User:Winged Blades of Godric/Indian Media

Over the last decade, two terms:- Paid news[a] and Private treaties[b] have been immensely popularized in the contexts of Indian Media. A detailed investigation by the Press Council of India[1] followed by a Parliamentary Standing Committee report along with numerous investigative reports across multiple critically acclaimed journals (The New Yorker[2], Outlook[3], Economic and Political Weekly[4], The Caravan[5], The Wall Street Journal[6] et al), special dissertations on the topic by famed think-tanks (like Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism[7][8]) and chapters in books[9], we are facing a widespread institutionalized practice.

This RFC is put forward before the broader community in a bid to re-orient our understanding of reliable sources within the Indian Ecosystem.[c] We will note down specific assertions, by the aforesaid sources, as to a specific publication (or a broader set of sources) and in light of that, propose options to deal with them, which may be !voted upon.

As a general disclaimer, anything contained herein, may not be applied to any pre-2000 publication of the concerned media-units due to grossly different circumstances.[clarification needed]

General media affairs in India

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It was the 2009 general elections, when the issue of paid news made it to the national headlines for the first time. Though shut down by mainstream media, there were sparse reportings across a few newspapers by reputed journalists along with detailed coverage in investigative magazines, who located the spread and depth of the malaise.

Palagummi Sainath, former Rural-Affairs-Editor at The Hindu and a Ramon Magsaysay Awardee was one such journalist, who did immense pioneer work in the field. He noted of a deep nexus between candidates of political parties and the media houses which resulted in brazen advertisements of candidates and parties being masqueraded under the guise of political news. He went on to note that even national media houses centered in Lutyen's Delhi were not immune to the malaise; the individual journalist lacked importance in this corporate-controlled industry to the extent of some newspapers in Gujarat ordering their in-house journalists to not file political reports, at all. H.N. Cama, member of the Executive Council and past president of the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) asserted that everyone in the media-industry was aware of the ground realities and there were even instances of journalists who were receiving bribes on their own initiatives.

There were multiple debates on the issue, in both the Houses of the Parliament. When Member of Parliament Shri Sanjay Jaiswal spoke about the paid news phenomenon in the Lok Sabha, (during the debate on the President's address), members cutting across political lines had thumped their desks in approval -- the malaise was widespread.

Ambika Soni, the-then Information and Broadcasting (India) noted it to be a grave threat to the functioning of a free press that had a high potential to mislead the masses and called for corrective measures. Arun Jaitley (the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha), Sushma Swaraj, (the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha), Sitaram Yechury (Chairman of press-affairs committee) have echoed the concerns and urged for drastic measures to prevent these travesties of free-speech.

In Andhra Pradesh, Union of Working Journalists estimated the size of the paid news market to be somewhere between Rs 300 crore and Rs 1,000 crore. Arun Jaitley, the-then Leader of Opposition had pegged the size of the market in Maharashtra to have reached a figure of some thousands of crores. The Election Commission of India offers a more conservative estimate in the range of ₹ 400 crore to ₹ 500 crore, based on confirmed cases.

Most newspapers maintain no paper-trails of these transactions and court-admissible-evidence is nearly impossible to discover.

The PCI had called for drastic measures including enactment of a law, whereby, if one publishes an article after being paid a certain sum of money, it needs to be mentioned very clearly along with the article but little was implemented. Changes in ground scenario has been feeble, at best.

Yet, for some hope, ECI has set up monitoring cells during elections:-

During the 2014 elections to the Lok Sabha, the EC issued 3100 notices to individual candidates for having indulged in ‘paid news’ and confirmed 787 cases as those of ‘paid news’.

English Media

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TOI is widely regarded as the avɑ̃ɡaʁd in the domain of paid-news and esp. private treaties. Beginning in the 90s, Vineet Jain, the Managing Director, recruited managers from consumer-product companies like PepsiCo and Unilever and invited them to attend editorial meetings. Amidst various other tactics, he favored these managers over the editors and was described to have successfully prevented them from leaving their mark on the paper by constraining them to work with the C-suite, in an integral fashion.

