Senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Shri Lalji Tandon who contested and won the 2009 Lok Sabha elections from the Lucknow constituency in Uttar Pradesh has publicly gone on record as to how the “the largest circulated (Indian) language newspaper in the world”, refused to publish any news about him in the run-up to the 2009 elections because of his refusal to pay any money. “When I enquired, I was told that I should pay up if I wanted news in my favour,” Shri Tandon said, adding that his rival from the BSP got more publicity than any other candidate in his constituency. Though Shri Tandon said the issue was later sorted out with the newspaper, his allegations levelled in public highlighted how rampant the malpractice of “paid news” was in the particular newspaper which is not just the largest circulated language newspaper of India but also one of the most widely circulated newspapers of the world.
The largest circulated paper that Shri Tandon referred to was the Dainik Jagran, which he also named in public. On January 11, 2010, the Press Council of India asked a representative of the newspaper whether what Shri Tandon had claimed was true and whether the newspaper had in fact demanded any money from him to carry favourable news on his election campaign. This is what he said: “When a politician of the stature of Shri Lalji Tandon speaks, it is natural for the media to take note. We can only assert that we did not offer our editorial space for money.” When asked further as to whether Shri Tandon was lying when he said the newspaper’s representative had asked him for money to publish news about his campaign, the Dainik Jagran representative repeated that no one from his newspaper had asked Shri Tandon for money.
When Km Anuradha Raman of Outlook magazine asked Shri Tandon if he had patched up with the owners of the newspaper, his reply made it evident that this was indeed what had happened. Shri Tandon asked a counter-question: “Kyon wahi baat doharana chahte hain? Rehne dijeeye. (Why do you want me to repeat it again? Let it be.)”
In a formal letter handed over to the Press Council of India on January 10, 2010, Shri Nishikant Thakur, Chief General Manager, Jagran Prakashan Ltd., claimed that the controversy relating to “paid news” was “nothing but rumours spread by lost candidates in frustration”. Describing the allegations as “frivolous” and “factually” incorrect, Shri Thakur claimed that he “could say with certainty that no editor of a reputed newspaper in the country is distorting news for money”. He added that amount spent on “publicity material” in newspapers is “marginal” in comparison to the total expenses incurred by candidates standing for elections.
Shri Thakur claimed that the ceilings of expenditure laid down by the Election Commission of India were “unrealistic” and “out of tune with reality”. Further, he claimed that attempts by candidates to influence individual reports “in the rush” of election coverage could go “undetected by the editorial board” of the concerned newspaper. He suggests that there should be “state funding” of elections, that the Election Commission of India should “implement appropriate measures” to verify expenses incurred by candidates and also that there should be “inner party democracy” in political parties.
Shri Thakur argues that the right of the citizen to get “un-polluted information” needs to be balanced by “the rights of the media to conduct its business in an economically viable manner which is also guaranteed by the Constitution of India subject to permissible legal restrictions”. He adds that the press has the right to “project (the) good achievements of (a) particular candidate” and concludes with the assertion that what is required are electoral reforms, systemic correction and not merely “limb operation”.
One journalist of a mainstream newspaper who has written a number of articles highlighting this pernicious trend of “paid news” is the Rural Affairs Editor of The Hindu Shri Palagummi Sainath. In his deposition before the Press Council of India on December 13, 2009, and again on January 27, 2010, Shri Sainath made the following observations:
“Throughout my journalistic career, I have witnessed how money power and corrupt journalism have always been major factors influencing the outcome of any election – this is not a phenomenon that has appeared overnight. Yet, the last two general elections – of 2004 and 2009 – were exceptional even by past standards in the manner in which huge amounts of money were spent by candidates in their election campaigns. The no-holds-barred expenditure by candidates in the 2004 elections was shocking by any standards, but the amounts of money spent by candidates in the 2009 general elections far exceeded the amounts that were spent by candidates in 2004. The general elections of 2009 were the seventh covered by me and never before in my career had I witnessed such large sums of money being spent on election campaigns. Though I was aware that candidates were spending large amounts, I did not have evidence that would help me expose the fact that candidates were incurring expenditures that were far higher than what is officially permitted by the Election Commission of India. It was visible to the naked eye. Proving it with documentary evidence was another matter.”
Shri Sainath observed that the general elections of 2009 witnessed a paradigm shift in the manner in which candidates and political parties worked hand in glove with the press and media houses in masquerading advertisements of candidates and parties as political “news”. He stated:
• The size of the market for “paid news” is very big. In Andhra Pradesh, unions of journalists have estimated the size of the “paid news” market to be somewhere between Rs 300 crore and Rs 1,000 crore.
• In Uttar Pradesh, politicians complained about how leading newspapers sold various “packages” or “rate cards” for publishing news in their favour and/or completely blacking out news about their opponents.
• In Punjab and Haryana, complaints from politicians showed how it was the newspapers that set the agenda much before the elections were announced. While the language papers claimed that it was the national dailies with their local editions and political supplements that were forcing them to offer their editorial space for a price, the national dailies denied resorting to such practices. Even media houses in the national capital of New Delhi were not immune to the malaise.
• “Paid news” has become an organized and properly structured “industry”. It is corporate-controlled and functions with the full patronage and participation of some of the largest media groups in the country. The individual journalist has no importance in this “industry” because what is published as “news” has not been independently gathered and reported by reporters and journalists but written and published as per the wishes of the political party or the candidate who has paid money to the concerned publisher or media organisation. Indeed, in some cases the reporter was not even required as the public relations (PR) machinery behind the politician got down to work. In some newspapers in Gujarat, reporters complained that they were ordered not to file political reports.
