Cash or Kind, I don't Mind

A brilliant product of a prestigious media school in the capital who got his first job with a leading English daily was asked to put in his papers within days of his joining the media house. His crime was neither indiscipline nor insubordination but a keenness to expose a prominent builder who had defaulted on delivery to hundreds of middle class investors. The boy belonging to an academic family background and possessing a dash of idealism returned to his hometown promising never to look back. Such instances galore in our media circles. From freebies such as watches and home appliances to complimentary foreign junkets, business journalism has come a long way. With the advent of paid news, media houses themselves have institutionalized the incentive or bribe and the poor journo’s gift voucher has been replaced with demands for advertisement support and even stock options for promoting a particular company or its products.

This is not to say that the journalist has become irrelevant. While the ‘hafta’ of the ordinary journo remains unchanged, the high profile ones have graduated to lobbying, with the names of some figuring prominently in the recent Spectrum Scam. It is an open secret that mega corporates such as the Ambanis, who institutionalized corruption, have journalists across the board on their payroll. So what if the petrol prices go up? One can always blame the Government or the international prices. No need to mention who benefits the most. The ‘A’ word is taboo, nay a blasphemy.

If politics dominated the news arena till the late 80s, it is business that continues to dominate since the early 90s when India opened up to globalization and liberalization. The significance is borne out of the very fact that the man credited with ushering in those twin processes in his capacity as the Finance Minister in the early 90s is now heading the nation for a second term.

This is not to brush the entire profession with the same brush or to say that only the business journalists are into business and the political or even crime beat correspondents are holy cows. Many among the latter category too make big bucks as middlemen for politicos and through transfers and postings.

There are many business journalists who refuse to accept gifts even on festive occasions such as Diwali or New Year. They are contented with their take home salaries. There are also some who gladly accept gifts (Cash or Kind, I don’t mind) since it would be a ‘discourtesy’ not to do so but write what they want, yet the fact remains that gifts have come to be accepted as an integral part and parcel of business journalism (there are also reports of journos putting a minimum price on their head, or is it their soul, say not less than Rs 1,000/- gift voucher).

However, what is more disconcerting is the institutionalization of the process with business channels and pink newspapers vying with each other to recommend investment options to the readers and viewers, of course for a price.

Gone are the days when Gurumurthys and Arun Shouries exposed the misdeeds of the big corporates and were lionized and idolized by journos. The ‘Guru’ of the Abhishek Bachchan variety has arrived.

Yet, we do see a flicker of hope when a P Sainath bats for the poor farmers in their battle against marauding mining, land and retail mafia. May the tribe of such socially conscious journalists increase and may the enlightened readers of our mature democracy reject such biased and superfluous reportage.