On 3 March 2015, The Indian Express published a story, ‘AAP politics: To target Yogendra Yadav, critics in party play tape of call with journalist,’ on how the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) “recorded a telephonic conversation with a journalist—without her knowledge—who wrote a critical piece on the party and that recording is now being used to build a case against Yogendra Yadav in the ongoing feud within the party.” That journalist was Chander Suta Dogra, who was working with The Hindu at the time, and is now with The Indian Express.
As detailed in an online post on the same day by The Indian Express, Yogendra Yadav responded to this report in a note on Facebook by questioning the newspaper’s failure to examine Dogra’s conduct in revealing a source. He went on to cite the email testimonies of two journalists who were present at the meeting and had stated that no sensitive information about Haryana included in the article, was disclosed at the meeting. The Indian Express stated that the emails had been examined and did not change the basis of their story. The online post put up by the publication went on to quote Dogra, “Yadav wants to know why did I reveal my 'sources to an interested party'. Considering that nine people were present at the breakfast meeting, there was no element of confidentiality. Since he was the chief spokesperson of AAP, one assumed that the party was aware of the breakfast meeting. As a responsible reporter, I am fully aware of the sanctity of a relationship between a reporter and a source.”
One of the journalists present at the meeting in question was SP Singh, and his email was among the two cited by Yadav and The Indian Express. In this post, he describes the meeting as he saw it and goes on to raise some pertinent questions that challenge the claims made by the journalist, The Indian Express, as well as the conduct of AAP leadership.
In these times when one sound bite poses as a definitive version of events and the next one puts a spin on that version, all in a tearing hurry because yet another sound bite is waiting to pose as ‘the next most definitive version’ of what took place, journalism needs to pause, no matter how breathless the vocation’s pace as it hurries to keep up with the sound bites flooding in. Journalism, and journalists, need to pause because there is an urgent need to reflect on whether they indeed are what and whom they claim to be.
One such moment has been presented by The Indian Express’ edition on 3 March 2015. It is a very opportune moment, indeed, since not only is the subject some petty intra-party squabble within the AAP, but also journalism and journalists themselves. The fact that the journalist involved is on the payrolls of TheIndian Express itself is a happy happenstance since the newspaper would have had virtually no difficulty in contacting her, seeking her version, pursuing clarifications and clarifications about clarifications—an ideal scenario for a serious newspaper. In an even better happenstance, the journalist concerned did not just narrate her version of the events, she penned it down.
Let's just take things at face value since we are not on television news, and the next sound bite is not around the corner. The facts of the case are simple: the journalist, Chandra Suta Dogra, claims that Yogendra Yadav, a senior leader of the AAP—at least till the time of writing this—met a bunch of journalists at the house of a local AAP leader in Chandigarh on 15 August 2014 over breakfast. Yadav, she claims, spoke about politics in “the backdrop of the AAP’s performance in the Lok Sabha elections, and the party’s decision not to contest the (then forthcoming) Haryana assembly polls.” She continued, “Since this was not a formal press conference, we were told not to attribute the information to Yadav in our writings, but we could use it in other ways.”
Dogra, who worked for The Hindu at the time, went ahead and published a story on 29 August 2014, putting out certain claims about how the National Executive of the AAP voted in favour of contesting Haryana elections. Dogra also incorporated an exact voting break-up within the National Executive, and claimed she had spoken to other sources as well.
I was one of the journalists at that breakfast table, and in the ethical tradition of making full disclosures, must underline that while the aloo parathas were delicious, if Yadav did indeed give out the juicy tidbits mentioned in Ms Dogra’s story, that plate did not make it to the breakfast table where we were seated. Intriguingly, there was only one table.
Months later, as a dirty slugfest broke out between camps competing for turf within the AAP, a phone recording exploded in the face of journalism and the AAP’s self-proclamations of being a holy bunch of do-gooders.