• This “industry” has become so organized that large PR firms, professional designers and advertising agencies handled contracts worth many crore rupees – not just to position advertisements but to create “news”. Propaganda put out as “news” was customised by these image-creation agencies to appear as “exclusive” news articles in the publications these appeared in. But the scale of the operation was so large that confusion and overlap were inevitable and many giveaway mistakes occurred (for instance, the same “exclusive” story appeared under different bylines in rival newspapers – word for word). The use of these large corporate PR firms gave resource-rich parties an unfair edge over their electoral rivals (about whom, news was blacked out because they could not pay) and this malpractice has sullied India’s proud electoral democracy.
• The new aspect of this phenomenon of “paid news” in 2009 is that there was widespread participation by political parties in this process. The integration and assimilation of leading political parties and corporate public relations bodies in this racket is also unique to the elections of 2009.
Shri Sainath spoke on how the ruling party in Maharashtra exploited the situation to the hilt. “In Maharashtra, it is definitely the Congress-NCP (Nationalist Congress Party) that occupies the top slot because other political parties in the state are really strapped for resources. The reason for this is not embedded in the character of any particular party: it is simply that one coalition has been in power in the state for ten years and thus has far more money. In another state, it could be another ruling party.
“For example, a news item headlined, ‘Young, dynamic leadership’, eulogising the Maharashtra Chief Minister Shri Ashok Chavan appeared using exactly similar words from beginning to end in three competing Marathi newspapers – Lokmat, Pudhari and Maharashtra Times. If a question were posed to these three newspapers as to how the exactly same articles appeared in their pages, their reply would be customised. They would say that accidentally one of the press releases of the Congress party went directly to the press without passing through the copy desk and therefore the same news appeared in a similar manner in all three newspapers. But, had it been a press release, it should have been circulated to all newspapers and not just three. The question, therefore, arises as to how the press release found its way only to three newspapers. The news was published by Pudhari on October 7, 2009, whereas, the other two newspapers had carried it on October 10. Is there a practice among these newspapers to carry three-day-old press releases?”
In the general elections of 2009, the head offices of newspapers and television news channels, said Shri Sainath, set “targets” and “quotas” for their regional centres. These targets were then worked into individual quotas for reporters, correspondents and special correspondents, depending on the rank of the employee in question. In April 2009, during the fifteenth general elections, the Hindu carried a story on individual journalists from several small towns in Maharashtra, like Nagpur and Amravati, complaining that they were being forced to write news stories that were paid for being published.
Shri Shakil Ahmad, a lawyer and an independent candidate from Sion-Koliwada in Mumbai, said the very newspapers that had earlier given him space as a social activist “demanded money to write about me as a candidate”. “Since I refused to pay, nobody wrote about me,” said Shri Ahmed, who added that he was eager to depose before the Election Commission of India and has filed a legal affidavit/undertaking in this regard wherein naming newspapers like …. that tried to extort money from him. Shri Ahmed’s statements would earlier get space because he was very useful to the media in, for example, in covering the proceedings of the Justice B.N. Srikrishna Commission that inquired into the communal riots that had taken place in Mumbai in 1992-93. His services to the media were in the nature of a public service from which he derived no monetary gain. And his name was soon well known in the press. When it came to his contesting elections, he was blacked out as he would not pay money.” (Subsequently, on January 27, 2010, Shri Ahmed deposed before the Press Council of India reiterating the allegations that were recounted by him to Shri Sainath.)
In the course of tracking down the trend of “paid news”, Shri Sainath observed: “Several editions of newspapers published from Maharashtra in between October 1 and 10, 2009 bear testimony to the fact that there was huge scramble by candidates to get news space. There are instances of mysteriously fixed size news items, each say of a length of 125-150 words with a double-column photo. The ‘fixed size’ news items hid more than they revealed. News items are seldom written in such a rigid format and size whereas advertisements are most often. In specific newspapers, multiple font types and multiple drop case styles were noticed within the same page of a single newspaper. This happened because just about everything – the layouts, fonts, printouts, photographs – was provided by candidates who had paid for slots in the pages of the newspaper.”
Shri Sainath pointed out that in the election expenditure statement submitted to the Election Commission, Maharashtra Chief Minister Shri Ashok Chavan, disclosed that he had spent less than Rs 7 lakh on his election campaign. The expenditure limit in terms of election campaign that is imposed on a candidate by the Election Commission of India is Rs 10 lakhs. Of the Rs 7 lakh, Shri Chavan stated that he had spent a mere Rs 5,379 on newspaper advertisements and another Rs 6,000 on advertisements that were on cable television networks. These figures, according to Shri Sainath, are “clearly at odds with the unprecedented media coverage the Chief Minister got during the election campaign”. “I have with me 89 full pages of news which are devoted just to Shri Ashok Chavan. Most of these news items are printed in colour. A substantial number of these pages have been culled out from those editions of the big Marathi daily newspaper Lokmat, which is the fourth most widely circulated daily in the country according to the National Readership Survey of 2006,” said Shri Sainath.
Several pertinent questions arise from this huge media coverage that was accorded to Shri Chavan, said Shri Sainath. What would have been the total expenditure incurred by Shri Chavan if all the “news” that had been carried about him and his achievements been considered advertisements that were paid for? How does one justify the presence of over 150 pages of “news” on one man who had at that time held the post of Chief Minister of Maharashtra for a period of only 11 months? Even Barack Obama, the first African-American to win the US Presidential elections did not find any newspaper in the US giving him five full pages of ‘news’ before his election. And his was the costliest election campaign ever.
