… … the media silence on the Radia Tapes is deafening …
For those of you watching and reading the Main Stream Media this week, life would be pretty much the same. 2 G scam, Karnataka, Some Asian Games Medals, some vague stuff about Bihar… there would have been some level of smugness about Raja’s resignation, and the gloating that everyone was number one in breaking the story, some outrage on Adarsh, but pretty much that is it … as far as big stories are concerned.
The New Media, on the other hand has been bubbling over with another story – the story that has all the ingredients of a Sidney Sheldon novel, meets a Robert Ludlum conspiracy along with a Balaji Soap Opera … garnished in with a bunch of unnamed honest men & women — who work from within the system to break the scam and expose the scamsters …. all the ingrediants of a pucca pot boiler. A story that shows how a Lobbyist managed to carry out corporate agenda by trading information and influence with journalists, industry bodies, politicians to fix political appointments, raise political outrage and fix the market vis-a-vis infrastructure.
But before that a synopis of the story so far:
Nira Radia is a lobbyist / PR person who has some fairly important clients. She also seems to be skirting the boundaries of legal behavior – vis-a-vis the third oldest crime in the world – Income Tax. The IT Department seeks Home Office permission to tap her phones. the Tapped Tapes/MP3’s – got submitted in the Supreme Court on the 15th of November – putting it in the public domain. The voices in the tapes are allegedly hers and an A list of clients, contacts and confidants …..
The tapes are a fascinating hear. It shows how names are dropped, reputations made & ruined, deals fixed, gossip passed on and deals are made. Its’ star cast is the whose who of Indian politics, media and business.
yet there is a more or less media black out on the story – except for a few media companies.
Open Magazine , in its on-line version, carried this story on the 18th of November – an action that promptly crashed the server. The Outlook carried a far more detailed version of the same story, with more audio clips attached. Zee News & DNA had some coverage, as has India Today … but the India Today coverage left out the of one of its head honchos – you can hear it here. . But otherwise, it is pretty much silence …..
Hearing the tapes is an education in itself … everyone seems to be helping sell someone else …
There are six components to the tapes :
- The Soap Opera component of the DMK story- wives, children, drama, wheels within wheels … “i feel he is watching me” kind of paranoia
- The promise to fix the ministry of Telecommunications in a manner that was conducive to a certain set of business interests. Conversations here with journalists who seemed to promise to fix the ministry…
- The fight between the two brothers – and what each side was doing. the off the record views expressed by journalists were amusing …. however, such views are in opposition to a) long tenure b) continued sponsorship
- The fixing of mining rights
- fixing of the aviation industry
- The apparent dictation of a particular story that brings out a certain agenda to a senior print journalist
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The issue is not restricted to 2 journalists or 2 institutions. everyone is on those tapes. Bad mouthing powerful people, or dropping names, swapping information on affairs or asking for a 5 acre hand-out. ….
Despite this there is complete silence in the media – i wonder if it is,
- as they claim, the tapes are not authentic and the papers are fake, and they don’t want to speculate …. but that hasn’t stopped the media before. Remember the Arushi Murder on-air Trial, remember the body by body coverage of 26/11 .
- It could not be that this is not news – recordings submitted in the Supreme Court. You can report it because it is in the public domain. you can play them without fear of being sued – because they are evidence in a court case. you will have to qualify the content as such …
- each media house is trying to figure how compromised it is and taking corrective action …
- they are terrified of pissing of advertisers who can leverage their advertising spend if offended by coverage.
There must be panic- in the media houses. Their doyens seem to be either casting aspersions on the capability of business leaders or trying to fix the Government. Not very conducive to wielding power and influence is it … especially when you get caught ….
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Worth Reading :
Indian Papers
When Radia killed the media star, G Sampath in the DNA
Merging Estates, in the Hoot
Anchored in mire, 1st Edit, Deccan Herald
The spectrum of corruption – Editorial, Indian Express
Indian Media Discredited, Binu Thomas, Countercurrents.org
Oh what a lovely blackout – Sevati Ninnan – the Hoot
The spotlight is on the media now – Priscilla Jebaraj – lead in the Hindu
Anant’s blog: Open dares to be different – Campaign India
Over the Thin Red Line – Salil Tripathi – The Mint
2G scam sideshow: Netizens lambast high-profile journalists – ToI
The Thunderous Silence – Amit Varma , Yahoo News India
The silence of the hacks – Santosh Desai, Times of India
Those living in Glass Houses – Rasheeda Bhagat – Hindu Business Line
Beware the single brush – Pratap Bhanu Mehta, in the Indian Express
Just Say Sorry – T N Ninan , Business Standard
The Radia Tapes debate–swallowing the bait – Vidya Subrahmanyam in the Hoot
Radia Tapes: Media ethics at the crossroads – comment in the Hoot
Welcome to the Matrix of the Indian State – Siddarth Varadarajan, in the Hindu
Foreign Papers
Media run for cover : BRP Bhaskar, in Gulf Today
Phone Taps Draw Media Into 2G Spotlight – Tripti Lahiri in WSJ
Indian Media Where Art Thou on Media Scandal – Betwa Sharma in the Huffington Post
Indian journalists accused of secretly helping politicians, businesses – Washington Post
Corrupt Corporate Fascism in India – the Dawn
Oh Vir, What Can the Matter Be? – Paul Beckett in the WSJ
Indian media’s mighty stand exposed on wrong side of 2G spectrum scam – International Business & Law
The Media as Middle Man – Farzana Versey – in Counterpunch
Dragging Indian Media out of the Muck – Sadanand Dhume in the WSJ
On TV
Zee News –
Sagarika Ghosh on CNN-IBN – FTN – November 23rd 2010
Radia tapes: Probing the journalists – The Last Word with Karan Thapar
Shourie on Radia with Karan Thapar – on CNN-IBN
Ratan Tata with Shekhar Gupta on Walk the Talk, NDTV
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Responses to the Radia Tapes
On the Radia Tapes:
Medianama has a consolidated set of links – both audio, and text – here
Reading Radia – the tapes transcription project
Good work!
carry on.
