Do you know what you are reading?

Two senior executives of Zee news have been arrested on charges of extortion. Navin Jindal (owner of a steel and mining conglomerate and a sitting member of parliament on a Congress ticket) has alleged that he was being blackmailed by the media house and asked to pay up Rs. 100 crore ($ 18.2 million) over a period of four years in advertising money to Zee news. A grainy video (edited version) allegedly shot by the Jindal employees has been posted on Youtube. The video suggests that a deal is being struck to prevent damaging coverage of coal mine allocation to the Jindals. Zee news has rubbished the allegation and the case is now sub judice. More will be revealed in the coming months, but this leaves us wondering whom to believe and what to ignore?

It is widely accepted that Indian media is free and uncensored, which to a large extent is true. All the media reporting on scams by the sitting UPA government would not have been possible without a free media. The kind of support lent by the media to Anna hazare’s movement, which was clearly anti establishment, once again proved the freedom enjoyed by Indian media. Despite this there are a lot of grey zones. As claimed in the Jindal video by the Zee executives that the likes of Amir Khan and Madhur Bhandarkar (well known Bollywood actor and director respectively) also have to pay for news coverage and that the front page stories in The Economic Times are paid, are enough to shake our faith in independent reporting. The ugly nexus of corporate world and media companies has come to the front.

The colour yellow looks good on mailboxes
not on newspapers

Indian society has always relied on media. The secretly published regional newspapers during colonial times were trusted over the official media. When Indira Gandhi declared state emergency on 26^th June 1975, newspapers protested by leaving blank front pages and announcing the demise of democracy in their obituary columns. Indians have grown up trusting their newspapers. After the advent of private electronic media more people now rely on them for independent news and views rather than on state media. The change in which started in mid 90s did little to assign accountability to the media. Media houses disclose little about their investment structure, their relationship with other media firms and businesses. Disclosure is completely lacking when it comes to reporting. As a reader one is entitled to know the background of a news piece.

Take the example of the Zee news Jindal scandal. There was wide spread reporting of the matter in various newspapers including DNA. DNA batted for Zee news and carried full press statements from the electronic channel. What it failed to inform the readers was that DNA is part owned by Essel Group which is also the owner of Zee news. Readers would have formed a better opinion if this information was disclosed in the news article. Non disclosure of full information is just one aspect of dishonest reporting.

The problem of misleading the readers is not limited to business reporting. Popular, award winning journalists like P. Sainath (writes mostly for The Hindu, a Chennai based newspaper on social cause related to farmers and poverty) too tend to distort or hide facts in their reports. In his article, “To fix BPL, nix CPL” published on 26^th March 2012 he talks about how the government is helping corporate world by writing off Rs. 5 lakh crore ($ 91.4 billion) in the annual budgets since 2005-06 as revenue foregone. He on purpose fails to tell his readers what exactly is included under the revenue foregone head. Reading the article one gets the impression that it is all about giving concessions to big multinationals at the cost of poor people. The truth however is that revenue foregone includes more than just tax breaks to businesses. It includes the amount waived off by the government under various sections of income tax (investments, donations, savings, provident fund and pension contributions, rent allowance, higher education loan, etc), area based exemption in excise for North Eastern states and hill states, etc. Revenue foregone is also the subsidy the government provides on cooking fuel, electricity to farmers, fertilizers, etc. If the readers know the real definition of revenues foregone they would probably form a different opinion.  

Indian media which carries out anti corruption campaigns should start doing some housekeeping. It is time that the readers are given honest information complete with background information where ever it is required and clearly disclosing their business and investment relationships. Reporters like P. Sainath who are known for their good work and recognized by international institutions of repute should not mislead their readers by promoting their agenda instead of reporting.

The Zee news scandal should also send a signal to the readers on how they form their opinions. They should learn to question the report and try to find out the truth behind it. Blindly believing or rubbishing a report will turn us into a herd of sheep.

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