Even if the story doesnt do enough to justify its subtitle, it establishes Rahul Bhatia as one of the most prominent journalists of today. The strong indictment of Indian business here - Reliance as well as Network 18 - is a very important contribution. This is not merely about the ideology of corporate capitalism but about its everyday practice of lying to the public and hoarding the benefits for a few people. The rightward shift of CNN-IBN may be less apparent than Sardesais fear of Arnabs success. Firstpost, however, is a more striking and obvious case. During one such meeting at the end of February, he dismissed several ideas from the staff, and told the Forbes India team that they were “screwing up”, according to a person present there. Glancing at a sheet of paper he had arrived with, he yelled at the room, “You’re doing it wrong. Forbes is about the wealthy. It’s about right-wing politics. You guys are writing about development and poverty. If you guys don’t get it, I’m going to make sure that you do.” His hands shook as he read the prepared note. The person present there told me, “He was under so much pressure. It was clear he had arrived with a brief from someone. I suspect it was from Raghav.” Jagannathan did not respond to messages for comment. Setia told me that Bahl was the epitome of a certain sort of entrepreneur. “He’s a very intelligent, articulate Indian promoter,” Setia said about him. I asked him what he meant by “Indian promoter”. “They look after their own interests,” he said. “The Indian market is typified by illiquid companies with large promoter shareholdings where there’s a lot of manipulation for the financial benefit of the promoter.” ...In 2011, he discovered a befuddling note in the company’s annual report. Network18’s management took a Rs. 255-crore loan, but the money wasn’t for the company. It was for a confusingly named trust called ‘Network18 Group Senior Professional Welfare Trust’, over which Bahl, his wife, and his sister, Vandana Malik, exercised significant influence. The trust was provided this money even though Network18’s management knew it was unlikely that any “economic benefit will flow to the company from the trust,” according to the Network18 company’s 2011 annual report. The report also showed that the trust repaid Rs. 202 crore to Network18 that year, but still owed it nearly Rs. 150 crore. “Why the heck should a company give Rs. 255 crore of its own investments, as security against a loan to a promoter entity?” Shenoy asked. He observed that the trust controlled by the Bahls had used loans to purchase shares directly from the market in September and October 2011. “Effectively, the company’s money was used to help the promoters buy more shares from someone else,” Shenoy wrote. “This is brazen. I don’t know if it’s illegal, but it sure as hell should be.” To counter Goswami, the channel began to funnel resources towards its primetime talk shows, privileging them over news and reportage. Reporters also noticed that Sardesai began to anchor whenever big stories were breaking, a practice usually associated with Goswami. “They’ve been cutting down on news. It’s about chasing the day’s big story,” a reporter said. Current and former employees say that CNN-IBN began to change palpably in 2010. “The way we played news, the way we functioned. You could get a story right, but unless Times Now played it up, we wouldn’t either. That was frustrating,” a former reporter said. And if Times Now had footage, CNN-IBN’s editors wanted it too. When Times Now once ran a clip of Rajesh Khanna waving to fans on loop, editors at CNN-IBN assigned their threadbare staff to acquire the same footage. On his visits to Mumbai, Sardesai echoed Bahl’s feelings to his staff: “Times Now is doing something right.” Over the years, as the balance Bahl was required to maintain between his twin roles as businessman and journalist shifted, the chances that his reporters would face the “occupational hazard” of outside influence began to increase. As a result, journalists found themselves in uncomfortable situations. Last year, Vivian Fernandes, who co-wrote Bahl’s book, was dispatched to Gujarat to interview the chief minister, Narendra Modi. A person involved with the production of the interview recalled that Fernandes asked Modi a difficult question about water conservation in Gujarat. Modi’s organisers had asked to see the questions before the interview, and demanded the water conservation question’s removal. When Fernandes sprung it on him anyway, Modi broke away from the camera and glared at a public relations executive in the room. “Why is he talking like this?” the person recalled Modi saying. “Are we not paying for this interview?” The production crew realised that the interview was part of a promotion for Modi. When Bahl heard about the curtailed interview, he reportedly told Fernandes, “We should have a clear line between marketing and editorial.”
Posted on: Wed, 04 Dec 2013 15:18:21 +0000
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