"BarkhaGate" Scandal

so still no ones covering this ? That Vir Sanghvi tapes lot more interesting lol. that SOB is taking dictations from this lady on what to write...l seriously WTF
 
blr_p said:
Thing is how often does this happen ? only near elections or when there's a big story and she has to hook up with the right ppl so that she comes out ahead of the other networks. Is she still going to spin the story ? of course like every other anchor out there.
Click to expand...
So it might be a casual practice in the media industry. Most of them do it. But how is that an argument? And how does this argument absolve her from that fact that she was acting for the betterment of congress?

blr_p said:
I realise you can intepret this also in the same way wrt to her public reports, persuade us to see something else. But that would take more brains to pull off than she has I think. In the end she will be beholden to whatever her boss wants.
Click to expand...
She is taking footage off the air. That is just part of a series in organizing a staged show. What brains do you need to decide who you would like to see on the platform and who you don't?

blr_p said:
I see that as more how to handle the parties she is going to talk with rather than conflict resolution. Resovling conflicts isn't in her power.
Click to expand...
I disagree. When barkha asks "what she should do?", radia explains to her that the congress has a problem with baalu. She directs her to meet the congress in private and convince them to talk to k-nidhi in private and away from DMK party-men. Do you realise that this part of the activity is not happening on the ndtv show or part of the show? She will be doing this in private.

In the beginning of your post, you yourself said that you considered her activity as part of her compensation to radia. I said that the compensation part wasn't the argument. What needs to be asked is whether her activity can be considered as "lobbying"? I said, that it is more than "just" lobbying. She is acting as a representative of congress in-charge of conflict resolution.

blr_p said:
Radia wants a certain outcome and if the other is not willing then how to persuade them better and vice-versa. She's a go between.
Click to expand...
Again, i disagree. I said this before. She does not "just" take instructions. She plots along with her. Hence i think both of them want the same desired outcome. Im not sure if navika kumar of timesnow or sagarika of ibn are following radias instructions and running off to meet congress leaders in private similar to barkha.

blr_p said:
She can't 'fix' how things happen in Congress can she and even then the 'fixing' bit is what the party troubleshooters & strategists do. All Politicans want is a certain outcome so its upto the staff to make it happen. You can't seriously believe that she has the power to change Congress mind on any policy. You're giving her more credit than she deserves :)
Click to expand...
What you cannot do is read people's mind. You cannot know what the opposite person wishes unless you talk to him and provided he is willing to tell you(secrecy or ego, whatever). I said this on the nuclear deterrence topic. We cannot estimate china's tolerable casualty figure when it itself slaughters millions of it's own. Hence, reading people's wishes is very valuable. That is exactly what barkha and radia are talking about. They are communicating the wishes of one party to another. As congress is very angry, radia explains to barkha that the only problem is baalu. She tells barkha to convince the congress to talk to k-nidhi to expel baalu which will reforge the coalition. Obviously, radia knows a lot and barkha has to hear the whole story before she could offer "ideas".
 
guru said:
so still no ones covering this ? That Vir Sanghvi tapes lot more interesting lol. that SOB is taking dictations from this lady on what to write...l seriously WTF
Click to expand...
That is quite common in many areas aka ghostwriting and the author just attaches their name to it to give it more currency. You're getting nothing more than a promotional ad, simple. The author got paid to lobby.

The difficult bit is actually realising this. Wise to get your news from diverse sources.

