Sudhir Chaudhary

http://www.thehoot.org/web/Brazening-it-out/6397-1-1-5-true.html

Brazening it out

No fancy broadcasting laws are needed to penalise bad ethics if there is proof of a criminal offence. A HOOT comment. Pix: Naveen Jindal

Posted/Updated Friday, Oct 26 11:42:36, 2012

Zee TV and Subhash Chandra, fresh from being extensively feted for Zee’s 20 years, could have done without the sorry episode unfolding on Thursday. But you have to wonder at the judgement of a TV Network which makes a man associated with an earlier very dubious sting the editorial and business head of its news channel.  Sudhir Chaudhary was the CEO at Live India TV when the fake sting against the school teacher, Uma Khurana, was carried. It was alleged that the channel had rigged evidence to suggest that she was running a call girl racket using her students. Because the case was withdrawn by the teacher, the media community at large does not hold that episode against Chaudhary. The Broadcast Editors' Association  which has now dropped him from its primary membership did not hold the Uma Khurana episode against him either when it made him an office bearer of the association.

Mr Chaudhary has gone on the offensive. He fought back when the Broadcast Editors Association acted with alacrity in removing him from the post of treasurer, and alleged that the former editors on the committee that took the decision were peeved with him for other reasons.   And on Thursday, even as the Jindal story broke,  the channel first stepped up its hammering on the coal scam, and then came up with a highly specious arguement. It said it had been negotiating with Jindal and his men over a dummy contract for Rs 100 crore worth of advertising which it wanted Jindal to sign. The idea was to  prove how the company had been trying to bribe them  with advertising so that they would lay off on their coal scam coverage. Why did they not do own sting to prove this? Because we thought a signed contract would be evidence, they said on TV on the 25th October night.

The culpability here is far from clear, and whether doctored or not, the taped footage shown was certainly selective. Mr Jindal has allegations against him in the coal scam, and is a man under pressure.  His  motives in waiting for more than a month before making the recording public, are also unclear. Nevertheless it is an episode which tarnishes the ethics of the channels and the individuals involved.  Is the Zee management planning to ride this out or will it say something? At least promise an enquiry of its own to get at the truth? 

First the Zee-Jindal story was off-limits for TV news channels. But when Mr Naveen Jindal suddenly decided to release part of an allegedly incriminating CD at a press conference it quickly became the story of the day for them. With the mystifying exclusion of Times Now which stuck to Nitin Gadkari for its prime time discussion. It did however start  playing up the story later at night.

The worked-up  indignation bubbling over at Zee News has been an almost comic spectacle  for the rest of us, but a sorry moment for other professionals at the channel who are having to defend this bizarre episode. The  anchor working herself up over the coal scam, is the most visible of these. Does she really believe the channel has been unjustifiably implicated?    After she bought time for them on the 25th October evening, Chaudhary and his colleague at Zee Business Sameer Ahluwalia went on air to hammer away at Jindal, and swear that they would pursue the coal scam with even greater zeal. They defended their own conduct till they were blue in the face but something did not quite wash.

Every time another controversy featuring the media breaks, Mr Markandey Katju, chairman of the Press Council appears on television to express his un-nuanced views.  Arrest them, sue them, cancel their license, etc. But his Press Council hasn’t done that much during the period that he has been at the helm. Certainly his uncompromising views have not resulted in any widely publicised strictures on paid news in print and other ethical aberrations that persist in the print media. Being a  strident champion of press freedom as he has become, loudly evident in the Aseem Trivedi case, is the easy part.

He says there should be a regulatory authority that can cancel TV licenses when an offence is proven. Indeed, but he should also know that draft  bills on a regulatory authority for broadcasting have never been passed since 1997 because there is no political consensus on the issue.

 If Naveen Jindal's evidence holds in this case, it can be tried as one of extortion. No fancy broadcasting laws are needed if there is is proof of a criminal offence. But if it comes to the crunch the media will come together and call it an assault on press freedom. It has happened before. And if it comes to the test we will also get to know who has more clout in this land: a moneyed ruling party MP at the centre of a scam, or a man who works for Subhash Chandra.

