from the article: “I took five days for the book. Two days just to jot down the things I wanted in the book. Then I typed out the contents on my mobile for the next three days. I SMSed it to my designer.  Mobile is such an uncomplicated way of communication that I am not used to a computer even now. I prefer to speak the language of 140 characters than long mails.” (I can’t figure out why writing 110 pages of a book on the mobile is not the same as writing long mails…it takes a diamond to understand a diamond and I’m not one as I told you at the outset.)

The reporter now poses a profound question: Writing a book in times of economic recession makes perfect sense… but when did he (Arindam) realise he had the diamond in him? “The process of discovering the diamond in me started when I was a student. I aspired to be a teacher seeing a couple of my teachers. Then that unpolished diamond got exposed to good light and the urge to emulate only got stronger.” (Those damned 40W bulbs during my childhood… they destroyed the diamond in me.  Philips will pay this!)

The reporter is not done yet. Another profound question follows. With his quick read, is he (Arindam) not treading in the territory marked as his own by Chetan Bhagat who too speaks in the language of the young? Arindam is accommodative: “I have heard of that comparison but I have not read Chetan’s book.” (Chetan’s loss entirely.)

This glowing piece on Arindam appears as the cover story of Metro Plus and on the back page is a half-page ad of Arindam’s IIPM. The ad has nothing to do with the launch of the book, but it helps you understand the article better, if you know what I mean.

Luckily for people like me who strongly feel the media just doesn’t give us enough of Arindam, Tehelka also tried to address the need gap. On its Society and Lifestyle pages (Dec. 12 issue), it ran a two-page interview of Arindam with the launch of the book as the news peg. But Tehelka’s literary correspondent who did the piece — rather half-heartedly, I suspect — obviously did not think much of Arindam’s literary prowess.

The book is just one passing question in the two-page interview-biography that gives us critical, “you-can’t-die-without-knowing-this” kind of information about the author such as that Arindam:

• Lectures at IIPM campuses
• Writes the editorial for and oversees the cover story of “The Sunday Indian”
• Writes his books and reads potential scripts for films
• Gets his news primarily from print
• Doesn’t watch television except for the odd spurt of breaking news
• Is frank about his fear of addiction, particularly of the Internet
• A staffer operates his blog since he doesn’t know how to upload content
• Occasionally uses Facebook to interact with students but barely touches email
• Instead, claims to write mostly on SMS, including all of his latest book

Twelve pages later, on the inside back cover, is a full page IIPM ad. As with The Hindu, the ad has nothing to do with the book but helps us understand the report in better light.

It is quite possible that the editorial in both the publications did not know that the ad would appear in the same edition but the tone and tenor of the write-ups make one suspicious. While The Hindu is completely in awe of Arindam without once suggesting it has read the book (so forget about critiquing it), from the Tehelka piece it is clear that their literary correspondent did not even think it was worth commenting upon the book. Yet, there it is, the two-page piece.

There are two reasons to worry here. One, The Hindu and Tehelka (especially the latter) are two institutions that still revere honest journalism. So this kind of surrogate advertising (or is it surrogate editorial?) appearing in them is not good news for news.

Two, Arindam has just about started on his 22-city publicity binge for the book so you know there’s a lot more to come in the near future…

The Hindu is right. It’s hard to find Arindam without his impish grin. If you had the nation’s media eating out of your hands, you would grin too.

From the way CEOs and editors keep defending the brain-dead programming on Hindi channels, you would think that the population of morons is galloping in the country.

Thankfully, the contrary is true.

Every time we question their stupid content decisions, the channels come out with facts and figures to silence us. They tell us how their cut-and-paste coverage of Rakhi Sawant’s “swayamvar” walloped Manmohan Singh’s second coming in the TRPs.

That argument settles it. The viewer is responsible for the puerile news content. We are the perverts, they are our benefactors who give us our daily fix without which we will wilt and die.

The channels have used this twisted logic to not just absolve themselves of the falling standards of news on TV but to give an impression that the only way to protect or grow their business in the Hindi news genre is to cater to this growing tribe of perverts.

