A day after SC raised the issue of sting operations by news channels, the electronic media claimed the operations were in ?public interest?, reports Chetan Chauhan.
A day after Supreme Court raised the issue of sting operations by news channels, the electronic media claimed the operations were in ‘public interest’.
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While opinion was sharply divided on the question of whether sting operations should be outsourced, broadcast journalists were unanimous on the need to verify the content of sting operations before going public with them.
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QW Naqvi, director (news), Aaj Tak, said there was nothing wrong with outsourcing exposes if the channel owned the content and the editor was sure that the operation was ‘genuine’.
“It is a specialist job in which a news channel may not have expertise,” he explained. And added that outsourcing was not limited to sting operations. Programmes on entertainment channels are also outsourced, he said.
For Raju Santhanam, editor, Zee News, the credibility of a sting operation is more important than whether it is outsourced or not. “Every channel has their professional parameters and ways of checks and balances. The channels should ensure the stings are shown in ultimate public interest,” he said.
When it comes to sting operations, NDTV has a different policy. Sonia Singh, executive editor, NDTV 24X7, said: “We do not outsource sting operations. Credibility of the operations is most important to us. We, therefore, use our own reporters.”
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Like most news channel heads, the man behind many sting operations including Tehelka’s defence expose, Anirudha Bahal, was of the view that carrying out string operations is a job of experts. But, he pointed out that it should be restricted to certain types of stories. “Sting operations can be justified for certain kinds of stories, like to expose an act of corruption in public interest,” he said.
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Like most news channel heads, the man behind many sting operations including Tehelka’s defence expose, Anirudha Bahal, was of the view that carrying out string operations is a job of experts. But, he pointed out that it should be restricted to certain types of stories. “Sting operations can be justified for certain kinds of stories, like to expose an act of corruption in public interest,” he said.
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Taking the debate further, Naqvi said some stories would be incomplete without sting operations as they provide credible evidence to viewers. “A story on a policeman taking bribe or adulteration of blood will lose its credibility if viewers are not shown the real misdemeanour,” he said.
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.
