The NDTV Flip-Flop

Welcome to Part-2 of put-up-and-then-take-down-stories – a game that seems to be quite the rage at news organisations these days. While Part-1 involved DNA taking down an opinion piece on July 11, this one’s about NDTV running a report on July 10, taking it down the same day and re-re-running it on July 13. All without a formal clarification, of course.

Now, the battle lines on this – like most things in the world these days  – were drawn on Twitter.  And since nationalists and sickulars were already on war footing apropos the DNA drama, this one escalated pretty quickly.

The bone of contention here was the supposed “selective outrage” by liberals, as journalist Rupa Subramanya argued in this blogpost – a fairly justified grouse.

For those who’ve been too absorbed in the football to care for anything else, this particular report was on the National Herald controversy. More specifically, on how four floors of the five-storeyed Herald building have been rented out at market rates – something that is allegedly unlawful. Though the story has been talked about as a scoop, it is not.  What journalist Sunetra Choudhury reported in the story was already in the public domain. A Delhi court had taken cognisance of the matter almost a month before Choudhury’s story came out (Newslaundry has a copy of the order).

Sonia Singh and Vikram Chandra, senior editors at NDTV, had tweeted out rather vague explanations behind the story’s temporary disappearance.

So, we emailed the two and texted Choudhury the following queries:

1. Why was the article taken off air for two days?

2. What exactly was the company law clarification that Sonia Singh referred to in one of her tweets explaining the disappearance?

3. Why wasn’t a clarification issued in the first place?

4. Is it standard procedure to take down a report already on air without clarification?

Choudhury didn’t comment and asked us to get in touch with Chandra and Singh.

Chandra called it a “total non issue” and directed us to Singh for a more detailed response.

Singh did give us a detailed response (produced verbatim below):

1) The story done by Sunetra was cleared to go on air, however, after airing, some queries were raised about these specific aspects of Company Law including  a) whether the money collected as rent could be used as profit by any one of the directors b) is a non profit company leasing out property at commercial rates illegal? This is not a topic any of us are experts at, which is why the slip happened in the first place, presumably. The correspondent was asked to check these clauses and speak to an independent tax expert and get back on whether the story needed any changes. She did exactly that, the script was fine as is and put back on air immediately. Its really as simple as that

2) This is not a first though luckily it is rare that this happens AFTER a story is aired precisely because our editorial filters are rigorous. We have never issued a clarification in the past in similar cases because I am sure every Editor would agree this happens in EVERY newsroom. A query is made on a story, taken off till clarification is clear and then either corrected or not as the case may be and the corrected version carried on air.

3)  For those who insinuate NDTV is ‘censoring’ the story, last Tuesday, our prime time show The Buck Stops Here did a 45 minute debate on this with Subramaniam Swamy as a key panelist. Hardly the way to kill a story ?! Sunetra’s story also carried and on the web.

While Singh’s response does seem exhaustive enough, it is perhaps revelatory of the not-so “rigorous” editorial practices in Indian journalism. Singh clearly admits that the story went up without due diligence. She, nevertheless, defends the channel’s decision not to air any clarification since it “happens in EVERY newsroom”. Which is fairly true but do not help confidence at a time when media’s credibility is at an all-time low.

Surely, if NDTV put up a piece of reportage without following basic editorial principles of fact-check, the channel owes its viewers an explanation or a corrigendum.

This is not a matter of taking sides. News organisations have rarely seen fit to be transparent about what happens in their news rooms. But with the new realities of a watch dog social media, it is perhaps time for news organisations to realise, it is as increasingly difficult for the media to be secretive as it is for politicians.