Well then, here’s the breaking news. The perverts are not growing, they are dwindling. Let’s grab this rare chance to throw some figure in their face, for a change:

Year                 Share

2006                 7.61% (9 channels)

2007                 8.03% (11 channels)

2008                 7.89% (11 channels)

2009                 5.85% (11 channels)

(Source: TAM, HSM CS 15+)

These are the year-wise market share figures for the news genre. The TV viewership universe consists of various genres such as general entertainment, infotainment, movies, sports, news, etc.

The stats above show that in 2006, the news genre (nine Hindi “national” news channels) had an average share of 7.61% of the overall TV viewership. That is, 7.61 out of every 100 viewers watched news then. The figure rose to 8.03% for 11 channels in 2007, dropped a little to 7.89% in 2008 and dived to a pitiful 5.85% in 2009.

From the highest (in 2007) to the lowest (in 2009), it is a sharp fall of 27 per cent. In other words, in the last two years alone, the Hindi news universe has shrunk by more than one-fourth. Any other industry would consider such a steep fall in market share as catastrophic, but not the Hindi news industry. The Hindi industry assumes that there will always be a good number of masochists to help it survive.

If there is one crisis that is facing the Hindi news industry, it is this. Much as the industry tries to paint a picture of the viewer as a willing consumer of pulp, the ground is slipping under its feet. It is clear that the average viewer has had enough of nonsense and is turning off. And yet, I have never heard any CEO or editor talk about this looming danger at any industry meet or interview. Talk of living in denial.

But that’s so typical of the channel-wallahs. They will just shut out the inconvenient truths. They will never tell you that sensible programming also brings in the numbers as often as popcorn journalism and that they do more of the latter just because it is easier and cheaper to cut-paste content from entertainment channels than to create their own.

Let me illustrate this with just the example of one channel, Star News, which has over the last few months tried to correct the balance between sense and nonsense. The pains it took to create some special programmes paid off with ratings way above the channel average, sometimes turning in double or nearly three times that (Star News’ channel TRPs average around 14/15).

Here’s a quick list:

• Uttradhakari, a special show on Rahul Gandhi, turned in 21% share.
• Tiranga, their I-Day special gave an astounding 33%
• Vansh, on the Thackeray family, 26%
• Vansh, on the Mahajan family, 19%
• Raj Ka Uday, on Raj Thackeray, 22%
• Mere Khoon Ka Ek Ek Katra, on Indira Gandhi’s death anniv, 32%

If that is not indication that the viewer is more than willing to spend his time on good content, what is? The difficulty is that such content needs a lot of planning, travelling, spending and ideating and the other content (of the Rakhi Swayamvar type) comes easy, packaged, and free. The former content takes time and effort to build a brand and bring in the TRPs and the latter brings instant gratification.

Most CEOs and editors have resolved this stand-off between instant gratification and long-term returns in favour of the former. It is beyond their capacity and vision to change the game now and play for the future. That is a call only the owners can take because it could mean taking a hit for a bit and the possibility of failure is real, too.

That’s the crucial difference between News 24 and Zee News. The owners of News 24 started with the “news is back” proposition but quickly abandoned it. They did not have enough faith in news and took the silly route within no time. That has not given them any great business advantage. The proprietors of Zee News gave a clear diktat to return to sensible news and stay with it. They risked falling ratings and business. That clarity and patience has helped Zee News gain respectability without hurting its profitability.

If tomorrow all Hindi news channels were to suddenly pull the plug on stupid content, what would the viewer do, stop watching news? Nah, even if it is true that the viewers hate sensible content (the channels keep telling us that all the time) they would still have no choice but to watch the channels.

So, the burden of change is on the channels, not the viewers. If only more owners had Subhash Chandra’s guts.

Every trip home to India is bathed in revelation. Every TV channel shows someone crying, dying or being mourned which does wonders for your mood, since you wake up to this caterwauling and eat and sleep to the same ‘woe is me’ sentiment.

