Barkha Dutt is one of the most celebrated journalist in this country. As she said: ‘In 16years, no one has raised a question about my integrity’. Suddenly one day her clear image was shattered with the release of 2G scam tapes by ‘Outlook’ and ‘Open’. Let us keep this intro to a side and go on to some facts regarding lobbying-
The practice of lobbying is not new and neither is the use of the word ‘lobbying’. One version is that it began during the decade when US President Ulysses S Grant used to walk from the White House to the Willard hotel ‘lobby’ to meet people who wanted to have a say in presidential matters. So was born the term ‘lobbyists’[1].
When Obama won, the common joke in the Unites States was that ‘all channels declared Obama as the President at 11 in the night, MSNBC declared him the winner six months back’. That’s representative of how MSNBC lobbied to make Obama the US President.
The legal lobbying industry in the United Kingdom is estimated to be worth $1.9 billion, employing over 14,000 people.
In the US and UK elections, newspapers rally behind individual parties till the very end- openly. And it’s not because the party owns the media house. Also individual journalists lobby depending on their convictions. Whether they are right or wrong is a totally different story- and that’s why different media houses exist, so that the public gets both sides of the story.
Sudan, famous for genocide has spent $530000 to create an image that it was co-operating on the war on terrorism.
India paid about $2.5 million to the famous lobbying firm ‘BGR’ and $291,665 to ‘Patton Boggs’ for influencing the Nuclear Deal[2].
The Indian media is still shy to use the word ‘lobby’. Lobbying in India today is a dirty word. Advocacy will remain a critical aspect of policymaking. Such a practice is here to stay, call it by whatever name you like[3].
The transcripts released by ‘Outlook’ and ‘Open’ carries a subtitle that they do not authenticate the transcripts or tapes. Tapings are meant to facilitate detection and prosecution of crime and not to damage the reputation of innocent persons.
Barkha Dutt has never ever used her official capacity of Group Editor, NDTV to brokerage a ministerial berth for Dr. A Raja. She has also challenged her critics to prove any personal quid pro quo.
Manu Joseph says that Barkha Dutt knew during the course of her conversation that Niira Radia, Corporate PR Person was brokering for DMK. In addition, Manu Joseph calls it the greatest story of the decade. I do not understand what is the big issue in that. It is common in Indian Politics. I mean ‘lobbying’. Moreover, no one knows Niira at that point of time. And can you say what will Barkha Say: ‘Corporate PR brokering for Raja!’ ? Who will believe it?. ‘What is the proof?’, ‘Why is Niira doing so?’, these would have been the questions asked back at Barkha. Niira would have then filed a defamation petition against Barkha.
There was also a Supreme Court advisory against making Private conversations Public. I am extremely sorry to say that I do not find any excuse in making those public. Telephone intercepts are like double-edged swords. One can get valuable information regarding lawbreakers from them as well as they lend themselves to be easily manipulated to damage innocent reputations.[4].
The question that is haunting me is the intention of releasing tapes selectively. There are more than 5000 conversation tapped by Income Tax(I-T) department and out of which only 104 were published by the Media. What happened to the rest of the other tapes? Who gave those tapes to the media?
The Common man and media cannot keep a thing in memory for long. The strategy of creating an issue and diverting the real issue is not new. The Tapes have diverted attention from the real scam i.e 2G Spectrum Scam and the media is now busy discussing ‘Radia Gate’.
I think the only person who is crying now is J. Gopikrishnan, Special Correspondent, ‘Pioneer’. He was the one who cracked the 2G Spectrum Scam in 2008. Only in 2010, the Mainstream media and opposition parties took up that issue. Now another strategy to divert the attention from the real issue.
The high voltage drama Continues…
(The writer is a student at Government Law College Thiruvananthapuram, University of Kerala)
[1] ‘Move it to the Main Hall’ by Shivnath Thukral. ‘Outlook’, December 6. 2010
[2] ‘It’s totally ethical of media houses and journalists to lobby’ by Arindam Chaudhuri. TSI, December 6-12
[3] ‘Move it to the Main Hall’ by Shivnath Thukral. ‘Outlook’, December 6. 2010
[4] B.Raman, 'It's Dangerous to defend Barkha Dutt' by B.Raman. December 6, 2010 on www.ramanstrategicanalysis.blogspot.com