🙂
The audio tracks are entertaining to say the least. The Air India conversation http://business.outlookindia.com/view.aspx?vname=AirIndia%20story-one%20more-20090707-204412.wav exposes so much in one telephone call.
Sadly this sort of fixing isn’t a surprise to anyone who’s dealt with large government deals.
What amazes me is that top news channels keep running prime-time stories on the telecom scam so unabashedly, without a blink even, when their own ‘stars’ are involved in the scam. It is so rightly called the ‘spectrum’ scam. People from all across the spectrum are aboard here!
Yes & No.
There are three parts to these recordings :
a) business interest
b) business interest fixing ministerial berth with the help of powerbrokers, advocated by journalists
c) minor or major indiscretions
you cannot do the journalist story without doing the business story. the business story will end up pissing off people whose annual advertising spend is possibly greater than the turnover of most media companies …. what do you do then ?
minor or major indiscretions while speaking -for example a is having an affair with b; or person x is f***ed no matter what he does; or person y has no imagination – those are things that are going to end up mattering more – because you are talking about fragile egos and lots of money – a dangerous combination …..
in the outrage over Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi – and their alleged roles – the bigger picture is being forgotten, and that bigger picture is that these two are incidental to the bigger picture ….hear the tapes
This reply deserves becoming a standalone blog entry on its own!
There used to be a difference between the ownership of a newspaper and its editorial team…that difference have now vanished..
And now what this thing has become is a Bollywood potboiler, with a scapegoat at the end.
Effectively soul of the country is in ventilator
yes 🙁
Why does this Niira radia always sound like she has just woken up from deep sleep?
don’t know …
This article is also worth reading – http://blog.fakingnews.com/2010/11/radia-barkha-peepli-live/
makes a point over the PR angle and why Barkha Dutt is getting the maximum attention/flak
cute 🙂
The silence is possibly deafening for those who were listening with passion. The rest of us have a life. And a job.
good – and if you have a job then you possibly pay taxes ???
Correct. And if my concern is tax money, I’d start elsewhere.
Yes, we should all look elsewhere !
Raja has broken a record. He is the first to break out of his humble origins and exceed previously held records (which were mere millions). The million rupee men anyway had elite parents but where are their records today ? In the dust heap of history ! Hurray Raja !
Now close your eyes and focus on your jobs ! The nation needs your taxes !
Didnt we all know that the people in and around power are one big family !
In any case these leaks are accidental and well let us assume that nothing much will come off them .. just like the investigations of a gazillion scams that have happened in the congress regime.
U have always been pro congress and this seems an eye opener for u , but to be frank this is nothing stunning or out of ordinary , if history is witness.
🙂 it is sad …
The other new fact is that little has really changed even though the dd era is over and the private media has spread their wings..
Lastly the big question is this sacrifice of a pawn… to save the queen or her consort ?
time will tell depending on how this govt will deal wt the beneficiaries of the 2g scam.
things like kangres to apni dukan hai , patel and air india are already known to people in and out of the know…
This is truly shameful. All of us know that there is some collusion between “mainstream” media and the elite (politicians, industrialists and corporate pimps). But this is an unholy nexus. Vir Sanghvi is taking notes on what his stance should be!! Barkha Dutt is going to talk to Ghulam ( the first name proximity is quite stark) and Suhel Seth can talk to anyone on this for Ms. Radia. In all of this, I only feel a little sorry for Raja. Raja, while being a scamster is also a little pawn in the hands of bigger and more powerful men. This is a sorry tale. While we knew that most of the pillars of our democracy were laid on shaky foundations, we respected the media. We felt that large sections of it were independent and fair. This scam makes me question some of the very foundations of our democracy. What a bloody shame
I read somewhere that Congress has said Vir Sanghvi met neither Sonia or Rahul during that time. Which is another proof that he is telling the truth about “stringing a source along.”
He clearly has not done any interview with Mukesh or written glowing accounts of A. Raja.
Another proof that he is telling the truth about “stringing a source along”.
That leaves…..nothing…..
Just a conversation recorded without context, beginning or end. There is no reason perhaps to believe Sanghvi. But no reason not to believe him either.
Scrutinizing the tapes is a waste of time because if a journos strings a source along, feeding them with a false sense of security and acting like a “friend” is surely part of that act. If you or I can see through their pretense, don’t you think Radia would have seen through it too?
Why waste so much breath on this? I am feeling a bit like a fool for having reacted strongly at first to this scandal. Now I think differently. And I am willing to give Vir Snghvi at least the benefit of doubt.
The Indian Express reports..’Hello this is Radia’..by Archana Shukla
The Indian Express
rom the website of Vaishnavi
Corporate Consulting, the public
relations firm run by Niira Radia, a
concise statement of what the firm
offers its clients:
“Understand mindsets that lead to
reporting patterns in news, editorial
policies and leanings”
“Effectively represent our views to
the media through position papers
and regular interactions”
“Hence enable influencing of media
views”
Unremarkable PR firm claims? Or a
corporate mission statement that’s
unwittingly only too apt?