So it came as a refreshing change to read in the Hindustan Times an article edifying the creation of cakes for bachelor parties which are shaped like women’s body parts. Awesome. (Groom’s night out, HTCity. To go to the HTCity page pdf, scroll down the sidebar on the left).

The guy who wrote it even gave his byline and I wonder what he went home and said to his loved ones: whatastoryIwrotetodayallaboutbumsandtitsincreamandconfection?

You have to admit that a half page in a daily dedicated to such screaming stupidity is inspiring, especially when the piece is treated like some sort of cultural revolution. The hip and trendy are doing this, I read. This is ‘in’. People are thronging to buy the cakes, yes,yes, yes, they are selling like hot cakes(did I just say that?)

Hi Mom, can I have a woman’s body part for dessert. How about her buns with a tight red bikini, mmmmm, that will be tasty….why not, after all, that’s the illustration in the paper.

I believe it is the piece de resistance at the bachelor night thing before the wedding and in my uptight, old-fashioned mind I am thinking what would the bride say if the groom told her that he and the boys had a ball scoffing cake made of a female breast with nips and all.

Would she look at him and say, my hero, my Galahad, my knight in shining armour, what a man?

I have heard crude. And I have heard coarse. And I have seen pathetic. But this is so grotesque that it leaves me in a sort of speechless fugue. Imagine walking into this party and viewing the half crossed legs of a woman made from marzipan and coconut with a layer of chocolate. Does wonders for the appetite. And this is supposed to be fun?

This is like style or great living…wo, we certainly are advancing in the wrong direction. You talk about taking the cherry on the cake, this is a whole new meaning to gross bad taste…no pun intended. Who are these people? And what is the follow up article…girls night out with a p…. carved from a pineapple?

Team, I am aware the box office numbers this morning have disappointed all of you. I was disappointed, too, though I was not expecting anything other than a drubbing. We have suddenly stopped the supply of opium to our viewers and it is only natural that they should show severe withdrawal symptoms.  Rather than restart the supply to them, we should stay the course and remove all traces of the drug from their veins, after all, it is we who put them on the dangerous drug diet.

That, or something like that, was the note I wrote to my senior colleagues at Zee News in early May 2008 to pep up the mood in the newsroom. We had just relaunched the channel (May 8). We threw out all dirty content (some of which, such as “kaal kapaal mahakaal”, we ourselves were guilty of introducing to news TV) and took an about turn towards news of relevance.

“News, not nuisance” was one of our war cries and the channel tagline changed to “Zara Sochiye” (just think), to suggest we were now seeking the discerning viewer.

A few days later, the ratings arrived and we were vanquished. We dropped three points to end up in single digit TRPs after a long time. All the excitement of the relaunch went pssssss and the mood was low, prompting that pep talk from me.

I’ve been out of Zee News for nearly one year now, so no credit or blame for what’s happening there now should attach to me. Hence I suppose I can talk a bit about the Zee News experiment to make a case against all those news channel worthies, editors and CEOs, who keep feeding you lies that they are like this only because you are like this.

The ratings remained sluggish for another few weeks, but Zee News didn’t blink. The alarm bells began ringing and we did consider if we should tuck our tails and return to the same old nonsense. Thankfully, those were only transient thoughts and we stuck to our guns. We put our trust in news that no channel worth its meager TRPs would touch with a barge pole.

Earlier in March that year, we had already tasted the fruits of putting our faith in news of relevance. On March 23, the Sixth Pay Commission turned in its report. That kind of story touches the lives of more than four million families of central government employees and millions more families of state government employees, defence and para military forces.

But it rates poorly in the TRP sweepstakes because though it might pauperise governments, it is tough to extrapolate and announce the end of the world, to the accompaniment of deadly, stolen-from-the-net, music. So no channel would touch it. But Zee News covered it aggressively and exhaustively. It worked. It worked so much that our prime time show that day beat all the shows across all channels.

Though the post-relaunch drubbing was a problem, the Pay Commission experience told us news can deliver. Along came the big controversy on the nuclear deal with the US. It may have ended up in a very fractious vote of confidence on July 23 that every channel was forced to cover, but in early May when it was raising its head, contemporary newsroom wisdom considered it a TRP dud. We did not. We saw an opportunity. Helped by some good reporting and led by a channel editor with a good political acumen, we grabbed the story by its horns. That helped send the message that something fresh was happening at Zee News.

