Category: MEDIA

This eloquent appeal to Times of India journalists and editors to reclaim their dharma found its way into the MxMIndia mailbox over the weekend. Written by Kingshuk Nag, Resident Editor of The Times of India in Hyderabad, it is a reaction to the whole fiasco between the glamour sections of the newspaper and first film star Deepika Padukone and then the world at large. The Times of India’s blatant sexism has been attacked by the national and international media and the open letter written by Priya Gupta, head of all Times’ supplements, only made matters worse.

 

Mr Nag was earlier RE of The Times of India’s Ahmedabad edition where he and the newspaper took a resolute stand for justice during the Gujarat riots of 2002. He has also written a biography of Narendra Modi, now Prime Minister of India, plus books about the rise of the BJP, the Telangana crisis and the fall of Satyam.

 

Mr Nag’s letter to his colleagues points to the dilemma faced by all journalists when they have to deal with a powerful marketing department and with impossible diktats that run counter to the ethics they have nurtured for years. It raises questions that we have all had to deal with at some point and underlines the fact that we cannot and must not give in. There is more at stake than individual careers.

 

We publish the letter as is. MxMIndia has verified that the letter was indeed written (and mailed) by Mr Nag. Although this letter is published without Mr Nag’s permission, given its content and the fact that MxMIndia is read essentially by the media fraternity, we think it merits wider discussion in the news media ecosystem. – Ed

 

Here goes the letter:

 

Dear Editorial colleagues and co- pilgrims:

 

Subject: Reclaiming Journalism

The Navaratris having begun and Vijaya Dashami will follow in a few days. Traditionally this is considered to a very auspicious time and legends have it that this was when Lord Rama had invoked goddess Durga before launching all-out war against Ravana. Vijaya Dashami is the day when Ravana was vanquished the occasion is celebrated as the victory of good over evil.

 

Good and evil are however subjective words and evil could mean to denote not only our external enemies but also our internal obstacles. In fact most often than not we are inhibited by obstacles that we place before ourselves and victory is to surmount these impediments to go forward on our path and practice our dharma.

 

Nightmare

For the last few days I have been disturbed a lot. This followed the by now widely publicized row that Bombay Times has had with Deepika Padukone. Our ‘vagina and tits’ reference in a story carried in the supplement has lot a drawn of adverse reference in even international media. I feel shamed and humiliated by the comments being freely passed about us including in competing publications.

 

For me the worst nightmare would be if someone went to the Supreme Court with a PIL seeking printing of a statutory warning on the masthead of the paper. The warning is that “some of the news carried in this paper is paid for.” This would be a statutory warning like that carried on cigarette packets: “Smoking cigarettes is injurious to your health.” Somebody could also file a PIL asking for a definition of what a newspaper is.

 

This is not an implausible scenario considering that the supplements carried along with the TOI main paper have provisions for medianet. These supplements – though they have their own editors and imprint lines – are distributed along with the main paper. Of course, we carry on the masthead a line called advertorial, entertainment promotion feature, as a safeguard. But can a court not go beyond this?

 

A few months ago- in February end- at our brand editorial meeting in Sri Lanka- the managing editor of Bombay Times (the same person with non-editorial background who has written the vagina and tits story) made a suggestion that on Sundays probably the Bombay Times could on top and the main paper could be wrapped within.  I recollect vividly that the suggestion was met with a hushed silence and disbelief, till the CEO dismissed it saying: ‘that’s just an idea (which I read as meaning the idea of the person suggesting).

 

Journalism: a lifestyle

Almost all of us came into the sacred profession of journalism by choice. At the beginning of our career many of us had other options but through affirmative action chose this path. By doing so we forsook many ordinary pleasures of life. For us, there is no Sunday, no Holi, no Diwali. For us there is no watching a movie in a hall in the evening 6-9 show. Thus journalism has become a lifestyle for us and this is something that we wear on our sleeves- very proudly. For us nothing gives us more kick than paper well brought out, a page well designed, a story well written and a picture well displayed. Nothing is more dampening to us that spotting errors and misses in our paper every morning. It spoils our mood. Yet we cannot be described as living in our own world. We are perpetually on the ball, and I reckon the fastest decision takers. This is not only regarding news but also designing strategies to take on competitors. We can cut through clutter and zero on problems and devise solutions, faster than the fastest ‘managers.’ This is not an empty boast.