Lest any personal bias creep into my description of this phone call, let us go back to Dogra to understand what this call was about. “The day the article appeared, I got a call from someone who identified himself as ‘Bibhav’ from Arvind Kejriwal’s office in Delhi. (This was Bibhav Kumar, now PS to the Delhi CM). He told me what I had written about the NEC meeting was incorrect. I responded that this information had been shared with me and four other journalists by Yadav, and added that there was no reason for me to doubt his version, which had been given to us in front of several AAP workers.”
Now, the following facts are incontrovertible:
· A source gives the journalist a story.
· The journalist publishes the story based on multiple sources.
· The next day, someone unknown to the journalist calls her, questions facts in the story and asks for the source.
· The journalist loses no time in divulging the source.
· The political man on the other end of the line records the conversation.
· The conversation is then used to slam a political opponent.
· The journalist now confirms in writing that she divulged the source the very next day to someone ‘who identified himself as’ Mr X.
This row elicits some pertinent questions, the answers to which will help define journalism in the sound bite–following–sound bite times in which we live. While the concerned political party is free to settle its own disputes in the manner it considers best, it must also explain the conduct of its top leaders who call up senior journalists, seek to know their sources, make illegal recordings of conversations and then, when it serves their vested interests, make those recordings public. It is also time that those championing the journalism of courage explain if they have redefined the relationship between journalists and their sources.
TheIndian Express, in a surprising manner, has reported the fact that its journalists do not think twice before parting with their sources. For decades, journalists have prided themselves on legends about those wielding the pen preferring to go to jail rather than reveal their sources. In my over four-year stint with The Indian Express in the early 2000s, I used to take pride in the fact that its editors never forced its journalists to reveal their sources even in instances of immense pressure. If anything, I saw them strongly and stoutly defending their journalists. Unless things have gone drastically downhill, I would like to believe that at least this aspect of the newspaper's approach towards journalism has not changed.
Sadly, nothing in TheIndian Express’ account of the AAP’s sting and the related piece that narrated the version of the journalist is reassuring. That journalists calling up AAP leaders will now be on notice that their conversation could be recorded is one bona fide job hazard that they have to live with. That politicians, whistle-blowers, sharing things in confidence with journalists have now been put on notice that sources could be revealed to rank strangers over the phone, is a very sad commentary on this new face of courageous journalism.
I wish The Indian Express story had carried a one line disclaimer: “This newspaper and its journalists ferociously guard the identity of their sources and know how to keep confidences, as long as public interest is served by doing so.” Sadly, it wasn’t there.
We need to be grateful for this internal fight within the AAP. How else would we have been introduced to this new face of journalism? At this juncture, it would be useful to go back and read TheIndian Express’ account of what happened once again. It confirms that the journalist had revealed the source within hours of the story making it into print. It is we who got to know months later, and only because Kejriwal and Yadav fell apart—otherwise we would not have known ever.
“Setting kar lena,” Kejriwal had said after scoring 67/70, as a default approach to fighting corruption. Journalism needs to find more systemic solutions to those in its ranks who indulge in such “settings.” Otherwise readers may be lured into thinking this source-revealing is part of the same approach.
Journalists need to be believed; that is a primary requirement for access, access that helps bring out the truth, access that ensures that when you quote ‘sources,’ readers believe that the journalist would have checked and cross-checked the veracity of the piece and was not planting a story.
Otherwise, the candid version could seem the most unscrupulous. Shorn of all frills, it would sound something like this: “He said here is the dirty dope, you go ahead and publish it. I assure you all of this very true, but don't quote me. I went ahead and published the piece, citing sources. Later I revealed the source to whoever called me to ask.”
Many who have often been at the receiving end of newspaper reports would now be repenting why they did not make that one call to the journalist writing those stories. It is so easy, after all. At least it seems to be so.
From the Express Institute of Media Studies (EXIMS)—The Indian Express-run school of journalism—to the Columbia School of Journalism, any story about sources has references to Deep Throat. It is a pity some throats don’t run so deep, and squeak so easily, making them sound far too jarring.