The TRP worm started nudging upwards, though it is yet to drill a hole in the roof, really.

It makes sense to recount all this because last week’s ratings are very interesting. AajTak, the leader, fell two points to 17, India TV came in second at 16, Star News at 15 and Zee News at 13 with a 2-point spike (week 45, HSM, CS 15+ ABC).  That’s just a 4-point difference between the No. 1 and the No. 4, perhaps the best for Zee in a long time.

That is creditable because of the four channels at the top of the Hindi heap, Zee News is the one which has steadfastly stuck to the sensible news formula. When all channels scare the daylights out of you because an eclipse is round the corner, Zee tells you not to be afraid of such scientific phenomenon. When all channels tell you how the world will come to an end in 2012, Zee exposes the conspiracy of a Hollywood studio to hype its disaster movie by the same name that released last week.

Zee has stayed on the higher side of the average of its pre-relaunch TRPs for many more weeks than it has dropped below that threshold, if at all.  Which is a very statistical way of saying that the faith Zee News has shown in news for 18 months has helped it more than it has hurt. If Zee News has not done better with the ratings, it is not because news has let it down, maybe Zee News still has a few things to sort out.

At around the same time that Zee News was trying this experiment, News 24, was doing exactly the opposite. News 24 came with a big promise: News is back, it claimed. For the first four or five months, it did seem like news was back. The channel steadfastly kept away from the India TV formula, a content no-brainer. But it was stuck at the bottom of the heap with TRPs in the 4-6 range.

Suddenly, the channel caved in. It joined the nuisance bandwagon. It’s been there for the last 18 months but is still in the same TRP band. In the 18 months that Zee News gained marginally and protected its profitability, News 24, is still a struggling also-running. If it had persisted with its unique content, it could have gained respectability and, who knows, a few points more, too.

You want to know what is the crucial difference in the experiences of Zee News and News 24? Let’s meet here next week, please.

– B V Rao was Group Editor of Zee News briefly in 2008 and feels lucky to have been part of the team to initiate the changes.

Imagine this scenario. It is not hard to do. A typical middle class Indian home in Delhi. Father walks into son’s room, sees apple of his eye glued to his studies and shouts, “You foolish boy, stop wasting your time, why aren’t you singing and dancing, the Sa Re Ga Ma Pa selection is on in one week.”

Across the country, in a small hamlet in Andhra, mother sews together some garish costume so little Usha can whirl about to the strains of Aaja Nachle and somewhere two hours away by air in Punjab, Pappu the poppet is feted by the neighbours because Javed Jaffery praised his ability to moonwalk and exulted over his convincing rendition of ‘Kabhi Kabhi.’

Love songs and largesse at seven years and four months.

With 60 hours of such mind numbing drivel on TV every day and the total dedication of millions of mothers and fathers fondly hoping for a bonanza, the Indian middle class and its traditionally ignored lower end are finally getting their seven minutes of fame. The point is what price are we paying for that limelight and when will it turn sour on a generation exponentially dedicating itself to gyrating in sync with the lyrics of l’amour before they have turned the hairpin bend of puberty?

It is not a global phenomenon. Let’s not kid ourselves. It is not even a welcome splash of colour in a grey life, which is the sort of air-conditioned tripe the rich and comfortable fling like mud clods at the not-so-affluent.

Such entertainment is fine as a diversion, a sort of also ran in the race to adulthood, but when it becomes a fetish, an obsession that is pathetic in its gluttony, its lack of any redeeming quality and is bedrocked in precocious tastelessness, then we need to worry. Pandemic mediocrity that will turn poisonous even as we cheerfully behave as if it is harmless fun.