What Shri Sainath said was borne out by the statements of Shri Yogi Adityanath of the BJP who told Outlook that his name did not figure at all in the reports appearing in the leading dailies of Uttar Pradesh. “In my constituency of Gorakhpur from where I had won in the past, my candidature did not find a mention in the newspapers,” the BJP MP remarked, adding how every newspaper in his constituency was offering its editorial space for a package.
Shri Sainath also observed how a spate of genuine advertisements of politicians hit the pages of certain newspapers in Maharashtra on August 30, 2009. “This was 24 hours prior to the date elections were formally announced on which day, the model code of conduct specified by the Election Commission came into effect. After the model code of conduct came into effect, the word ‘advertisement’ disappeared from all items on political events and candidates. Even the fig leaf describing a paid news item as a ‘sponsored feature’ or a ‘response feature’ disappeared and the items were simply published and were sought to be passed off as ‘news’.
“These so-called ‘news’ reports that appeared subsequent to the crucial dates of August 30 and September 18 were fascinating in more ways than one. These reports that raised toasts to the candidates who paid for them did not carry a single critical or negative statement about the candidates in question. Across hundreds of pages, ‘news’ was solely those kinds of information that made readers aware as to how wonderful particular candidates were and about their achievements. There was not even a small mention of the real issues that mattered to voters in these constituencies. The names of their rivals, who might have been people of lesser resources, simply did not exist in these newspaper pages except, perhaps, as fall guys.”
It would be a mistake to conclude that the business of paid news was confined to language dailies, said Shri Sainath. He added: “Even English dailies like the Vidarbha Plus (a supplement of the Times of India) published advertisements for candidates in the form of news. The Vidarbha Plus carried an advertisement disguised as news on the Congress candidate from Amravati assembly constituency, Shri Raosaheb Shekhawat, son of the President of India Smt Pratibha Devisingh Patil. The report carried a headline ‘Motorbike rally marks conclusions of electoral campaign’. The contents of the news item, that comprised endless praises for Shri Shekhawat, make for interesting reading. No regular reporter would ever use the language of this ‘news item’ which says, for example, that Shekhawat ‘epitomises politeness, potential and promise’ and that he is ‘blessed with extremely charming personality’, and ‘a charisma (that) attracted huge crowds throughout his campaign’. This ‘news item’ was published on the very day of polling in the assembly elections,” said Shri Sainath.
“As I wrote in the Hindu on June 20, 2009: ‘The average worth of a Lok Sabha MP is Rs. 51 million. But there are 74 MPs with serious criminal charges against them whose wealth averages Rs 60 million (or Rs 6 crore). That is, they are well entrenched in Parliament’s Platinum tier. And the average wealth of a Cabinet Minister is around Rs 75 million (or Rs 7.5 crore).’ (These data were derived from the ongoing studies on the subject released by the NEW (National Election Watch) an initiative of the non-governmental organisation Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). As I noted in that article on the 15th Lok Sabha, its 543 MPs are worth close to Rs 28 billion (or Rs 2800 crore, the 64 Union Cabinet members from the Lok Sabha account for Rs 5 billion or Rs 500 crore). And the links between wealth and winning elections are firmer than ever before.
“Money power of politicians clearly enables them acquire media power during elections. Likewise, the propaganda power of media barons enables them to control or acquire political power – both financially rewarding exercises. In one way, the media is leading the charge in keeping the aam aadmi, who is much poorer than the elected representatives, out of the electoral process. Please also note that media owners can also be leading politicians and financially powerful too. Lokmat, for instance, is the fourth largest circulated daily in India.
“One of its owners, Shri Rajendra Darda, has been made a cabinet minister in Maharashtra in 2009 (earlier, he had been a Minister of State). In its ‘Analysis of Ministries – Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh based on 2009 elections’, a NEW-ADR report states that the ‘the maximum assets (of an MP) from Maharashtra are (those) of Rajendra Jawaharlal Darda from Aurangabad East, Maharashtra – Rs. 32 crore.’ It also found that based on his own election affidavits, his assets between 2004 and 2009 had increased by 408.13 per cent. What happens when we stir this lethal mix of media power, money power and advertising-passed-off-as-news? And Lokmat does not come out of the paid news game smelling of roses,” said Shri Sainath.
He concluded: “The real issue is to prove that news has been paid for? All such clandestine dealings, which involved the exchange of a lot of money, left no trace or evidence in their trail. No agreements and no receipts of payment that could serve as proof of transactions exist.”
The Press Council of India raised the issue of “paid news” with Maharashtra Chief Minister Shri Ashok Chavan in Mumbai on January 28, 2010, and questioned him on the various allegations made against him by Shri Sainath. Produced below are excerpts from his deposition.
Press Council of India: What is your opinion about newspapers publishing articles that appear to the reader to be news items but are actually paid for to be published? The reader is unable to distinguish between such paid news items and advertisements as there is nothing to indicate that there has been a financial transaction behind the publication of these news items. In your opinion, should these ‘news items’, which actually are paid for, be published by the press?
Shri Ashok Chavan: These news items that are frequently appearing in various newspapers should first be interpreted. First, it needs to be firmly established whether the news item that has appeared is actually a news item or an advertisement. If it happens to be an advertisement, then it should be proved by documentary evidence like receipts for payment against publishing of the item. Opposition parties have made allegations that advertisements were passed off as news items printed in newspapers. Political parties making such allegations do not have evidence to prove that advertisements have been published in the garb of news. It should first be ascertained whether a particular news item is indeed an advertisement.
