In 2012, Vicky Donor made less news but more money than the NDTV Group. On a total income of Rs 408 crore, the NDTV Group suffered a net loss of Rs 19 crore, while the Hindi film Vicky Donor made on a paltry budget of Rs 5 crore had a worldwide collection of Rs 45 crore (a substantial chunk of which would’ve been net profit). This after the government doled out Rs 2.46 crore worth of ads to NDTV in 2012, a little less than a tenth of what it gave to Times Now. Didn’t help much.

NDTV reported a loss of Rs 98 crore in 2011, while in 2009 it made a profit of Rs 4.2 crore, roughly the budget of Vicky Donor. From a high of Rs 458 per share in 2009, the NDTV stock is currently Rs 84 a share, a wipe-out of 82%.

This is not to suggest that selling semen (or making a film about it) is more profitable than selling news (although SIEMENS does advertise often on NDTV).

The question is more serious. The question is existential.

Ramesh Chaubey, the Indian Bunbury, wakes up in the morning, downs his lassi and pops his Revital and catches the DTC bus from his Patparganj home to Central Secretariat, the terminal heart of Lutyen’s Delhi. There he gets down and walks a brisk mile to his ministry. By the time he reaches his desk it is 9:15a.m. Eight hours later, Mr Chaubey pushes back his chair, stretches his arms and exits from his office to catch the bus home. Mr Chaubey has a routine that he will follow until his retirement. It doesn’t matter whether his ministry is debt-ridden or fails to utilise the money it gets year on year. It doesn’t matter how his ministry performs, or what purpose it serves for the greater good. The ministry exists. That alone is good enough.

Vikram Chandra, Executive Director and CEO of NDTV Group, wakes up in the morning and probably follows a routine not very different from Mr Chaubey. He undoubtedly works hard, is intelligent and politically aware, and is all of what one expects someone in a news organisation to be. But what purpose is he serving? Why is he working in an organisation that employs hundreds and yet makes less than what a low-budget Bollywood film makes in a year?

There can only be one answer. NDTV has turned into a government ministry. It does not matter how much money it makes. What matters is that people must arrive daily at NDTV and be made to serve news. News has become a commodity and NDTV a stock exchange. Brokers signal with their hands and shout and scream and by the day’s close the floor is littered with torn and crumpled promises.

Don’t get me wrong. This is not a hatchet job on NDTV. (After all, no news channel other than Zee has reportedly posted profits for 2011.) This is an attempt to correct the “narrative”.

When in the 80s – perhaps under threat from Pepsi – Coke altered its taste, a few die-hard fans looked around for the nearest windowsill. NDTV was unique, it was dear to me, especially because the electronic media of the time – and there wasn’t much except Doordarshan – stood entirely compromised. To see it struggle, financially and otherwise, brings pain that is hard to explain. Yes, I bought NDTV’s shares, not of equity but of conscience. And it is time to redeem.

In his Chairman’s Speech to the shareholders in 2012, Dr Prannoy Roy said: “We have among the most vibrant and free media in the world – full of energy, creativity and diversity. No other developing country has a media sector that comes anywhere close to ours in India. In fact, our media is in many ways freer and more creative than the media in most advanced nations”.

At this point he must have looked up and seen dismayed and sniggering faces, for he followed up with some sober reflection: “We will of course have to face short term challenges. Nevertheless, we are determined to stay firmly with our commitment to the finest journalism and the highest levels of quality reporting. Our path to the future is to keep yours and the Indian viewer’s trust and faith. We will fight unswervingly for what is right in our country and launch campaigns to ensure any deep malaise in our system is highlighted and corrected. We are proud of our campaigns on schooling, fitness, water, saving the tiger and of course our Greenathon for improving our environment. In addition to good journalism, making a difference with a positive impact on our society is in NDTV’s DNA. We exist for these objectives.”

Why is a media house playing the role of a government department? Why is it organising Greenathons (Toyota-sponsored), Support my School Campaign (Coca Cola-sponsored), Save the Tigers (Aircel-sponsored), Marks for Sports (Nirmal Lifestyle-sponsored), Save India’s Coasts (Toyota Etios-sponsored)? And why hasn’t it organised a Hindi week yet (Government-sponsored)?

But seriously: Why? For what altruistic purpose? For making a positive impact on our society? But aren’t positive impacts better served through other means, like for example exposing the hundreds of scams that still lie unexposed? Or the thousands of crores that are wasted or pocketed by the same folks who appear daily on news shows?

How can NDTV run Bharat Nirman ads when clearly it knows the government is lying on each one of its promises? Why can’t its in-house satirical program, Gustakhi Maaf – whose title is as deferentially apologetic to begin with as burra na mano holi hai – make a complete mockery of such outlandish advertorial puppetry? And then to accept money – our money – for such propaganda (be it Shining or Nirman) – well, this is akin to running a Union Carbide ad just when a Bhopal gas disaster news report slips into a short break.