I think of Marallus in Julius Caeser expressing despair; Run to your house and fall upon your knees, pray to the gods to intermit this plague that befalls thee. Greed is never harmless. The chase after fool’s gold always comes with a price. Greed at runaway speed is ugly. When adults use prime time insults to belittle children they are not hardening the kids for life’s stony path, they are mocking them for cheap laughs and ratings in a nation where humour has been doled in measly fashion and linked to ailment: stuttering, being fat or crippled.

The survey figures indicate that as many as 30 million children are watching a show of their peers engaged in song and dance routines at some time or the other in a given day while thousands bid for live presence and dry mouthed, anxious parents sit in suspense for cruelly over-rated assessments of nascent talent.

A study of the sociological implications of the crude and often tasteless remarks made by the judges, the precocious conversations masquerading as humour, the deep analysis of a love song would fall just short of statutory rape of minors because the invasion is so complete as to make the physical violation integral.

And in case I come out like some pulpit pounding neurotic, ask yourselves how this tsunami in gross bad taste is brainwashing our children and their parents who actually sit there like airheads and watch their children being lacerated by the so-called judges. Not for winning a debate or a spelling bee, not for coming out tops in a quiz or even displaying the skill for the arts and sciences, sport and the classics, but only for the imitation of commercial pap.

When I began this article I just wanted to moan and groan about falling standards until an advertising friend of mine (okay, we all have some weaknesses) sent me some figures. Three hundred million manhours down the drain watching this stuff. Every day. Almost 15 per cent of the budget by consumer companies dedicated to this genre, thereby making them accomplices in the charade that this is fun and games. It is not.

The corruption of pre-teens is nearly total if you look at the statistics. Except for live Twenty20 cricket and the one-dayers, these song and dance travesties account for maximum family viewing. What makes one sick to the stomach is that neither the channels nor the producers nor the participants and judges think they are contributing to the greater bad.

The poverty of intellect is astounding. Beating up on little children is a sport and the torturous patronizing of the defeated makes one search for a bucket. The biggest problem is to get enough people to listen to the beat of the pied piper and realize that his malevolent tune is stealing our children away from their childhood. You start tom tomming the mediocrity inherent in such shows and everyone has this ‘oh, come on, it is just kids’ look on their faces.

So come on, son, leave the books alone and put on your costume and your ghungroos.

Tamilnadu is in the news for the arrest of two editors in quick succession on charges of criminal defamation. B Lenin, the news editor of Dinamalar, a widely circulated daily, was arrested on October 7 and A S Mani, editor of “Netrikan”, a Madurai magazine, was arrested in the last week of October.

After a TV actress was arrested for prostitution, Dinamalar published a report naming seven well-known Tamil actresses as also being involved in the racket. By way of proof they had what they called the arrested actress’ statement to the police.

The Tamil film industry rose in angry protest led by the likes of Rajnikanth and Vijaykanth.  Considering the filial connections of the Tamil film industry to politics, swift action was a given but the manner in which it came was reprehensible. Cops turned up unannounced and dragged Lenin away from the newsroom.  When you do that to the Dinamalar newsroom in Chennai, the intent is clear: open intimidation of the media.

Netrikan’s Mani had published a story claiming Union Minister MK Alagiri was receiving kickbacks for allotting road contracts in South Tamilnadu. Netrikan has very little reach even in Madurai so not many have seen the article. Once again, the story only named Alagiri but did not nail him with proof.

The Editors Guild of India was quick to pounce on the two transgressions on the freedom of the press. It said it was shocked to hear that the cops turned up without a warrant to arrest Lenin and even denied him legal assistance. “The Editors Guild of India has consistently held that arrest and imprisonment of Editors and Journalists for complaints of defamation amounts to intimidation of the media and is an affront to the freedom of the press. The section on criminal defamation is a hangover of the colonial raj, where editors and journalists were thrown into the prison on the pretext that they had committed criminal defamation. The British authorities used this draconian provision to terrorise the newspapers,” it said in response to Mani’s arrest.

I cannot quarrel with that view. Intimidation of media is a serious matter so it is comforting when the most respected body of journalists (current President is Rajdeep Sardesai) springs up in defence of professional freedoms. But that’s not to say I have no quarrel.