PCI: In the absence of documentary evidence like payments having made through cheques, which would establish that there has actually been a financial transaction between a candidate or a political party and a newspaper or a television news channel, we have with us circumstantial evidence that Shri P. Sainath made available to us and about which he has also written extensively in his newspaper, The Hindu. He has made available to the Press Council of India copies of three newspapers: Lokmat, Pudhari and Maharashtra Times, which are essentially competing brands. In all three newspapers, the same article on Shri Ashok Chavan appeared, word for word. The article appeared in Pudhari on October 7, while the other two newspapers carried it on October 10. The only difference in the three articles was that there were three different bylines. This means that there is circumstantial evidence to indicate that these were not news items but advertisements.
AC: Let me correct your statement since you have referred to a particular issue which concerns me directly. Several political parties have also launched complaints against me regarding this issue. According to me, the appropriate forum for challenging such complaints is through an election petition in a court of law. I will put forth my views on this issue in the court. Technically, once the election process is over, the appropriate manner to address grievances is through the mechanism of an election petition in a court. The Representation of the People Act and the Constitution of India provide that all such matters that are raised after the elections shall be challenged in courts of law. Hence, the matter should be settled under a court’s jurisdiction. Secondly, during the process of election a huge number of press releases are handed out and many press conferences also take place. Prior to the election, a number of advertisements are also issued by the government highlighting the achievements made by the government. So, we don’t know what is the source of information of these news items. In my party, the Pradesh Congress Committee also organizes a number of press conferences where a lot of press releases are issued to newspapers. It is a matter of fact that the contents of newspaper articles are culled from these press releases. I have never come across anyone who has demanded money from me. Does the Press Council of India have any guidelines to help differentiate between news and advertisements?
PCI: Lokmat with over 14 lakh copies a day has13 editions. What we witnessed was that there was a flood of advertisements in the newspaper during elections. Now you may argue that since Shri Rajendra Jawaharlal Darda, MP from Aurangabad East, is the owner of this newspaper and is also a member of the Congress party, he has written all these articles in your favour. What we have found is that Lokmat published 156 pages of advertisements in the run-up to the election and all of them were in your favour. These articles were published in the months of August, September and October 2009. Now would you say that this was done by Shri Darda’s organisation voluntarily and no money was paid for it?
AC: I have repeatedly told you that whatever articles have appeared other than the advertisements, there is no question of paying any money to anyone. Official advertisements, which were issued by the Pradesh Congress Committee, have been accounted for. At the same time, you should not forget that I was leading the party in the state as the Chief Minister. So it was not surprising that there were articles written about me. Reporters have picked up from whatever press notes and press releases that have been issued by the party.
In a letter to the Press Council of India dated January 23, 2010, Shri Vijay Darda of the Lokmat group of newspapers wrote: “at the outset, it would not be out of place to mention that the Press Council has ‘woken up’ to this issue pretty late in the day. Media organisations have been officially selling their news space for quite a long time and the Press Council of India has been a mute spectator. As the number one Marathi newspaper group in the country, we have a firm commitment to maintaining credibility and the faith of our readers. We adhere to the highest standards of professional excellence of our volition, it is our chosen path and shall remain so.”
Yet another Hindi language newspaper, Hindustan, published by HT Media, had prominently carried advertisements of a politician, without identifying him as such, in its Varanasi edition – the text size and the font were designed to give it the look of a news item. On April 30, 2009, the day when elections took place, the Varanasi edition of Hindustan carried an item that deceptively looked like a news story on top of its front page with a headline that suggested that there was a “wave in favour of the Congress”. The following day, the newspaper later apologised to its readers for the mistake and said that it made a distinction between news and advertisements. The representatives of Hindustan told the Press Council of India that when they realised their mistake they were quick to point this out to readers.
The representatives of HT Media provided the Council a letter that had been published in Outlook weekly (January 18, 2010) wherein Shri Rajiv Verma, Chief Executive Officer, HT Media Limited wrote: “We do not pass off sponsored news in the garb of editorial content. To the specific instance related to the Varanasi edition of Hindustan…, the articles were published under the advertiser sponsored content tag. Owing to a mistake by an overzealous advertising manager, the style and look turned out to be similar to the main paper. To remove any confusion among our readers, a clarification was issued the very next day on the front page of Hindustan’s Varanasi edition. The erring manager was also suitably reprimanded. We have had no instance of any editorial transgression other than the unfortunate incident stated above….For all our publications, we have clear guidelines for ‘sponsored’ features that get carried with a clear notation or marking and in a look and style that is visibly different from our editorial content.”
HT Media also denied that the former editor of Hindustan Smt Mrinal Pande had resigned owing to the incident in the paper’s Varanasi edition, among other things. “Nothing could be farther from the truth as the said incident took place in April 2009, while the editor resigned five months later in September 2009 due to entirely different reasons…”
Speaking to the Press Council of India, a representative of Punjab Kesri too denied of ever having sold editorial space for money. When the Council specifically asked him what he had to say about a senior manager’s comment to Outlook that the same newspaper had earned anywhere between Rs 10 crore and Rs 12 crore for carrying “paid news” items during the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the representative said that it was not his prerogative to comment on the internal matter of another family-held publication. (Punjab Kesri’s editions are published from Delhi and Jalandhar but under different managements.)