It gets worse, politicans passing bills sometimes entirely drafted by others :(

Where are the ppl in this ?
broadway said:
So it might be a casual practice in the media industry. Most of them do it. But how is that an argument? And how does this argument absolve her from that fact that she was acting for the betterment of congress?
Click to expand...
The point was to show journalists go out of their way to get a scoop. I see her bettering herself and her network more than bettering congress.

broadway said:
She is taking footage off the air. That is just part of a series in organizing a staged show. What brains do you need to decide who you would like to see on the platform and who you don't?
Click to expand...
Point is she's doing what others have told her. She has zero influence in how the game plays out. If Congress & DMK disagree, then Barka can do nothing. Congress & DMK call the shots.

broadway said:
I disagree. When barkha asks "what she should do?", radia explains to her that the congress has a problem with baalu. She directs her to meet the congress in private and convince them to talk to k-nidhi in private and away from DMK party-men. Do you realise that this part of the activity is not happening on the ndtv show or part of the show? She will be doing this in private.
Click to expand...
Absolutely, and hence why i said handling & persuading which is the best she can do. You can ask why is she doing all of this, only answer i have is she wants a better insight into the workings behind the scenes.

broadway said:
In the beginning of your post, you yourself said that you considered her activity as part of her compensation to radia. I said that the compensation part wasn't the argument. What needs to be asked is whether her activity can be considered as "lobbying"? I said, that it is more than "just" lobbying. She is acting as a representative of congress in-charge of conflict resolution.
Click to expand...
She's just promoting herself and trying to be as useful as possible. What is the motive here ? Herself, nothing more. She wants hot tips for future stories. She wants to ingratiate herself to people that matter.

If she was lobbying for Congress, she would be hardselling Congress to non-congress entities. Pushing Congress agenda on the air. Saying anything and everything in favour of Congress. Not talking between congress and its allies AFTER they won. Did she help them win, did she say vote only for this person or not, nah.

I realise what you've said, here, you think she's doing more than lobbying, i think the only lobbying she's doing is for herself. Let's be very clear she would not be in this picture out of the goodness of her heart to see congress do better, she's in it for where it can help her ie her job.

broadway said:
Again, i disagree. I said this before. She does not "just" take instructions. She plots along with her. Hence i think both of them want the same desired outcome. Im not sure if navika kumar of timesnow or sagarika of ibn are following radias instructions and running off to meet congress leaders in private similar to barkha.
Click to expand...
This is why i said earlier there isn't enough info to come to that conclusion. All we have are tapes of short conversation, with different people, there isn't sufficient context to enable us to reach that conclusion. There is no smoking gun here.
broadway said:
What you cannot do is read people's mind. You cannot know what the opposite person wishes unless you talk to him and provided he is willing to tell you(secrecy or ego, whatever). I said this on the nuclear deterrence topic. We cannot estimate china's tolerable casualty figure when it itself slaughters millions of it's own. Hence, reading people's wishes is very valuable. That is exactly what barkha and radia are talking about. They are communicating the wishes of one party to another. As congress is very angry, radia explains to barkha that the only problem is baalu. She tells barkha to convince the congress to talk to k-nidhi to expel baalu which will reforge the coalition. Obviously, radia knows a lot and barkha has to hear the whole story before she could offer "ideas".
Click to expand...
I would say follow the money, examine the motives of the actors concerned.

Look, my position wrt to this topic has remained unchanged since the beginning, i maintain these tapes do not tell us anything more than we already know. This i would offer as the reason nobody has picked up on it. Course if you're with the oppositoin then you will say cover-up. Your choice. But my position here is as a neutral, i gain nothing either way.

Much better would have been to have caught her on air saying something, and then having these tapes to back up any ulterior motives. You would have had a stonger case. She could be everything you've said, keep fishing and find more evidence.
 
Look... A homeless man who steals a loaf of bread to satisfy his hunger. A rich man who gifts a crore or two to a sports athlete. Or a man who murders another man for raping his wife. All of those activities drive from a purpose. But the law does not base it's judgement on the purpose of the activity. It looks whether the purpose has resulted in a crime or not.

Im not saying barkha dutt is guilty of a crime. How is her allegiance to any of the national parties of this country a crime? But im saying is that her "purpose" is not the argument. Her activity has resulted in the resolution of the dispute between congress and DMK.

You're being unusually hardwood about this and making it arbitrary for no reason. If you keep insisting on her purpose to maintain a subjective stand then we cannot continue like this my friend.
 
broadway said:
Im not saying barkha dutt is guilty of a crime. How is her allegiance to any of the national parties of this country a crime? But im saying is that her "purpose" is not the argument. Her activity has resulted in the resolution of the dispute between congress and DMK.
Click to expand...
Umm, are you saying had she not got involved the dispute would not have been resolved ?

