What can we learn from the Zee episode?

[OPINION]

Whether the sting was operated by the editors of Zee News or Naveen Jindal, congress MP and steel tycoon, the legal system will tell – maybe after years. But what can the media learn from this episode?                           

Prima facie, both Jindal and the Zee News editors appear to be at fault. As per unconfirmed media reports, Jindal offered Rs 20 crore to the Zee editors and the editors in turn demanded Rs 100 crore. From a journalistic standpoint, the editors’ demanding any amount money from any business in return for any favour is unacceptable and is against the basic ethics of the profession.                            

"Assuming" this to be true for a moment, the next question is what made the editors cross their limits? Is it because they are the proprietors of the business? Perhaps yes. Ideally, editors should not be the proprietors of the media house they are working for. If they wear the dual hat, they will be tempted to employ such tricks to meet their revenue targets. There are however, excellent examples globally, where the editor is the owner of the media house and yet it is run ethically.

Many proprietors also try to push their editors/ journalists to favour a particular company assuming it would get them that extra buck. Sorry guys, that model didn’t work yesterday and it will not work today. The best-run publications or media houses give complete editorial freedom and there is a thick line between the editorial and the business. This line cannot blur until you are blind or pretend to be so.         

So, how can the media ensure ethical journalism? Empowerment and self-regulation would perhaps solve most of the issues. Senior editors need to be empowered such that they are part of the company’s board – not responsible for bringing in revenues but responsible for ensuring good journalism. This would not allow business heads to arm twist the editors to play the sales game. The second solution lies in self regulation wherein an independent panel of retired journalists and senior editors (who have no interest/stake in any of the media houses) would have the full authority to “fire” any employee of any media house who is found indulging in unethical activities.                    

Shekhar Gupta, Editor-in-Chief of the Indian Express said in a recent debate in CNN-IBN that journalists today are more ethical and professional than ever before. I agree with him on this. I am in the industry and I know it for sure that by and large, today’s modern-day journalists are ethical, smart and more professional. It is perhaps because most of them have attended journalism schools and they survive in a competitive environment where talent shines.

On that note, let us commit ourselves to creating a system where journalism is sacrosanct. Let me take you back and remind you once again of my favourite tagline and the gospel truth that good journalism is good business!  

(The purpose of this write-up is not to judge who's right or wrong, but only to turn the gaze inwards into the profession of journalism, in general)   

Fight terror and illegal immigration, not against Indians

It’s outright lack of wisdom to attack the people of North East in Bangalore and other parts of India. It's clear now that terrorist groups from Pakistan are trying hard to instigate violence and communal tension among the Indian citizens. These anti-social groups have just taken advantage of what happened in a few districts of lower Assam to incite communal violence among the Indians. It's apalling if some of our Indian brothers have fallen prey to such timid tricks adopted by the terrorist or terror-supporting groups.

Through this blog, I would like to inform the citizens of the country that the recent violence in lower Assam which killed some 70 innocent people and rendered thousands homeless, is not a communal clash in the true sense of the word. The fact is, in the three districts covered by the BTAD area of Assam, namely Bongaigaon, Kokrajahar and Chirang, sporadic clashes took place between illegal immigrants from Bangladesh (who incidentally happens to be Muslims) and the Bodos (a small tribe of Assam). The clash took place because of the insecurity and attacks the Bodos have been facing due to the unabated influx of people from Bangladesh.

In contrast to the rumours in the country, the Assamese and other people from the North East are in no way involved in any communal clash. They are instead trying to prevent such unwanted incidents. Various Assamese organizations have gone to ground zero to help maintain peace and tranquillity in the affected areas assisting the people with cash and kind.

Therefore, it is completely foolish and irrational to attack any person from the North East or any Indian with a communal feeling that Muslims from Assam are being attacked. The clash which took place is between the illegal immigrants (Bangladeshis) and the original inhabitants of those regions (the Bodos). It is not a fight between the Muslims and the people of the North East. Let's clearly understand that this clash would have taken place with the illegal immigrants regardless of their religious identities.

Taking into account the actuality of the situation, I appeal to all sections of people to come to terms with the reality and refrain from giving a communal turn to the disturbance in the North East. It may be noted that Assam is a state in which Hindus and Muslims have been living harmoniously from time immemorial. Any instigation from any anti-national group should not be entertained in this regard and no innocent person from the region should be victimised. Let’s fight terrorism and illegal immigration, not against our own Indian brothers and sisters.

A glimpse into IT journalism

Most passionate journalists believe journalism is the best profession in the world. Some even say journalism is God’s own profession. As a Bangalore-based IT journalist, I second their opinion and bet they are right in believing so. In this article, I will attempt to justify my belief through the eyes of an IT journalist.

Journalists usually cover different beats or areas assigned to them. I have been fortunate enough for having got the chance to cover the IT or information technology beat in my career. An IT journalist’s job is like a white-collared journalism job where you get the perks of both the worlds – that of a journalist and that of a corporate. You don’t have to sweat it out, as much as, say a crime-beat journalist, but you are still a journalist, who reports, writes, and investigates. You are only spared the heat and dust of the outdoors because of the nature of the beat. After all, the IT companies are among those which have the swankiest of offices.