That the malaise had spread through the country, infiltrating big and small newspapers alike is evident from what Haryana Chief Minister Shri Bhupinder Hooda’s admission that he was so disturbed by a series of negative reports in a leading multi-edition Hindi daily in his state that he offered to pay in order to ensure that the reports were factually correct! In fact, Shri Hooda was also questioned by the press for the expenditure incurred on advertisements that praised his government in the run-up to the assembly elections of Haryana in 2009.
Newspapers continue to deny that editorial space was put up for sale during elections. But reports coming from Gujarat, Karnataka and Chhattisgarh showed how editorials of various newspapers were pressurised by their respective managements to stop asking questions. Shri Hooda went as far to state that news reporters were not at fault for the malaise of paid news. “The journalists are not at fault here because fact-finding journalism has now become a commercialised activity with the present owners having turned newspapers into a business proposition,” said Shri Hooda to Outlook.
Several politicians have blamed the media, on record, of trying to extort money from them by either subscribing to their rate cards devised especially for the elections or by paying a certain sum in lieu of substantial positive coverage.
In a letter to the Press Council of India, Shri K. Ramasubramanian, state secretary of the Bahujan Samaj Party in Tamil Nadu said how he was assured of positive publicity by the media during the election campaign provided he shelled out money in the range of Rs 4-5 lakh for a period of 15-20 days under a special scheme designed by the newspaper management. “Further I was also enlightened by a publication’s management that if I released advertisements soliciting votes in newspapers I was accountable to the Election Commission which was monitoring the election expenses of candidates contesting in elections. Whereas, when the message appeared as an editorial piece, it would help the candidate conceal the expenses incurred”, said Shri Ramasubramanian.
Congress Member of Parliament from the East Delhi Lok Sabha constituency in Delhi, Shri Sandeep Dikshit narrated as to how he was asked by newspapers and television channels to pay up if he wanted his favourable editorial coverage. “I refused to pay up when reporters (under pressures from their management) came up to me asking whether I wanted to get into an arrangement with their newspapers if I wanted news in my favour,” he said.
Shri Atul Anjaan of the Communist Party of India named television channels Aaj Tak and newspapers Dainik Jagran and Punjab Kesari for demanding money to publish positive news about him. When he refused to pay, the newspapers responded by blacking out any news about him altogether from its pages. His election campaign went unreported.
Shri Parcha Kodanda Rama Rao of the Loksatta Party, in a letter to the Chairman of the Press Council of India dated February 10, 2010 and his subsequent deposition before Press Council of India members on February 10, 2010, stated: “I made (a) representation to the Returning Officer of my constituency to include the expenditure on paid news in respective candidates expenditure account, all in vain. I enclosed copies of all the paid news items of three candidates namely, K. Daya Sagar Rao of Congress, M. Ravindra Reddy of PRP (Praja Rajyam Party) and Vinay Bhaskar of TRS (Telegana Rashtra Samithi) from March 16, 2009 to March 28, 2009 and also calculated the amount of total paid news for the said period based on the prevailing market rates as approved by the state government department of public relations and information. Further as the Telugu newspapers were completely ignoring my campaign and my expenditure, in their coverage, I called up the Eenadu advertorial executive on April 10, 2009 to cover my campaign. For the remaining days he demanded Rs 1 lakh but I agreed to pay Rs 50,000 and paid it there and then in cash. He neither gave me any receipt nor acknowledgement for the said amount. The result of my payment was evident in the news coverage given to me on April 13, 14 and 15, 2009 as compared to inconsequential coverage given to me from March 28, 2009 to April 12, 2009.
“What is happening between the candidates and the newspaper managements is known only to both of them and it is a perfect cash transfer scheme from one to the other. It cannot be proved unless a secret detective operation is carried out with video cameras. However, I have established circumstantial evidence for the whole shady transaction in an election petition in the High Court of Andhra Pradesh.”
Shri K. P. Reddaiah Yadav, former Member of Parliament and Vice President, Praja Rajyam Party, Andhra Pradesh, wrote to the Press Council of India on August 21, 2009, alleging that Sri Ramoji Rao, who heads the Eenadu group of publications, had “hatched a plan with other newspaper managements” to charge money from candidates for “election packages” for each Parliamentary and assembly constituency. The “package” envisaged that each candidate should pay Rs 10 lakh to each newspaper for 15 days for favourable coverage about himself or herself. Shri Yadav alleged that a number of publications such as Eenadu, Andhra Jyothi, Sakshi, Vartha and Andhra Bhoomi and television news channels like TV9, ETV-2, TV-5, HMTV News had received money for publishing or broadcasting “paid news”.
Among other publications, Eenadu, quite predictably, denied accepting any money. Shri Ramoji Rao, who heads the Eenadu group of publications stated that the problem of “paid news” was part of a larger malaise afflicting the media in the country. He, however, claimed that Eenadu maintains a strict distinction between advertisements and news. In a letter to the Press Council of India dated February 1, 2010, Shri Ramoji Rao wrote that the “the politician of the old days enjoyed popularity and people’s love,” adding: “His involvement in the freedom movement, his activism in various social reform movements and his service to the public earned him great respect in the society. But the latter day politician, the one from the ranks of moneyed and muscled sections needed positive coverage to earn name and fame. With the money power at his command the new entrant manipulated the local media person to gain popularity and public acceptance.