TOI's innovations in the sector began in its city supplements titled the "City Times". Containing color pictures of seductive women and muscular men, along with stories of Bollywood stars, handsome cricket pros, and international celebrities, they appealed to the youth. The lead story of a particular day had described how aspiring actors, including a sultry Saiyami Kher, were “keen to start their innings in Bollywood.” Jain explained to the author of the NewYorker piece that, like the surrounding stories, it was written by members of the reporting staff and paid for by the celebrities or their publicists. An internal company report in June lauded the strategy as “so important that today nearly all Bollywood movie releases pay for promotional coverage ahead of movie releases, and actors/actresses pay to develop their brand through coverage in the paper.” These advertorials were written by staff reporters and it was near implausible for a reader to ascertain that they were paid-for.

A Guardian article noted that space could be bought in the Delhi Times supplement or TOI's city pages, for £27 a centimetre on the front page, or £16 inside and could even be dressed up as a genuine news story, as long as it met a celebrity quotient. It went on to note that a recent Times article about the launch of a range of ballpoint pens had been paid for by a marketing company.

As these advertisement campaigns in the guise of news, were favorably received by the audience and the clients, TOI expanded its business maneuvers. They began to assert for a monopoly in the market and often, arranged for similar deals with its other regional brands, as kickbacks:-

Jain's philosophy was of a paper that minted money whilst satisfying the youthfulness of the populace -- to the extents of disproportionately focusing on the aspects of a disaster, that inculcated a spirit of optimism. Themes of sorrow and death were not to be made prominent. But, this change occurred at the cost of editorial rigor. Issues of importance, were pushed back, because they were supposedly mundane and the brand embraced to a quality of journalism, that became poorer with time.

Darryl D’Monte, a Cambridge-educated editor and writer who once served in a senior editorial capacity at the Times, blamed Samir Jain and The Times to have corrupted the entire face of Indian journalism, including television.

As the group sought for even more profits, the next giant leap in the field came in the form of Medianet, which (for a price), openly offered to send journalists to cover product launches or personality-related events. While BCCL representatives denied providing any favourable editorial space to the contracted clients, multiple observers noted that the integrity of news was by and large compromised; often favoring private corporate houses. The advertorial coverage, that stemmed from these treaties, were often punched with mainstream news and even a fig-leaf of a disclaimer was often done away with.

Palagummi Sainath, of the Hindu, offered an interesting case study about how the group skewed its news to favor these contractors. A full-page article, titled “Reaping gold through BT cotton,” published on August 28, 2011, declared that Monsanto’s genetically modified Bt cotton seeds have “led to a social and economic transformation of the villages.” It appeared to be a news story, complete with a byline, but close inspection of the small print revealed that it was a “marketing feature,” paid for by Monsanto. The advertisement had run “word for word” three years earlier as a news story in the Nagpur edition of the Times. Remarkably, both the story and the ad were misleading: in fact, the Bt seeds did not grow cotton as promised; the land lay fallow, and farmers went bankrupt. Since 2003, more than thirty-three thousand farmers had committed suicide in the state of Maharashtra, including nine in the “model farming village” depicted in the story and the ad.

Another independent watchdog noted that the Times of India had deliberately left out the name of its private treaty partner, Sobha Developers, while reporting on a work-site accident in Bangalore in 2008, unlike other English and Kannada dailies. A follow-up report too, simply said "a private construction company" without naming it. Famed journalist Sucheta Dalal had compiled a list of headlines, issued on behalf of private treaty clients, that revealed a heavy slant.

Independent observers have long noted the terms of these private treaties to be non-transparent and that it's not known whether equities are paid only for advertising space or for editorial space too. Jain has lightly rebutted these observations by asserting of a purported separation of powers between the editorial and sales team and alleging that the editors did not know of the private treaty clients (which's false, given that the website has a publicly available list of these clients). The group, however, did not have any major qualms about the often non-transparent dealings. An interview with their CEO, went as follows:-

The most vital evidence, as to the penetration of these clients, into the newsroom, came in the form of a leaked email from a top brass of Economic Times:-

The brazenness with which the group pulled it's advertorial news stunts, all through the years, had shocked numerous observers. An article over the Mumbai edition of the newspaper referred as to how Pantaloon‘s strategic partnership with the TOI group had paid off. It read :-


Despite being traditionally non-aligned with any political ideology (and garnering praises for the stance), TOI in recent years, have been often observed to be in a bonhomie with the ruling NDA government.