My quarrel is with what the Guild’s press releases did not say. In Lenin’s case, I read extracts of the Guild’s statements as published by newspapers.  In Mani’s case I was able to procure the full text of the statement (neither is available on the Guild’s official website). In both the statements, I did not see a word of condemnation of the poor quality of journalism in both the cases.

Dinamalar and Netrikan had published reports that may have been true but did not produce a shred of evidence to prove that. That is lazy, shortcut journalism when you want to be charitable but since freedom of press doesn’t come in charity, it should be seen as reckless misuse of the same freedom. While rightly protesting the excessive police action in both cases, the Guild would have done the profession a greater service by being equally vehement about this sad transgression and advising the profession to recognize that freedom of press is not an unencumbered right, that it is not absolute.

I mention this omission because I think it is part of a larger malaise: the media’s inability or unwillingness to look within and course correct. Because bang in the middle of these two arrests, something far worse was going on. The elections to Maharashtra and Haryana assemblies were in full swing and media houses were auctioning away the same “freedom” that the Guild wants to protect, to the highest bidder.

Newspapers big and small, were selling sacred news space to political parties and candidates. These were actually advertisements disguised as news stories.  Packages for interviews, profiles, campaign trail stories, stories favouring the paying-candidate or stories against his rival; every lousy trick was being used to make money by cheating the reader and subverting democracy itself.

But not a word on that from the Guild.

Thankfully though, not everybody is a mute spectator. The Foundation for Media Professionals organised a dialogue in Delhi on October 21 on the “blurring of lines between News and Ads”. The venerable Prabhash Joshi, editor of Jansatta, who has been writing on the topic since the Lok Sabha elections, painted a rather dismal picture of the media’s lure for lucre.

P Sainath wrote an equally shaming piece in The Hindu detailing the journalism of commerce in the Maharashtra election. But while Prabhashji and Sainath did not name names, TheHoot, a media watchdog website, gave enough examples of the rampant corruption.

These are brave efforts but just small ripples that will die out soon because most media houses are on the take in this new route to revenue and those that are not follow a silly convention of not talking about malpractices by competitors. Contrast that with the tide of criticism the Washington Post had to face from the rest of the media when its publisher tried to commercialise an editorial event earlier this year. The Post was forced to apologise to its readers for breaching their trust, and it was not even selling news space.

You will never see such searing, inward-looking, self-policing in our media. That’s why it is worth asking ourselves once in a while: Are we deserving of the freedom we seek?

After all, 24×7 news channels need meat and blood to sustain viewer interest but one-upmanship in breaking news seems to have created a virtual storm in a tea cup in the trainjack case.

More at expressbuzz.com

 As a CNN regular, I have always marvelled at their readiness to not just pick important stories from rival channels but also give them full credit and play in their own bulletins. That’s such a rarity in our own country. Here, if one channel or publication comes up with a national scoop, the others will pretend as if nothing happened for as along as they can avoid it. When they can’t, they will simply pick the story and run with it like it is the fruit of their “exclusive” labour (TV channels can do this with consummate ease) or simply jump into it without giving due credit to the publication/channel that broke the story.

Hundreds of great stories have died a premature death in our country because media rivalry prevents one from picking up and following the other’s scoops.

 This is about one such story in the Times of India: “Jairam (Ramesh) for major shift in climate; Writes to PM that India should junk Kyoto Pact, accept emission curbs (Delhi edition lead, Monday, Oct 19). It quoted from the Environment minister’s October 13 letter to make the point that Jairam was proposing a complete reversal of India’s position. Just two months ahead of the Copenhagen talks this attempted reversal was like the Pokhran of India’s climate change with national and international reverberations.

This story needed to be followed up by everybody because if the shift happens, it can have long time implications for India’s growth story. As it happened, all newspapers followed it (I did not track the channels on this) but only to dismiss it and deny TOI the credit for a rare scoop.

Honestly speaking, they were only paying back TOI in kind because it was the TOI which started the trend of not naming any brand in its pages other than its own. Till about the late 80s or early 90s all newspapers extended the journalistic courtesy of acknowledging each others’ scoops by naming the rival which scooped them, a sort of professional doffing of hat for a good job well done.