“Gradually, favourable coverage in the press and the capacity to spend big money in poll campaign became the sole eligibility on the basis of which political parties chose their candidates. Money thus acted as a ladder to gain political power. Quite naturally, those who spent money also began expecting returns. Thus was formed the vicious cycle of corruption. Elected candidates justified their corruption by citing the amount they spent for getting elected. The so-called paid favourable coverage by the press is one of the off-shoots of this tendency,” Shri Rao stated.
On the other hand, campaign managers of the Congress openly admitted that television channels were open to accepting money from any political party if it wanted to improve its fortunes in the opinion polls and surveys telecast over their channels. Still others, like Shri Sudhakar Reddy of the Communist Party of India from Andhra Pradesh said that his party was assured of news space only after it had committed itself to some advertisements. “We were told that if we placed advertisements, news could be published,” said Shri Reddy.
Member of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council, Dr K. Nageshwar, told the Press Council of India in Hyderabad on February 10, 2010, that as attempts were made by the Election Commission of India to control money power in politics and as this effort intensified, so did the phenomenon of “paid news” which became a “new and creative channel” for illegally funding election campaigns. “After the candidate of a political party pays money to a particular newspaper, he starts treating journalists working for the newspaper as his servant or slave,” he said, adding that the phenomenon of “paid publicity” had degenerated further to become “paid mud-slinging”.
He provided an example based on his personal experience: “On February 6, 2009, the day elections to the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council took place, Sakshi quoted the Mehboobnagar district president of the BJP virtually describing me as a traitor. What was worse, the newspaper defamed me by claiming that I was visually challenged because I had ignored the advice given by scientists and stared at a solar eclipse. This was a complete cock-and-bull story. I wrote to the newspaper and also represented to the Election Commission but nothing happened thereafter.”
Independent analyses of newspapers like the Gujarat Samachar, done by a non-government organization, People’s Media Initiative, indicates that in one particular edition the newspaper carried reports of all three candidates winning from two assembly constituencies in Maharashtra, Magathane and Malad. This naturally raises the question as whether the reports were paid for to be published. Gujarat Samachar, however, vehemently denied the charges. “We will conduct an enquiry into this and check whether it is for a fact,” a representative of Gujarat Samachar told Outlook.
Shri Jatin Desai of People’s Media Initiative told the Press Council of India in Mumbai on January 28, 2010: “So arbitrary is the paid news phenomenon that sometimes two conflicting news items appear on the same page because the paper would have reached an understanding both with a politician as well as his rival. The paper ‘reported’ that candidates belonging to the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and the Nationalist Congress Party were both going to win from the same assembly constituency of Magathane in Borivli. On October 13, 2009, the second page of the Gujarat Samachar carried an article without a byline that stated that Gujaratis of Magathane should vote for Shri Prakash Surve of the NCP. The same page carried another article stating that because of the support of Gujaratis, the MNC candidate Shri Pravin Darekar would win.
“The management of Gujarat Samachar (which claims a readership of 46.2 lakh) has predictably denied having sold its editorial space despite being confronted with two issues of its paper from Mumbai where conflicting reports on the fortunes of a single party were published. The Congress candidate in the Malad constituency of Mumbai was shown as trailing and winning on the same day! The same page of the newspaper on the same day published an article stating that the Gujaratis of Malad are supporting the candidature of Shri Aslam Sheikh of the Congress and also carried a photograph of Shri R.U. Singh, the BJP candidate from the same constituency, with a caption that stated that the Congress was losing ground.”
The Andhra Pradesh Union of Working Journalists (APUWJ), the first union of journalists to raise its voice against paid news and, in fact, the first body to have coined the phrase “paid news”, in its memorandum submitted to the Press Council of India on February 9, 2010, said that “the genesis of paid news started (during the) general elections (of) 2004 when small and local newspapers in mofussil towns and district headquarters in some parts of Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat started this practise in an organised way. These small newspapers owned and edited by the same person assisted by a few others entered into agreements with the local leaders of prominent parties or candidates and started publishing propaganda material of these parties or candidates as news for a fee in the run up to the elections.”
The union observed that during 2009, when the 15th general elections to country and the legislative elections to the state of Andhra Pradesh were held simultaneously, advertising copy appeared as “paid news” along with a credit line of a staffer of a newspaper in order to mislead readers into believing that the article had in fact been written by a reporter of the newspaper. Newspaper managements collected money for “paid news” items according to their advertisement tariffs without acknowledging that these were advertisements.
The APUWJ raised the issue of “paid news” during the campaign for the general elections of 2009 before the Chief Electoral Officer of Andhra Pradesh on April 10, 2009. The union pointed out that “paid news” items were leading to a subversion of the democratic election process as well as the institution of a free press. The union compiled a considerable volume of circumstantial evidence, the highlights of which included the following:
The Andhra Jyothi daily in a tabloid attached to its West Godavari district edition dated April 23, 2009, carried an article on the front party claiming that the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) candidate from Narasapuram Parliamentary constituency, Smt Thota Sitarama Lakshmi, would emerge victorious from the election battle. The article carried a headline claiming that a “huge victory” was awaiting the candidate. The same edition of the newspaper, on its back page, carried a story saying the Congress candidate from the same Narasapuram constituency, Bapi Raju was going to win the seat, with a headline that read “victory, victory”. The union observed that it was indeed unusual that the same paper was endorsing two rival candidates from the same constituency on the same day and alleged that the stories appeared to have been written not the newspaper’s journalists but by the publicists of the candidates.