A leaked WhatsApp message in June 2017 revealed the extent of collusion between TOI editors and the Narendra Modi government. Sent mistakenly on an internal TOI journalist group by the paper’s executive editor, the message detailed how he, along with former Economic Times and OPEN magazine editor, lobbied on behalf of an unnamed income tax official with finance minister Arun Jaitley.

Numerous articles critical of the ruling party were taken down, within hours of being published. An interesting cross-cutting of political-paid-editing, w/o any minimal disclaimer, cropped after the hugely controversial 2016 Indian banknote demonetisation:-

The PCI report noted of an advertising campaign by razor blade manufacturing company, Gillete, which called war against lazy stubble(!) and was broadcast on their news channel. The channel showcased features about it, interviewed celebrities and even had panel discussions on the topic of whether a man should shave or not with a foregone conclusion:― Indian women prefer clean shaven men.

Gillette and CNN-IBN were in an exclusive partnership which was a mutually beneficial alliance. The committee located many other such examples of advertorials.

  • The PCI report extensively praised their journalistic code of ethics.

Anuradha Sharma notes that HT Media (which is the flagship company of the newspaper) had its separate division Brand Promotions which oversaw sponsored content in the city supplements of Hindustan Times. Almost all major media houses were involved in the same practices, sometimes with even less clarity. The group uses the term strategic partnerships (instead of private treaties), wherein it invested into a company and advised it on building its brand value. Business Standard chief editor T.N. Ninan, defined them as a transfer of shares in return for advertising.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee had noted, as a general observation, that the introduction of private treaties often sold favorable coverage for barter and the business model has attracted very severe criticism for its inherent conflict of interest.

The group had found an undercover reporter’s proposal of peddling a political religio-ideological narrative under the guise of news to be quite attractive. The group’s executives even offered “editorial support” to ‘Acharya Atal’ for his activities as part of an advertising package. The agenda included promoting Hindutva in the initial phase of three months through customised religious programs to create a congenial atmosphere and then, as elections approach, to target opposition leaders.

Vernacular language media

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The incidence of paid news have been documented to be much more prevalent in regional sources.

The PCI report notes multiple instances of impropriety followed by journalists and media organizations in Hindi-speaking states (esp. Haryana, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh et al) before the 2009 general elections.

Barring a few, most newspapers in these states entered into deals with candidates of various political parties contesting in the general elections whereby they offered publicity packages to specific candidates and/or political parties to which they belonged for money. Reports coming from Gujarat, Karnataka and Chattisgarh showed how editorials of various newspapers were pressurized by their respective managements to stop asking questions, unfavorable to certain parties. Sainath described a brazen case of affairs wherein the local language papers readily accepted his accusations (of renting their editorial privileges) and merely subverted the blame onto the cut-throat competition from local editions of national dailies.

Rate cards were prepared and given to candidates together with a warning that the newspaper offering the package would publish no news whatsoever about the individual candidate and/or his or her party if the candidate/party did not accept the package. Senior journalist Mrinal Pande came across one such rate-card of one famed Hindi daily published from a rich western Indian State which laid down a sequential map of activities to promote the party or individual candidates, quoting prices for each step. Four-page supplements in color, exclusive interviews, positive views of the voters, positive editorial analysis, "only positive coverage".

Politicians, from across the spectrum, has accused the regional newspapers of asking for huge sums of money, to publish news about election campaign and biasing news, in their favor.

  • The PCI report notes Shri Nishikant Thakur, Chief General Manager, Jagran Prakashan Ltd., to claim :-

Politicians, from across the spectrum, has accused the newspaper of asking for huge sums of money, to publish news about election campaign and bias news, in their favor. The representatives of these newspapers allegedly claimed that they were abiding by orders given to them by their managers. Was a victim of the Cobrapost sting.