Course not, she isn't the only one that can take credit for it. Does she even deserve any ?

Look, even yesterdays's editorial in my daily, seems to agree with you more than me...

Journalists are only expected to be witnesses and chroniclers of events. They need background information and may sometimes have to interact closely with decision-makers or others close to them to understand events better and to interpret them. But if they become players in the events the credibility of the profession will be lost.

Journalism in the country has received unfavourable attention in the recent past for practices like paid news. But it has also won praise for its activist role in exposing corruption and misconduct, including in the 2G scam.

Going beyond the professional line and entering the politicians’ and lobbyists’ worlds produces a conflict of interest for journalists. That amounts to using the profession for wrong purposes. It will lead to loss of people’s trust in them and in the media.
Click to expand...

Essentially what you've been saying. Like 'colluding & fixing', they mention 'being a player'. I've argued that given her profession it isn't possible to be a player here. Colluding is being exaggerated on the basis of very little and she can't fix anything, even if she wanted to. In fact even the phrase 'being a player' isn't sufficient, you could say she might be one but not that she is in fact one.

broadway said:
You're being unusually hardwood about this and making it arbitrary for no reason. If you keep insisting on her purpose to maintain a subjective stand then we cannot continue like this my friend.
Click to expand...
I'm not taking a subjective stand, in fact i've been arguing all along you cannot do it with what's been provided to date.

A scoop requires all sorts of crazy shit. Selling one's soul kind of shit. Arnab getting an exclusive with Jaya where she outlines a plan to save Congress. What did Arnab have to do to get that ? Was Arnab colluding, fixing and being a player for AIADMK ?

TV is very competitive, how to become top dog, the people's choice. There's at least 5 channels giving out news at any time, which will I choose.

Where do you draw the line ? How do you draw the line ? I don't know. :(

My paper says, 'Journalists are only expected to be witnesses and chroniclers of events.' Anything more and thats not acceptable.

If its a ghostwriten article its easy to see like in Sanghivi's case. Thats what a sellout does. But where's the 'conflict of interest' in Barka's case.

If i took the same stand as you and somebody challenged me on it i would not be able to adequately defend that position.

What am i missing ?
 
Some mainstream print media coverage finally...

The Hindu : Opinion / Lead : The spotlight is on the media now

This is like the icing :D

Ms Dutt declined to answer The Hindu's questions, citing legal concerns, but she has been freely offering answers to similar queries on her Twitter account over the past few days. “Let's put it like this, unless we only cover news based on bland press conferences, we have to talk to all sorts, good and bad,” she said in one tweet. “I think there is nothing wrong in stringing along a source for info… I think EVERY journo has the right to engage a source, its NO CRIME … as a matter of record, I never passed the message. But info sharing per se is not immoral in a fluid news situation,” she tweeted.
Click to expand...

Perhaps because of the large number of journalists involved in the controversy, most Indian newspapers and TV channels have not covered the Radia tapes at all, even though they include conversations with Mr. Raja himself and Ratan Tata, head of the Tata group. This despite foreign newspapers like Wall Street Journal and Washington Post taking note of them and none of the protagonists denying the genuineness of the recorded conversations.
Click to expand...
 
www.outlookindia.com | The Power Tapes

MM: "agar Mukesh pe personal attack karegaa to mai Manoj Modi huuN, chhoRuuNgaa nahii"

NR: "inko itnii himmat nahii hai apne editors ko handle karne kii"

[Had a three hour meeting with ET. "Rahul is literally on his knees to Anil... but they are considering"]

MM: "ek hi aadmi ko apne kp protect karne kaa hai aur wo mukesh ambani"

I have not seen Mukesh in such anguish and pain before... Mukesh has said, "take firm action to whatever extent possible"

MM: "We will file libel suit, we will file criminal case...Police-wolice aayegii pakreNge inko..dekheNge, hamko 10-20-50 crore kharchhaa ho jaaye...isme to thiik se piilaanaa hai mereko paanii"
Audio
Click to expand...