A similar set of stories appeared the same day, April 23, 2009, in the West Godavari district edition of the Eenadu daily. The newspaper published on its front page an article from Bhimavaram predicting the victory of TDP candidate from Narasapuram, Smt Sitaram Lakshmi. The story carried a headline stating that she was “on her way to victory with a huge majority” On the back page of the same edition of the newspaper the same day, another story was published claiming that Congress candidate Shri Bapi Raju would win. The story’s headline read: “everybody says Bapi Raju will win”.
The APUWJ said that “a common phenomenon” that was witnessed in the run-up to the 2009 elections was newspapers would issue receipts claiming that an amount of Rs 3 per square centimetre was received whereas the actual amounts that were received were much higher.
The union stated that the pernicious practice of “paid news” not only exposed the greed of managements of media companies in their endeavour to maximize their profits but also posed a danger to the independence of the media, the process of elections and democratic institutions. “It is immoral, unethical and unprofessional to publish ‘paid news’…to mislead the reader that (such stories are the product of the) independent and unvarnished observation of professional journalists,” the APUWJ stated, adding that this phenomenon “also raises ethical and legal questions regarding the responsibility of the media towards the people in a democratic society…Those who have money power get publicity and those who have less resources will be left behind and blacked out. At times, those who do not pay money would attract negative reporting… (This is against) the concept of (a) level playing field for all candidates which is essential in an election. In addition, the candidates do not need to show this expenditure in their election expenditure. It leads to violation of election law and encourages the use of black money. Thus the democratic process of elections is subverted.”
The APUWJ made a detailed study of newspapers in the West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh for 27 days between March 28, 2009 and April 23, 2009. The study found that Eenadu published 94 political advertisements and 92 “paid news” stories, while the Andhra Jyothi published 87 political advertisements and 163 paid news stories in this period. Other publications like Sakshi, Vaarta, Andhra Bhoomi and Surya were also found to have carried similar advertisements and “paid news” stories. One particular trend noticed by the union in the newspapers that they perused was the fact that there were a number of reports appearing in the same edition of a newspaper that would simultaneously predict the victory of two or more rival candidates contesting the same constituency. “It is all right for the candidates and their parties to claim victory and the claims can be published as news stories attributing the stories to their party leaders or their spokespersons,” the APUWJ observed, adding: “But the correspondent of the concerned newspaper cannot file two stories on the same day predicting two different candidates winning from the same constituency.”
The Telugu daily Sakshi in its letter to Press Council of India, dated February 10, 2010, on the issue of “paid news” claimed that “we are way off the target while addressing the problem. It is more like ‘barking upon the wrong tree’. As per the Election Commission guidelines, the expenditure limit in major states like Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh is Rs 25 lakh for a Lok Sabha candidate and Rs 10 lakh for an Assembly candidate. In smaller Lok Sabha constituencies like Lakshadweep, the expenditure limit is Rs 10 lakh.
“It is no secret that in the days of inflation and the ever increasing cost of living, Rs 10 lakh expenditure for Assembly candidates is ridiculously low. So is the limit for Lok Sabha constituencies. At the same time we know that Assembly candidates end up spending not less than Rs 2 crore and the figure goes up in case of Lok Sabha candidates. Even the Election Commission knows it pretty well that no candidate would reveal true expenditure nor they spend within the specified limits. In the process, the candidates invented several ways of concealing the expenditure and one of them is paid news.”
The Editors Guild of India in its annual general meeting on December 22, 2009 in New Delhi strongly condemned the practice of paid news, which, in its opinion, whittled the foundations of Indian journalism. The Guild called upon all editors in the country to desist from publishing any form of advertisements which masquerade as news. The guild took cognisance of the fact that based on data compiled by media monitoring agency AdEx (a unit of TAM Media Research Private Ltd), which was reported in the Mint on December 2, 2009, that in the assembly elections in Maharashtra in October 2009, the total advertising volume (measured in column centimetres) in Marathi newspapers declined by around one-fifth from the levels in 2004, suggesting the possibility of the increased incidence of advertisements disguised as news.
The Guild noted that it had always stood for publication of news which is in public interest, news which has been gathered due to the professional efforts of journalists and news which is not influenced by malice, bias, favouritism or monetary influence. The Guild also noted that it is imperative upon news organisations to clearly distinguish between news and advertisements with full and proper disclosure norms, so that no reader and viewer is tricked by any subterfuge of advertisements published and broadcast in the same format, language and style of news.
The Guild decried the unsavoury and unacceptable practice of some political parties and candidates offering payment for “news packages” to news media and its representatives to publish and telecast eulogising and misleading news reports on the political parties. It held both the media organisations and editors who indulge in it, and the customers who offer payment for such “paid news”, guilty of undermining the free and fair press. It further elaborated that such irresponsible acts by a few media organisations and journalists is discrediting the entire media of the country, which has a glorious tradition of safeguarding democratic rights and exposing all kinds of injustices and inequities. The Guild expressed deep shock over the fact that companies, organisations and individuals, apart from political parties, also used the “paid news” practice. The Guild also deplored the practice of “private treaties” where news organisations accepted free equity in unlisted companies in lieu of promoting these companies through news columns and television news programmes.
The Editors’ Guild of India, at the same meeting, announced the formation of an ethics committee headed by Shri T. N. Ninan of Business Standard, to curb the practice of publishing advertisements masquerading as news. The other members on the committee include veteran journalists Shri B.G. Verghese, Shri Sumit Chakravarty and Km Madhu Kishwar. The immediate task of the panel will be to frame a code of ethics in the context of the “paid news” phenomenon.