The TOI threw this tradition to the winds because it did not want lesser papers to benefit from its unmatched and ever-expanding reach. It thus introduced us to such pathetic euphemisms as “reports in a newspaper”, “reports in a section of the press”, etc. Over the next couple of years, one by one all papers started returning the favour to TOI. So, no sympathies for TOI; if anything they deserve it.

But this is not about the TOI, this is about the readers of the other papers. The allegiance of every media organisation is to the paying reader who must get the correct picture on matters of national and international importance. The Jairam Ramesh story was one such. It talked about the crucial issue of climate change and India’s commitments to emission cuts that would impact our future for decades, if not centuries.

Any newspaper that claims to be a credible medium of information on serious national issues had an obligation to its readers to join the story and examine if indeed India was on the cusp of a drastic change in stance on climate change, why it was changing, what factors have caused the shift and whether it would be in India’s interest or otherwise. None of that happened.

The Hindustan Times, TOI’s principal rival in Delhi, took it upon itself to rubbish the TOI’s report in four short paragraphs on page 1 the following day (Tuesday, Oct 20, Delhi edition). In a “we-would-rather-believe-a-minister-than-the-TOI” kind of tone, it dismissed the TOI’s “major shift” claim by calling it just a “nuanced shift”. Of course, it cut out all references to the political uproar the TOI’s report caused in the Congress party and the Opposition and the extreme discomfiture to Jairam that caused him to issue feeble retractions.

The HT report neither named TOI nor referred to its previous day’s scoop. So there was absolutely no provocation, no context and no reason why it occupied costly real estate on page 1. But there it was, the HT, appearing more eager than Jairam to deny the TOI story.

I am not saying that it was HT’s job to validate TOI’s story. But once Jairam himself did not deny the existence of the letter or the contents of it as reported by TOI, it needed to quiz Jairam on his claim that TOI got it all wrong, that he was not laying the ground for a shift in India’s stand. For that it needed to interrogate Jairam and expose TOI’s poor skills at English comprehension. Instead it chose to take Jairam at his word and that’s just not good enough.

That sad narrative repeated itself in The Hindu and The Indian Express, too. They also took the HT route to this story of tectonic shift in India’s position by simply parroting Jairam’s protestations without bothering to put him through the trouble of mandatory questioning. Both the papers, of course, did not name the TOI.

Mail Today was one paper that showed it had a mind of its own. In a detailed report titled “New Delhi’s green policy gets fuzzy” it quoted Jairam’s earlier letters and public utterances to show that something was definitely up. But though it was less believing of Jairam, it refrained from naming the TOI preferring to say “Jairam…was reported to have written to the PM”.

The best coverage of the political avalanche after the TOI story came from one of India’s most transparent and ethical newspapers, Mint. There were many lessons for the big daddies from the way this baby of a newspaper covered the story. Firstly, it did not shy away from acknowledging the TOI’s scoop. Secondly, it refused to buy Jairam’s version rubbishing TOI. Thirdly, it quoted extensively from its own earlier interviews with Jairam wherein he had clearly articulated the same major shifts that the TOI said he recommended to the PM. And lastly, it did such a detailed story in such simple terms that even a climate change ignoramus such as me understood the whole issue.

So, I just have this to tell HT. If you have to copy anything from any paper, copy the ethics, the efficiency, the transparency and the new spirit of journalism from your own Mint, not the opacity of the Times of India.

Time to change this journalism of jealousy. Your reader deserves better.

Things are looking up at the Time of India. The country’s biggest and richest media house, which rang the alarm bells first with an unprecedented round of blood-letting last year, has just announced the end of recession. Ravi Dhariwal, CEO, wrote an endearing letter to all his staff to inform them that the management has decided to put some money in their pockets ahead of Diwali, a sort of bonus payout.

That is great news, not just for the Times staffers, but all of us in the media because when TOI cut costs, salaries and careers, all with equal remorselessness, that was enough excuse for many lesser mortals to blindly follow suit. So, the TOI retracing its steps is decidedly good news because there’s a chance the others might ape the TOI once again.