 

The only constant in life is change. Times change and so do realities but values that we imbibe remain. We are all aware that a paper that we sell to our readers for Rs 3 costs us upwards of Rs 20 to produce. The difference is paid by the advertiser. Considering this I can affirm and proudly so that the advertiser has almost no say in the content our paper. This is something that is amazing and unbelievable but so it is. Also over my long years in the TOI – I am now in my 22^nd year -I have not been subject to any owner/ senior management pressure on what can be carried in the paper. I have worked in four different centers of TOI: New Delhi, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad. In some of my job profiles I have faced external intimidation but no internal company pressures. For over 14 of these 21 plus years I have been the editor of an independent edition.

 

Yet a bias against journalists can be discerned. Though this may not be an institutional bias but it sometimes does percolate down the line and is not pleasant to encounter. As an example two years ago just before Diwali, I ran into the director in charge of the Management Assurance Services (MAS), a function which is akin to internal audit. The director who had come visiting Hyderabad told me (in words to that effect) that all journalists were corrupt. When I glared back at him, he said ‘at least in Delhi’ but withdrew because I started at him harder. I wanted to tell him that he had no idea and clue about the complexities of the job of an Editor but thought it a waste of time to educate him.

 

There are many other ways too where these biases show up but they are too numerous to be listed. All of you must have discerned this as well.

 

Once upon a time, TOI was infested with union politics. I remember my early days in Delhi in the first half of the 1990s when the editorial floor would be taken by union netas who would climb on the table making incendiary statements and create ghadar all around. I have also seen political netas (including one who became a minister soon thereafter) throw stones on the glass door on the ground floor of the TOI office. Thank god we have left those days long behind. Yet at the same time the pendulum has swung from one extreme to other.

 

Change but is all for the good?

The country has also changed a lot in these years and we have to adapt ourselves to the new changes. Yet some things do not change. One of them is that good journalism is all about reporting events around you -without biases and taking sides. It is not about the worship of Mammon. In fact the worship of Mammon leads nowhere and our recent national history proves this.

 

Ever since 1991 when the economy was opened, profits have become a sexier word. But this has been to what effect? When Manmohan Singh became finance minister in 1991, the rupee was around 26 to a US dollar. As is write as on September 26 2014, the rupee is 61 to a dollar. Our currency has declined sharply. What was all this liberalization all about, I wonder. If you want to get a reality check and feel first- hand how you ‘disempowered’ you are, you have to go abroad. India is actually a nation that lives beyond it means, which is why imports are higher than exports and our currency is getting constantly devalued. We not only import oil and coal, but also gold and even fruits and vegetables. What a sorry state of affairs! Increased consumption and consumerism may not be bad but only as long as you can afford it.

 

Of course it has to be admitted that liberalization also unleashed the creative urge amongst the entrepreneurially inclined and the importance of this cannot be underestimated. As a result our business landscape has changed and there are tremendous opportunities all round. Yet our manufacturing remains below par and most of the so called economic growth is only real estate boom and pure speculation. This is not growth, but just an illusion of growth. Creating a monoculture and façade of unappetizing concrete structures cannot be described as growth; it’s just a pretension of growth. A huge part of the money created by speculation has entered politics and led to huge corruption, fall in moral values and resulted in ‘contractorization’ of politics. All these are valid concerns, which our journalism must aim to articulate.

 

National Interests

All of us have individual interests. Above them we have the interests of our family, friends and relatives. Above all this is the societal and national interests. What our societal interests are and what our national interests should be – could be a matter of debate. But we cannot forget that there has to be national interest. When a soldier goes to war we expect him to fight for the country and even die in national interest. We will not pardon a soldier who draws his salary but runs away from the battlefield. As journalists we cannot be say that we can run away from the national interest, whatever the compulsion is.