These are pitiful times. I pity that when one is on the rolls of a newspaper, one does not even have the luxury available to every politician. The journalist concerned cannot claim, “I was misquoted.”
“Is Yogender (Yadav) the man who could be conspiring against Kejriwal? I do not think so,” Om Thanvi wrote on his Facebook page the night before The Indian Express published its journalist’s claims that Yadav had given her the story against Kejriwal. Thanvi is the editor of Jansatta, a sister publication of The Indian Express. It is easy to fathom that even his post would have generated a lot of talk within the media group.
I pity the other journalists representing national newspapers who were also around that table, savouring aloo parathas, since their editors would have asked them why they didn’t file such similarly explosive stories. “Sir, that juicy tid-bit thali was not passed down the table to us. We were just fobbed off with aloo parathas.”
Thank god that at least the parathas were delicious.
*
As I was penning this piece, my attention was drawn to a response posted online by The Indian Express on 3 March, following Yogender Yadav's protestations. It referred to emails of “two journalists” that were forwarded to the newspaper.
I was one of the journalists who had written an email. On the evening of 1 March, after receiving information that Mr Yadav was to hold a press conference in Panchkula the next day at 11:30 am, I inquired as to when he would reach Chandigarh. When I was informed that he may have breakfast with Mr Rajeev Godara—an AAP leader from Haryana—in Chandigarh, I called up Mr Godara and asked if I could meet Mr Yadav at that breakfast, to which he agreed. My interest in meeting him was in the context of the ongoing political row within the AAP. However, later that night, I saw a Whatsapp message being circulated with the links to the Hindu story and the audio conversation purportedly between Ms Dogra and an AAP leader. As a journalist, I saw this as a very serious breach of ethics. Since it was late into the night, I refrained from calling Mr Godara and wrote him an email instead, registering my protest at dragging journalists into dirty political fights, recording their conversations and then circulating them. I also told him that he may no more expect me to be at that breakfast. The next day, on 2 March, a very worried Mr Godara called to ask me if he could forward my email to TheIndian Express since it had referred to Ms Dogra. I told him that I saw no harm in doing so as long as my entire email was forwarded. In fact, I had forwarded the mail to another fellow journalist—a very senior and respected colleague at a national news daily who was also present at the breakfast which was referred to in Ms Dogra’s story—on my own accord. He was in complete agreement with the contents of my mail and wrote back to me, endorsing my sense of rage, and even marking a copy to Mr Godara.
TheIndian Express has now said that it “carefully scrutinised the emails in which the two journalists condemned the AAP for recording a phone conversation with a journalist without her knowledge. Nowhere do these emails say that ‘sensitive information about Haryana,’ as Yadav puts it, was not discussed at the meeting.”
Ms Dogra added to her published response by saying: “Yadav wants to know why did I reveal my ‘sources to an interested party.’ Considering that nine people were present at the breakfast meeting, there was no element of confidentiality.”
In future, do remember to count the number of people in a room, and be well aware of the confidentiality threshold. This is the kind of specious defence that will weaken a journalist's claim the next time he or she asks a person in the know but not in a position to share it without putting himself or herself in harm’s way. There is no merit left to an argument that would state, “Please do not worry, you can share this information with me. It is in public interest. I will keep your identity a secret. At best, only my editor can ask me the source, and rest assured, it will take an army and some heavy weaponry to get him to reveal the source.”
If a journalist reveals a source twenty-four hours after publishing the story, and later claims that there was no confidentiality, would readers not legitimately question why the story was not properly attributed in the first place? Why resort to the fig leaf of a source? Particularly since the confidentiality seems to be binding only for twenty-four hours, and was under breach in any case since there were nine or more people in the room? As for Mr Yadav, he and his other colleagues in the AAP also still need to answer the most pertinent question: how will you make us believe that the next time we call you, or you call us, the conversations will not be recorded?