Politicians, from across the spectrum, has accused the newspaper of asking for huge sums of money, to publish news about election campaign and bias news, in their favor. Was a victim of the Cobrapost sting.

The PCI report notes of a Lucknow-based non-government-organization, the National Alliance of People's Movements that suggested of the above measure, after analysing issues of Dainik Hindustan that were published between April 01, 2009 and April 30, 2009 which exhibited a number of instances of paid news articles.

The PCI report notes of a Lucknow-based non-government-organization, the National Alliance of People's Movements that suggested of the above measure, after analysing issues of Rashtriya Sahara that were published between April 01, 2009 and April 30, 2009 which exhibited a number of instances of paid news articles.

The PCI report notes of a Lucknow-based non-government-organization, the National Alliance of People's Movements that suggested of the above measure, after analysing issues of Voice of Lucknow that were published between April 01, 2009 and April 30, 2009 which exhibited a number of instances of paid news articles.

A senior manager ofthe publication accepted in an interview that the newspaper had earned anywhere between Rs 10 crore and Rs 12 crore for carrying ―paid news items during the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. Was a victim of the Cobrapost sting.

The PCI report went on to note that the Lokmat had published 156 pages of advertisements in the run-up to the election and all of them were in favor of M.S.Chouhan, a Congress leader. It as a victim of Cobrapost sting.



Zee News

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The above quote was part of a bargain-deal at an upmarket coffee shop in New Delhi in the autumn of 2012 between two senior journalists from the Zee News TV channel and top-tier executives of the Jindal Steel and Power Company. Little did Zee realize that they were being entrapped in a sting operation and would make the headlines the next day, for attempting to extort money. On November 27, 2012, Zee's Group Editor Sudhir Chaudhary and Business Head Samir Ahluwalia were arrested by Delhi Police on charges of trying to extort a Rs 100 crore advertising deal in exchange for favorable news coverage. A bevy of legal cases were filed by JSPL and Zee Group against each other; six years later, the parties decided to call it a day and signed a MOU, that blamed the past saga on some misunderstandings.

Notes

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  1. ^ Paid news is a practice through which organizations (for-profit and non-profit), public figures/celebrities, politicians, political parties, brands/movies pay cash or equivalent to a media group or television channel or a newspaper or a magazine or a journalist, to be in the news, for sustained positive coverage, and to avoid negative coverage -- biased and one-sided news items are passed off as routine news coverage. Its occurrence goes up during elections, when individual candidates or their parties could do with orchestrated hype.
  2. ^ Private treaties (or "brand capital agreements") are signed, long term private confidential agreements between a person or party or organization and a media group or television channel or newspaper or magazine. A private treaty gives an equity position, or equivalent ownership/commission/payment interest to the media group/owners.
  3. ^ The origins of this discussion may be noted over here.

References

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  1. ^ http://presscouncil.nic.in/OldWebsite/CouncilReport.pdf. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help)
  2. ^ Auletta, Ken (2012-10-01). "Citizens Jain". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2019-05-27.
  3. ^ "'Paid News': The Buried Report". Retrieved 2019-05-27.
  4. ^ THAKURTA, PARANJOY GUHA (2011). "Manufacturing 'News'". Economic and Political Weekly. 46 (14): 12–14. ISSN 0012-9976. JSTOR 41152044.
  5. ^ Subramaniam, Samanth. "How Samir Jain created the modern Indian newspaper industry". The Caravan. Retrieved 2019-05-27.
  6. ^ Beckett, Paul (2009-05-06). "Want Press Coverage? Give Me Some Money". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2019-05-27.
  7. ^ Sharma, Anuradha (2013). IN NEED OF A LEVESON? JOURNALISM IN INDIA IN TIMES OF PAID NEWS AND 'PRIVATE TREATIES' (PDF). Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford.
  8. ^ Painter, James, ed. (2013). India's Media Boom:The Good News and the Bad (PDF). Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford.
  9. ^ Rodrigues, Usha M.; Ranganathan, Maya (2014-11-26). "Paid news: Cocktail of Media, Business and Politics". Indian News Media: From Observer to Participant. SAGE Publications India. p. 121. ISBN 9789351501589.