 

Friends, I took the liberty of writing to you because you are my co travelers and co pilgrims on this path of progress of this great nation. I write to you because I am extremely troubled and nowhere to turn to. I hope we will be able to work together and reclaim journalism and give back to society what we take for it. This is what we owe to our great nation. This is our dharma.

 

With Best Wishes foryou and your nears and dears for Vijaya Dashami

Thank You,

Kingshuk Nag

27 September 2014

 

We chose to publish what was essentially a letter for internal discussion and consumption essentially to start a discussion on the issues plaguing not just The Times of India but a large part of the Indian news media.

 

We know there’s widescale owner-/management-interference in editorial affairs. The Times of India suits do it in the open, many don’t. Paid content rules. Politicians strike deals with news media owners for plugs.

 

Private Treaties (or ads against equity) is no longer a preserve of TOI owners BCCL. Many others are doing the same. Even those publications that once wrote loads damning the TOI’s Medianet policy, decided to introduce similar schemes for brands/lifestyle events/parties.

 

And it’s not that all journalists come with a squeaky clean reputation. Vested interests play a huge role here too.

 

As Kingshuk Nag, suggests in this clarification, The Times of India is one of the better places to be in for quality journalism. There’s a great deal of functional autonomy for editors of the main paper.

 

Indeed, we are aware that at the time of the Gujarat law-and-order mess in 2002 that led to then Chief Minister Narendra Modi being denied a visa to the US, the newspaper’s Ahmedabad edition adopted a neutral stance and did not buckle under extreme political pressure at that time.

 

Here’s Kingshuk’s Nag letter, published as is:

 

 

The Editor,

MxM India

 

Dear Editor:

 

This is regarding my letter to senior colleagues at TOI. While the letter you have reproduced is the one that I had written it was only meant for internal discussion.

 

Though as a journalist I cannot question your rights as a journalist to reproduce information that you have accessed, your note that precedes the letter says that we at TOI (as journalists) face a dilemma on how to deal with a powerful marketing department. Unfortunately this has placed a somewhat misleading emphasis to the letter.

 

Further down in the letter I have explained how I have never faced pressure internally from management about the stories in the paper. In fact, in my position I have really never had the occasion to interact (much less receive diktats) from the top management. As Editor at TOI one is far more autonomous than can be imagined. Two incidents come to my mind –although two decades old. I am citing these old incidents and not present examples only to maintain confidentiality in many matters (that have nothing to do with Deepika and BT).

 

In my days, as Chief of Business News in New Delhi in the mid -1990s, I was approached by a top industrialist who was very upset about a report carried by us about his company. “I will complain to your vice chairman Sameer Jain, who is my childhood friend,’ he threatened and slammed the phone. A week later the guy was at my door. “What happened,” I asked. “Yaar that Sameer does not even take my calls. You only solve my problems”, he confessed.

 

In the second incident, we (at Business Times, New Delhi) were summoned for a meeting to his room by our then chairman (now deceased Ashok Jain) a year or two after liberalization. The meeting went on for three hours but at the end it we were non plussed about what he was trying to communicate. After talking amongst ourselves we realized that our chairman was implying the following: “hey you young journalists you are going gung ho about liberalization and opening up the economy. But think of old industry also and what will happen to them. Write about them also.” He was very conscious about this and therefore beating around the bush. He would not even say anything directly

 

If the owners keep a hands off approach in TOI, that may not be true everywhere else. A decade ago the owner of a leading newspaper invited me and told me that he wanted to appoint me as his publications National Political Editor in Delhi. He thrust an appointment letter which had the salary details unfilled and said: ‘you put your own figure.’ I was a little non plussed and before I could react he added: “To make your job easy, I have already hired the guys who will work with you and even decided their beats.” Needless to add, I terminated the conversation immediately.

 

To reiterate, in my present job assignment the top management of TOI has no clue about what how I go about my work and neither do I intend to tell them!

 

Thanks,

 

Kingshuk Nag

29 September 2014