In the July 3 edition of Forbes, the following apology was eventually published:

“In our issue dated June 19, 2009 under the heading Self-Reliance, we published a snippet stating that Isha and Akash, children of Mukesh Ambani, would be accompanied by a mini-entourage of three servants when they proceed to Yale for their undergraduate studies. The same piece went on to state and imply that Isha and Akash had not been admitted on merit but that Mukesh Ambani had, by improper means and use of his influence, secure their admission to Yale.

“We had published the report based on information that we had believed to be reliable.

“We have, however, subsequently ascertained and now recognise that there was no foundation to these allegations and we sincererely regret that they were ever made. We are happy to take the earliest opportunity of correcting our error and expressing to Mukesh Ambani and his children Isha and Akash our regret and embarrassment caused to them by publishing the original snippet.

“Similarly we also regret any references that were made to Yale University and its officials in the original snippet.â€
Audio
Click to expand...
MM - The 'third man' in the Reliance empire
 
Raghu read this

That's as good a summary as you will get on this whole topic. It's not so clear that she has crossed the line, and where that line even exists depends on who you ask ;)

Its interesting to note that barkha, denied even passing along any messages or ever acting as a go between as I earlier had thought.
 
blr_p said:
Raghu read this

That's as good a summary as you will get on this whole topic. It's not so clear that she has crossed the line, and where that line even exists depends on who you ask ;)

Its interesting to note that barkha, denied even passing along any messages or ever acting as a go between as I earlier had thought.
Click to expand...
LOL you are kidding right. she did cross the line the moment she tried to, asked to mediate between Congress and the DMK. now we all know the major new media in this country is pro congress but this mediation bit is a step too far. it actually crosses the line between being a journalist and being a lobbyist and a political insider.
 
guru said:
LOL you are kidding right.
Click to expand...
Nope :(

guru said:
she did cross the line the moment she tried to, asked to mediate between Congress and the DMK. but this mediation bit is a step too far. it actually crosses the line between being a journalist and being a lobbyist and a political insider.
Click to expand...
Its crystal clear to you but its very fuzzy to me. Those tapes which nobody has denied, are authentic, they have her talking to a lobbyist. She 'appears' to be mediating. I've already said she can't affect any change, all she can do is relay what parties think or want. Where is the conflict of interest here for her as a journalist ? Can you answer that. If she cannot affect any change then there is no conflict of interest.

From here, the question is...
Should journalists let lobbyists use them to extract information from politicians, or pass on messages to them? Should they let themselves be conduits for lobbyists, or corporates, or for that matter politicians?
Click to expand...
The idea is if they do this behind the scenes then you cannot trust what they say to you. Not one word. I think thats too strong. It applies only in the case where there is no choice, where there is only one news channel and only one newspaper in the whole country. But we all get our news from many sources. Sooner or later you will see who is and who isn't telling the story. It would be too difficult to coordinate the message across all media sources, now with the net almost impossible. The more sources of news there are the harder it is to lie to the people. Course if you only get your news from one source then you ARE screwed :eek:hyeah:

guru said:
now we all know the major new media in this country is pro congress
Click to expand...
By major media i'm going to take it you mean the english speaking kind ? One which only 20% of the population can comprehend.

Yeah, nice broad sweeping statement that, not only barka but everybody is pro-congress. This is the usual opposition line. It implies do not watch them, do not read them, do not use your brain. An extension to this line is any dissent means you are the enemy. Evidently even if you're neutral it does not make one bit of difference. Dunno about you, when ever ppl tell me not to do anything, it makes me do it only more and sometimes i realise they were right and sometimes i learn they were not right.