Except that this time, too, you definitely don’t want your managements to take the TOI’s cue. To understand why, first read some excerpts from Dhariwal’s letter:

“Dear Friends, Last time I wrote to you, a few months ago, we were in the midst of a perfect storm. On the back of astronomical newsprint prices, and our own expansion, our costs had galloped. As this was happening, Advertising revenues skid on fears of an impending recession. For the first time in many years, we saw a severe margin compression. For a few months we actually lost money. It was clear that we needed to take a serious course correction.

“We took several measures to restore the company back to some semblance of financial health. We cut unnecessary expenditures, postponed some of our future projects, scouted the world for cheaper newsprint and also trimmed our organization. Looking back, it was one of the most difficult periods in my career…

“All-in-all, I feel a lot more optimistic about our future, even in the short and medium term… The way you all rallied forth makes me absolutely sure.

“With this background, I am happy to inform you that our VC (Samir Jain) and our MD (Vineet Jain) have asked me to do something very pleasant. We are going to make an advance pay out of 1/3rd of the TVP (target variable pay) amount planned for the year 2009-10. You will receive this soon, in the next few days. This amount will be adjusted once we complete the year closing in July 2010 and work out the TVP due to us as per company policy. I am sure this money is welcome in our pocket. I also think this is a measure of our combined optimism about our future. I thought I should share this with you before we hit the festive season.”

Let’s understand “the very pleasant” bit a little better. The Times of India, sitting on profits of 150 years plus, cuts staff salaries across the board because the company “actually lost money” for “a few months” and decides to pay out 1/3^rd bonus of the next year in advance, to be adjusted later. Alternatively put, when the Times of India hurts, it takes staff salaries back to previous year’s levels and when it gets generous, it gives them one-third of one-tenth of their future earnings (assuming average variable pay is 10%)!

And the staff is supposed to be ecstatic because the “money is welcome in the pockets” before they “hit the festive season”. Yes, guys, now go and shop till you drop. What a mean trick! It would have achieved nothing more than to open old wounds of the staff. If managements of other media houses will not copy the TOI this time, it must be because such lack of tact and grace must be hard to match. 

Some would argue that this is between the TOI management and their staff so it’s none of our business. But it is. It is our business because the Times of India is the country’s most widely consumed media and what it writes in times of national crises such as recession is critical to us. The media, led by the Times of India, needed to examine how much of the bad times corporate India faced was because of actual recessionary pressures and question how much of it was caused by corporate day-dreaming, mindless expansions and outright greed. It needed to question why it is always that the top screws up, but the bottom pays up.

But none of that happened because the media houses, led by the TOI, were themselves guilty of committing the same grave errors at the top for which the staff at the lowest end paid dearly. For example, it was the Private Treaties that delivered the biggest blow to the TOI’s health. The top thought up the Private Treaties route to riches. We all know who paid when the crisis came.

Similarly, NDTV went into all kinds of unwise expansion plans and sunk in hundreds of crore in bad projects. While it ended up being no where in its new businesses, it became an also ran in every news segment (English, Hindi and Business news) and completely botched up its MetroNation project. And when recession came along, it became a happy excuse to sack dozens of lower staff while not one CEO got the boot. In fact, in the middle of the sacking mayhem, it hired a sort of overall boss for NDTV Profit whose compensation could have equalled the cost of a dozen sacked employees or more elsewhere in the group.

That story repeated itself even in organisations that were not bleeding. AajTak and Zee News, the only two channels at the national level consistently raking in profits, held up hikes and cut back salaries respectively. Both these companies returned handsome profits even during recession but that has meant little good news for the staff (though Zee I know has reversed the 10 to 20 % salary cut). Little wonder then that corporate India’s profligacy and foolishness, that must have contributed in equal measure to their near-death experience of last year, went completely unquestioned by the media as a whole.

So, Mr Dhariwal, if your staff sees nothing “very pleasant” in your Diwali Dhamaka, don’t take it personally. You enjoy your Diwali.