There is no shame in admitting that you are not rich; none at all. There is no embarrassment in realising that you are never going to be rich. All that matters is a clear conscience.

Prannoy Roy has got it wrong. A media organisation should run on the principle that it will never make billions. He only has to look around the world and see those that have! Does he want NDTV to become like them?

What is media’s primary goal, after all? To make governments accountable, to make people aware, to be objective, to be fearless. It has to be driven by passion, not by Excel sheets or profit margins. In this it is little different from a university.

Know your role. You can function like a university but then don’t promise your shareholders dividends and don’t spend sleepless nights thinking why is the stock plunging and where am I going to get my next chunk of money from. Things become simple when they are boiled down. Wander the forests, find a tree. Reflect.

The hallmark of any great organisation is how many of its employees can leave it and still make it on their own. From dispensability comes the realisation of indispensability. NDTV was a good organisation once. We know this because many of its members left it and started on their own. But the true test is, how many from among its current crop of employees can leave NDTV and start life afresh, confident of being accepted by their viewers. If there aren’t very many, then there is something wrong with the organisation. It has failed to nurture the true, naked, unclothed, uncovered spirit of journalism: one reporter versus the bloody world.

From the time a broken dishevelled man with empty pockets decided to drag a soap box to the middle of a park and stand on it, public discourse was born. He had nothing to lose, no one to fear. His words were his and his alone. His words were the truth. Then, as the crowd swelled and began to clap and cheer, someone decided to dress our man up in new clothes, slip his bare and callused feet in fashionable shoes. Another approached and sprayed our man with aftershave; someone else came forward and suggested the soap-box can have a logo of a soap manufacturer. Yet another recommended a short course in voice modulation, a trainer to pull out our man’s abusive language like a rotten molar, to curb his natural feelings and words. Soon the transformation was complete. The crowd still came to see and hear the man but they realised that it was now nothing more than a spectacle. Everything was for show. What the man said, how he spoke, what he wore, these attributes were all taking something away from his message, from his true self.

In popular discourse and on social media, it is a given that NDTV is considered a government mouthpiece. Is NDTV okay with this tag? What do its employees feel? How do its reporters react to this assertion? It is a publicly listed company. What do its shareholders feel? Has this aspect ever been discussed in a GBM? How can NDTV correct this view? Or does it feel there’s no need to – chalta hai? Truth be told, the most devastating allegation one can level against a journalist and his organisation is that it stands compromised. Why doesn’t NDTV have a spot-and-expose corruption wing, an RTI wing, a keep-tab-on-the-politician’s-promises wing? Why is there no investigative journalism, no unearthing of a scam? Why has NDTV banned Vinod Mehta from appearing on its shows (Lucknow Boy: a memoir)? Why has NDTV not said a word on one of its principal shareholders when the world is talking about his tax havens or shenanigans or stinking deals or pending criminal cases?

But the most important question is: who will ask all this of Prannoy Roy? Men have this crazy habit of laughing about the principles they had when they were young and struggling, when anyone could stop them on the road and give them an honest mouthful and they’d listen. Age withers a lot more than bones.

That said, not everything is wrong in NDTV. It still brings to us what I consider the best programme on Indian television: India Matters. Astonishing journalism, of the quality that Indians can be proud of. But it is poorly advertised and the reporter Radhika Bordia is too polite and understated to blow her trumpet. Perhaps that is how it should be – a lot of water must flow past, and a lot of panning done, before one discovers a gold nugget.

If anyone thinks the spectre of corporate media and paid news is exclusive to India, they think wrong. In a telling scene in the film Jerry Maguire, Tom Cruise has an awakening one stormy night. He decides to write a memo, about all that is rotten with his company, on how to set things right, and early morning he shoves it in the pigeonholes of his company’s employees. By afternoon he is sacked. He collects his gold fish in a polythene bag and walks out.

Prannoy Roy needs to be Tom Cruise. He needs to shove in a DVD of the hair-raising film Shadows of Liberty into every NDTV employee’s pigeonhole. Let them watch it. Then let them decide which side they are going to be on – the side of absolute, uncompromising truth, or the side of corporate and government-driven misrepresentation.

The world moves on, but a philosophy, once entrenched, stays. That genial and bearded man who we all grew up watching every Friday in The World This Week needs to introspect. He needs to drag that soap-box one more time. He needs to stand on top of it and remove all traces of familiarities and friendships that he has garnered over the past 25 years with politicians and celebrities and technocrats and Nobel laureates. Then he needs to begin all over again with: “Hello and welcome to…”

This is the silver jubilee year of NDTV. Prannoy can make sure there is a golden jubilee to come yet. He need not be the last mughal.