In his inaugural address at a workshop on “Parliament and Media” that was held on November 4, 2009 at the Parliament House Annexe, New Delhi, the Vice President of India and Chairman, Rajya Sabha, Shri M. Hamid Ansari said that the explosive growth in the media in the country had highlighted the fact that the Fourth Estate is the only one among the pillars of democracy that has an identifiable commercial and explicitly for-profit persona. He said that while the primary professional duty of media organizations is to their readership to keep them informed and appraised with news, views and ideas, the commercial logic brings in a new set of stakeholders in the form of the shareholders of these companies.
These developments have brought into focus new considerations that guide professional media decisions. Today, the demands of professional journalists are carefully balanced with the interests of owners and stakeholders of media companies and their cross media interests. The interplay of these conflicting demands is evident and subject of public debate. Shri Ansari also referred to The Hindu journalist Shri P. Sainath’s exposure of extensive malpractice of “paid news” and “coverage packages” during the elections and pointed out that the Press Council of India’s guidelines to the media call for “not accepting or publishing any advertisement at the cost of the public exchequer regarding achievements of a party or government in power.” The Council had noted that paid news could cause double jeopardy to Indian democracy through a damaging influence on press functioning as well as on the free and fair election process, he observed.
Speaking at a seminar organized by the Press Council of India on November 16, 2009, at Hyderabad to commemorate the National Press Day, the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Shri K. Rosaiah referred to the “paid news” phenomenon and said “a dangerous tendency that has been gaining ground is the resort to what is described as paid coverage especially during elections”. He added: “Advertisements paid for in cash by different parties or candidates are being published or telecast, camouflaged as news and features. Sections of the media guilty of such practices are undermining democracy either wittingly or unwittingly. A candidate with immense money power can create an illusion through media that he is winning and influence voting behavior since people are given to bet on a winning horse.”
The Chief Minister further said: “I would not be true to myself, the people of the country and Press Council of India if I do not draw the attention to the growing nexus between journalists on one hand and politicians, businessmen and other celebrities on the other, I am told there is a price for every thing. And it is a win-win situation for both sides.”
Turning to the Chairman of the Press Council of India, Justice G.N. Ray, who was presiding over the seminar, he said: “I appeal to the Press Council of India to arrest such media aberrations since any government intervention in media freedom will be a remedy worse than the disease.”
At a seminar organised by the Editors’ Guild of India, the Indian Women’s Press Corps, the Press Association and others on “paid news” in New Delhi on March 13, 2010, leaders of the Congress, the BJP and the CPI-M condemned the malpractice of “paid news” and suggested that the Representation of the People Act be amended to declare “paid news” as an “electoral malpractice”. Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Smt Sushma Swaraj (BJP), CPI-M general secretary Shri Prakash Karat and Congress spokesperson Shri Manish Tewari called for steps to check the malpractice of “paid news”, which had been widely witnessed in the run-up to the fifteenth general elections held in 2009.
Shri Karat said that self-regulation by media would not be enough to solve the problem and hence suggested that “paid news” be declared an electoral malpractice. He also said that “the Election Commission cannot take any action unless the Representation of the People Act is amended.” He added that “if existing laws do not allow this, then suitable changes can be made” while noting that the model code of conduct for elections does not cover the problem. He said that a major hurdle in checking the “paid news” syndrome was that there was no record of money exchanged in the deal. Those who paid money should also be held accountable, he said.
Shri Karat’s suggestion of declaring “paid news” as an electoral malpractice was supported by Smt Swaraj and Shri Tewari. Smt Swaraj said that in her own constituency of Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh, her own media officials had told her how they had been offered a “package of up to Rs one crore by a media organisation” to publish “news” in her favour and print her campaign photographs. “I rejected them all,” she said, adding that this phenomenon had become institutionalised over the years.
She said that she and her party’s representatives were ready to name publications that had approached them with offers of “paid news” if the Election Commission sought details in this regard. “We are ready to name them. We are ready to give evidence if Election Commission formally asks us,” Smt Swaraj said and gave an assurance that the Opposition would push for amending the Representation of the People Act in the Lok Sabha.
Shri Tewari said that there was a need to address the “contradiction between freedom of press and the freedom of the owner of press”. Stressing self-regulation for the media, he also called for giving statutory basis to the model code of conduct for elections and said that he too would provide details to the Election Commission of India if asked for.
Election Commissioner Shri S.Y. Quraishi, who was also present at the seminar, said the Election Commission only had powers when elections were taking place when it could “roar like a tiger”. It was up to legislators to use their power to halt the menace. He promised that the Commission would augment its own machinery, but pointed out that only circumstantial evidence had been put forth so far. There was no transactional evidence that would hold up to legal scrutiny, he said, adding that no political party had made a formal written complaint to the Election Commission as yet.
Shri Shahid Siddiqui, former MP belonging to Bahujan Samaj Party and Shri Karat both said the Election Commission’s decision to ban hoardings and wall graffiti as a campaigning method deprived political parties of cheaper means of reaching out to the people, and forced them to depend on corporate media houses. Senior journalist Shri Kuldip Nayar suggested the setting up of a media commission to look into the “affairs of television and print media”.
Shri Jagdeep S. Chhokar of the Association for Democratic Reforms disagreed with the argument made by Smt Swaraj that political parties were victims of “paid news” and said that only four out of the nearly 6,500 candidates in the last general elections had declared their expenditure as having exceeded the ceiling set by the Election Commission. Shri Chhokar said that while 30 candidates had declared their expenditure to be in the range of 80 per cent to 90 per cent of the limit, most of the candidates had declared it to be less than 50 per cent of the limit.
