It's official: Chidanand Rajghatta
of the Times of India and Udai Jain
of DNA are one and the same person.
If that's not true, then George W
Bush, President of the United
States of America has an incredible
memory, blessed with an ability to
repeat exactly what he has said to
someone else at an earlier interview.
Exactly.
On Friday, February 24, 2006,
both these papers carried interviews
with Bush on their front
pages. The Times of India calls it "A
Times Exclusive" and the headlines
(reproduced elsewhere in the
issue) suggest, clearly, that it was a
tete-a-tete between their correspondent
and the US Prez. DNA,
thankfully, does not call it exclusive
anywhere, but when they say
"in an interview with this writer",
the assumption readers will make
is that Bush and Jain were a cosy
twosome.
Rajghatta enhances the projected
intimacy, saying that the American
President made these comments
"in a wide ranging interview
with The Times of India, his
first ever to an Indian publication,
in the Roosevelt Room of the
White House on a cold wintry
afternoon."
When one first saw the front
pages of Mumbai's oldest and
newest English newspapers, one
thought that each had got an interview,
and the appearance of both
on the same day was purely coincidental.
Then, when both the interviews were compared
with each other, it is undeniably apparent that both
the journalists were with Bush at precisely the same
time.
Both are not exactly the same, but the minimal paraphrasing
is as laughable as a dumb primary school student
copying from another's answer sheet.
Let us begin at the beginning.
Rajghatta's opener: How and why has India come
front and centre to US strategic thinking now after
being on the margins for so long?
Jain's opener: Mr. President, how and why has India come front and
center to US strategic thinking after being on the margins for so many
years?
The interviews then ramble on, mimicking each other, and the coincidences
end with a question on cricket. If two human beings can both
ask the same question and then elicit the same response from the
interviewee, the attack of the clones is at hand.
Rajghatta: Between a cricket match and a Bollywood movie, what
would you like watching.
Jain has the same brainwave, down to a perfectly precise disregard
for grammar.
And Bush's reply to both these interviewers, including the sound
effects: "I'm a cricket match person. (Laughter.) I appreciate it. As I
understand it, I may have a little chance to learn something about
cricket. It's a great pastime. (Laughter.)
In both instances, in both newspapers, the full stop after "Laughter"
is inside the brackets.
The Times of India and DNA have egg on their respective faces - but
the horrific example is but one indicator in a much deeper malaise.
This is not the first time in the recent past that such a "coincidence"
has occurred; it is not the first time that an "exclusive" has been proven
to be super-inclusive.
A week or two ago, a number of news channels broke exclusive stories
- the Daya Nayak interview - within milliseconds of each other.
Yesterday, (Thursday), a number of channels received "exclusive" copies
of the Amar Singh CD.
Are media houses going to keep seeing more bizarre and embarrassing
coincidences?
Sadly, the answer is, Yes.
Because this is also the time for the revenge of the true content
provider - the people, the companies, the entities that are written
about. Adapting deftly from an age of media monopoly to an age of
media surfeit, from an age where they had to use all their persuasive
powers and their buying clout to meet a reporter to an age where journalists
from the largest media products are coming to terms with the
fact that they have to join the queue for a news bite.
There is no better time to be working in a Public Relations firm, there
is no better time to be a newsmaker. Daya Nayak played the game well,
making Times Now and CNN-IBN look like babes in the woods of
media. There was Arnab Goswami, crowing to the world on his exclusive,
while Rajdeep Sardesai unravelled pretty much the same audio
and video near simultaneously.
If media was on the ascendant with their investigative journalists
and with the sting operations, it was only a matter of time before the
opponents hit back. They, the newsmakers, are clearly aware of the
value of each story - and will proceed to milk the system dry.
The multiplicity of media products - in each category, in each city, will
allow newsmakers to play one newspaper off against the other, one TV
channel off against the other.
And newspapers and TV channels, in their hunger for exclusivity, will
fall for the ploy: hook, line and sinker.
In the Times of India -DNA imbroglio, one is not quite certain as to
the root of the gaffe. It is patent that Rajghatta and Jain knew that the
other was present in the Roosevelt Room at the same time - what, then,
allowed Rajghatta to call it exclusive, and led Jain to imply that he was
the lone journalist with Bush? Only the two papers can answer the
question, and one doubts that either will - but there will be introspection
in both the organisations, and management will ask awkward
questions of their editors.
As will the TV channels that "exclusively" spoke to Daya Nayak.
Which begs the sawaal, dus crore ka: how important is the exclusive,
the sensational, to the lives and profits of newspapers and news channels?
In our issue two weeks ago, Impact had asked this very question of
Richard Sambrook, Director of BBC's Global News Division, and this is
what he had to say: "Impact and sensationalism is a very short term
strategy. In the end, no organisation can maintain an infinite run of
sensational stories."
This is obviously a view not shared by media houses in India. There
is no doubt, considering the tactics employed by all news channels and
newspapers that have launched in the last year, that there is a common
view that sensationalism and exclusives form the route to success. In a
number of instances, the channel or newspaper concerned has had to
deal with embarrassment.
The Hindustan Times launch in Mumbai had the alleged Salman-
Aishwarya tapes story on the front page. Except, the paper did not use
the word alleged, and the tapes were later declared to be fake. The
paper obviously felt the need to "arrive" in Mumbai with a strong,
exclusive story. CNN-IBN got off the blocks with a series of exclusives,
tripping only when the Daya Nayak story landed in their lap.
The conundrum on the need to be first, the need to be exclusive, is
not just an Indian one.