In fact, journalism is hardly a job. It’s a blessing for more reasons than one. As a journalist, you get paid for doing what you like. For instance, you get paid for reading the newspaper; you get paid for meeting celebrities; you get paid for talking to people; you get paid for travelling around the world; you get paid for expressing yourself, etc. The list goes on. Everyone around you does these things anyway. But as a journalist, you do them as a profession and get paid for it too. Your work of course has an agenda, a purpose and a sense of professionalism, which only makes it more worthwhile. The stress and long hours that might seem tedious for people outside the industry actually add to the adrenaline flow of most journalists.

MEETING THE WHO’S WHO

Like most journalists, I too have had the opportunity of travelling around the world attending various international conferences, mostly on technology. Last year, I attended the Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco, California. OpenWorld is the annual event organised by software giant Oracle. The event hosts more than 45,000 registered attendees and generates over $100 million for the Bay Area economy. At the San Francisco event, I met industry top honchos such as Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle; Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell; Joe Tucci, CEO of EMC and SD Shibulal, CEO of India software giant Infosys, among others. Anyone with some interest in the IT corporate world will acknowledge that the above list is the dream team anyone could imagine to meet under one umbrella.

Closer home, Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of India, is home to some of the industry’s most prominent think tanks such NR Narayana Murthy (founder & chairman emeritus of Infosys), Azim Premji (chairman of Wipro) and Ashok Soota (ex-CEO Wipro Infotech, founder of MindTree and Happiest Minds), among many more. Evidently, IT journalists in the city are never short of story ideas. The city which has the largest number of tech companies in the country gives enough opportunities for reporters to find business news worth reporting.

When American investor and world’s third richest man, Warren Buffett, came to Bangalore, I was among the lucky 500-odd people who had the opportunity to meet him. Apart from business, Buffett had philanthropy in the top of his priority list in India. He told media persons in Bangalore that “philanthropy is much more difficult than business but that does not mean you ignore it.” Buffett has pledged nearly 99% of his personal net worth of $50 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. (The Foundation is one of the largest charitable institutions in the world run by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and wife Melinda Gates).

“I have never given up a meal to give away money, I have never given up a movie, and I have never given up taking my family on a vacation trip, so I have everything in the world that I could possibly want. And yet I have a lot left over, and that money will do nothing for me, but it will do a lot for other people, so I am giving up something that has no value to me and that has value to other people and to me that makes nothing but sense,” Buffett said. He added that the decision to give most of his money to charity was taken while he and his late wife Susan were still in their twenties. “But I felt it was better to be giving away billions later on than millions early on and so far it has worked out that way,” he said.

So, like Buffett who has never given up a meal to help someone in need, journalists never have to give up on the fun of life for the sake of work. For them, work is play and they love doing that. Journalism is a profession which gives you opportunities that no other profession in the world can ever give. What you make of it is left up to you. You also get noticed and recognized for your work and that satisfaction is unique. Journalists are fed with exclusive information on a 24/7 basis, sometimes more than what can be chewed. But the point is, you are constantly learning and always building new mental muscles, and that’s a blessing!

(The author is a Bangalore-based IT journalist currently working as a Principal Correspondent with InformationWeek)

Is Good Journalism Bad Business?

Is good journalism bad business? It’s a topic I have been obsessed with since college and why not? The topic is as relevant today as it was many years back. The owners of many media houses have always had tough time dealing with credible journalists. The question boils down to this. If company X is one of the prime advertisers with a magazine or newspaper, should the journalist be stopped from writing a negative story about it? Should company X get even an iota of special treatment? The answer clearly is a NO in all caps and bold. Alas, many of those in the business feel the answer should be YES.

There is no denial that revenues are important to sustain a media house or a publication. The big question here is: Will partiality towards company X bring in the required profit? The answer is No. Readers are quick to decipher what’s real news and what’s an advertisement or an advertorial or a PR gimmick. They read a publication because they trust the content and consider it sacrosanct. The moment the reader discovers that you have restrained covering company X negatively or favoured it in any form because it advertises with you, they are bound to stop reading your publication.

Some sales guys also believe that giving editorial coverage is a good way to sell an ad and bring in revenues. They can’t go more wrong than this. Companies advertise because they know it’s hard to find editorial space. The moment editorial coverage becomes easy, which fool will spend the moolah and advertise? So, in the long run, such strategies will only hit back on the face. Needless to say, advertorials and all custom publishing initiatives are perfect examples of brand dilution and will not work in the long term.

Consider this example. Dhirubhai Ambani bought the Sunday Observer from Ashwin Shah of Jaico and launched a daily paper called The Business and Political Observer to act as their mouthpiece. The Sunday Observer was successful in its Jaico avatar but it never worked as an Ambani operation. Why? It’s because our readers are more intelligent than what we assume them to be. The daily paper became an embarrassment and in no way it saved Ambani’s company from all the negative publicity. The publication actually became a liability for the Ambanis and had to be closed down.

Ravi Dhariwal, CEO of The Times of India Group said in one of the forums, “A good product will always sell…Marketing begins with a good product.” I completely agree with him and I am overtly glad to hear such words coming out of a marketing guy.

My final verdict: Good journalism is good business. Media is the domain of the public and people want fair, truthful and unbiased news and views. There is no scope for any hidden agenda here. We should create a strong editorial-driven product and build revenues around it. It cannot happen the other way round where we build an editorial strategy based on the revenue target.