Every party out there is full of it, the trick is to be able to see when you're being lied to regardless of WHO is saying it. Fail to do that and you become a slave to them. Media with a liberal message gets the most eyeballs, if your party does not have liberal ideas then its time they started their own propaganda channel :D

I asked but did not get an answer, how was the media coverage when the NDA was in power. Was it mostly pro, mixed or against ? It seems like such a long time ago doesn't it. With the Nitish Kumar win, Is the media acting, TODAY, like it was pro-congress. Nah, everybody is raving about how he is such a phenomenon. Congress got totally hammered in Bihar.

See, i see the media as pro-whoever is in charge, unless their manifesto states otherwise. Politicans know the media is two faced, media can make them or break them.
 
Karan's got a new show called 'The Last Word' that airs every Friday on CNN-IBN. The theme of the show, surprise surprise, is understanding the role media plays in our society. Yesterday they discussed the Radia tapes, you can either catch the replay today at 5:30pm or stream driectly from the CNN-IBN site

Radia Tapes : Probing the journalists
 
blr_p said:
Nope :(

Its crystal clear to you but its very fuzzy to me. Those tapes which nobody has denied, are authentic, they have her talking to a lobbyist. She 'appears' to be mediating. I've already said she can't affect any change, all she can do is relay what parties think or want. Where is the conflict of interest here for her as a journalist ? Can you answer that. If she cannot affect any change then there is no conflict of interest.

From here, the question is...

The idea is if they do this behind the scenes then you cannot trust what they say to you. Not one word. I think thats too strong. It applies only in the case where there is no choice, where there is only one news channel and only one newspaper in the whole country. But we all get our news from many sources. Sooner or later you will see who is and who isn't telling the story. It would be too difficult to coordinate the message across all media sources, now with the net almost impossible. The more sources of news there are the harder it is to lie to the people. Course if you only get your news from one source then you ARE screwed :eek:hyeah:

By major media i'm going to take it you mean the english speaking kind ? One which only 20% of the population can comprehend.

Yeah, nice broad sweeping statement that, not only barka but everybody is pro-congress. This is the usual opposition line. It implies do not watch them, do not read them, do not use your brain. An extension to this line is any dissent means you are the enemy. Evidently even if you're neutral it does not make one bit of difference. Dunno about you, when ever ppl tell me not to do anything, it makes me do it only more and sometimes i realise they were right and sometimes i learn they were not right.

Every party out there is full of it, the trick is to be able to see when you're being lied to regardless of WHO is saying it. Fail to do that and you become a slave to them. Media with a liberal message gets the most eyeballs, if your party does not have liberal ideas then its time they started their own propaganda channel :D

I asked but did not get an answer, how was the media coverage when the NDA was in power. Was it mostly pro, mixed or against ? It seems like such a long time ago doesn't it. With the Nitish Kumar win, Is the media acting, TODAY, like it was pro-congress. Nah, everybody is raving about how he is such a phenomenon. Congress got totally hammered in Bihar.

See, i see the media as pro-whoever is in charge, unless their manifesto states otherwise. Politicans know the media is two faced, media can make them or break them.
Click to expand...
sure. you can pretend not to see these things and give the Barkha and major media the benifit of the doubt. but its pretty obvious to the rest of us.

Lets start with Barkha , she did cross the line the moment she said what should i do ? and then got instructions. well, its not the first time for her to cross the line, Kargil incident, Calling Nidhi Razdan - a fellow anchor b**ch on tv .. and playing Arundhathi Roy lite in her shows at times. most of these things are not just unprofessional but inappropriate as well.

then Vir Sanghvi, editor of a national editor spinning things and is being dicated to by lobbyist. seriously wtf is that? or should we all deploy your chalta hai altitude here as well?

about the media bias, they are mostly pro congress and allies for starters because most of these are ideologically compatible, then there is nepotism, i scratch your back and you scratch mine altitude. some of these channels are directly owned by congress or its allies. i could go on but we'll be going off the tangent a bit.

Raul Gandhi got more airtime for for winning 10 up seats during Lokhsabha seats than Nitish for the epic landslide :/
 
Back
Top