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http://www.mxmindia.com/2012/10/ranjona-banerji-efficacy-of-stings-ethics-of-channel-put-to-question/

Ranjona Banerji: Efficacy of stings, ethics of channel put to question

By mxmadmin | on 26 Oct,2012

By Ranjona Banerji

The media increasingly finds itself at the receiving end as anti-corruption anger rises in India. After the India Today group faces legal action from Union law minister Salman Khurshid, it’s now the turn of Zee News and Congress MP and industrialist Naveen Jindal. The media either plays an independent role or is seen as a handmaiden of anti-corruption activists.

The Zee News-Jindal story is however extremely strange. About week ago, the Broadcast Editors’ Association removed Sudhir Chaudhary from both the post of treasurer as well as from primary membership of the organisation after complaints of extortion during a “sting operation” against Jindal. The sting was supposed to prove that Jindal had offered to bribe Zee News and Zee Business so that they wouldn’t carry news about Jindal’s involvement in the coal allocation scam. Jindal however claimed that Chaudhary (editor and business head of Zee News) and Samir Ahluwalia (editor of Zee Business) attempted to blackmail him, asking for Rs 100 crore in order to kill the story.

Yesterday saw Zee going on an offensive in its own defence with the rest of the media playing up the story or ignoring it.
Apart from the fact that this may or may not be the best publicity Zee was looking for as it celebrates its 20th anniversary, there are a couple of questions it has to answer. Chaudhary has the slightly unfortunate reputation of being CEO of Live India TV when it ran a fake sting against school teacher Uma Khurana. And, as The Hoot has pointed out, Chaudhary is both editor and business head of Zee News, never a happy or ethically stable job combination.

Once again however the efficacy and use of stings are called into question. Many tactics involved in a sting go against both journalistic ethics and procedures as well legal provisions. They also are, unfortunately, great blackmail tools. The history of stings in India has not really been one of great successes. Tehelka in its earlier avatar tried out several and certainly its most effective was the Westland defence deals sting which led to BJP president Bangaru Laxman going to jail eventually but only after a lot of hardship suffered by Tehelka. Most other stings – including by Tehelka – have destroyed reputations and added to salacious discourse but achieved little else. And all of them have raised questions about the fairness of stings.

Most news organisations steer away from stings for these very reasons. In the zeal to expose someone or something, very often it becomes like a witch hunt without giving the accused the opportunity for a defence. The news organisation has the option of turning its back on the story if it doesn’t pan out the way it was supposed to, leaving the accused at the mercy of India’s weak defamation laws.

Any journalistic expose, sting or otherwise, has to be backed by enough hard work and material to make it as solid as a case in court as possible to make it both effective and fair. If the motives are either born of self-righteous zeal or are more nefarious, journalism has flown out of the window. Objectivity has to be the keystone.

Unfortunately, many language news channels in India are known to use “stings” as a form of blackmail – whether for themselves or for their employers. It is difficult to decide from the evidence so far whether Jindal is indeed guilty of attempting to bribe or if the news channels are guilty of extortion.

What is clear though is that one more extremely uncomfortable question has been raised for the media to deal with.

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http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/sep/10sting1.htm

Fake sting: Channel blames rivals

September 10, 2007 20:34 IS

The fake sting operation, involving a school teacher in New Delhi [ Images ], was planted by a rival channel, claimed Sudhir Chaudhary, head of Live India [ Images ] channel, which telecast the episode.   

Chaudhary, however, said that no judgment should be passed till the investigations were completed.

"Have you seen the tapes? What is your opinion as a journalist? If the story has been proved right that Uma Khurana was involved in the flesh trade, then it would have been the greatest story in Indian journalism," he said.

But he said he saw a deep-rooted conspiracy after finding that the driver and the car in which the sting operation was executed belonged to another channel. 

"The manner in which it was executed and planted on us clearly shows that there was a conspiracy. The police have spoken to the driver and the reporter. The matter is still under investigation," Chaudhary said.

Meanwhile, Rajan Bhagat, PRO Delhi police, denied Chaudhary had made any such claim during his one-hour interrogation at the sector six police station in R K Puram.

"He admitted to the police that the reporter did not tell him that he knew Rashmi Singh who was also involved in the sting operation," Bhagat told rediff.com.

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