by R. Sasankan

The scroll that often crawls across the bottom of television screen of a news channel simply reads: “Breaking News”. Anything and everything, no matter how trivial is tom-tommed today as a newsbreak as the channels try to score brownie points over each other in the dog-eat-dog world of TV journalism.

But in the slow-paced world of print journalism – and now by extension to the world of web journalism – a news break is still regarded as an extremely rare event because of the higher standards that it sets for itself.

Great reporters can go through an entire lifetime and still count just a handful of big news breaks; many never have one at all. A newsbreak is highly rewarding professionally, but it is also risky and tension ridden.

Several readers of this free access column, which has reported a number of impact making investigative stories, have sought our comments on the recent controversy that erupted after the leak of sensitive documents by a few petroleum portals. I have absolutely no intention to comment on the merits of the charges and counter-charges that have been levelled by the investigating agency and the portal owners.

I am just attempting to articulate the professional aspect of a news break and uphold the right of professional journalists to gain access to official documents in public interest. Professional journalism is always in public interest. But racketeering – by which I mean profiting from the sale of these documents to interested parties – is a pernicious practice that doesn’t serve any public good.

I worked as a journalist in Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi with leading newspapers such as The Economic Times (over 10 years), Indian Express, Times of India and The Telegraph. I firmly believe that in India a professional journalist can be as effective as his counterpart in the US or any western democracy if the management of the news organisation is ready to back him. India nurtures freedom of the press and if he or she exercises those rights in public interest, any reporter can make a difference to the society by toiling to expose corruption at different levels.

A professional journalist cannot survive only on press releases and press conferences. Such people are basically stenographers. A journalist should have access to official sources and, in the process of cultivating them, he may gain access to some documents that are classified as Secret or Confidential. Reporters need documents to buttress any impact-making news report they may be filing because the affected parties are sure to deny the charges made in the report. Copies of documents come in handy to refute counter-charges and in the event of a court case when the person in the eye of the storm decides to sue the paper and the reporter.

My big, ground-breaking news breaks came during the period between 1981 and 1995 – and I am not even counting the ones since. That is the period when I covered a large patch areas like finance, telecom, petroleum, power, shipping and transport and also defence. My petroleum reporting began in 1981 and I have consistently covered that area as I used to contribute to several international magazines.

Any impact-making report will have to be backed up by documents: first to substantiate the story, and then to defend it in the event of denial or a defamation suit. A news report may not be 100 per cent correct and that is not expected either. It has to be essentially correct as some minor distortions are deliberately made to conceal the identity of the source. A journalist need not disclose his source, but if he fails to substantiate the story, the court could send him to jail.

I can narrate innumerable instances of professional journalists getting into problems in the absence of documentary evidence even when the reports were factually correct. Permit me to cite two such instances relating to the petroleum sector.

I started reporting on the petroleum sector for The Economic Times (ET) from April 1981 after a senior journalist covering the area was transferred to the Times of India Bureau. I was new from the Madras Bureau of ET and had never covered the petroleum sector before.

In New Delhi, the information officer of the petroleum ministry was extremely hostile to me as he was a friend of my predecessor. ET’s then editor had wanted to give me the plum assignment and I felt compelled to make a mark just to ensure my professional survival. The first major petroleum story I broke was on May 21, 1981. It appeared as a six column lead on the front page. I had predicted that in the second round of exploration acreage (pre-NELP), expected very shortly, the government would offer a few blocks in Bombay Offshore to foreign companies. That very day the then petroleum secretary, Lovraj Kumar, was addressing an organisation called the Forum of Financial Writers, a body of economic journalists. I was not its member but had gone along to listen to the petroleum secretary who was believed to be an expert on petroleum. As the secretary was being escorted in, I heard him shouting at the top of his voice: “Who is the chap who did the story in today’s Economic Times? It is a Cock-and-Bull story,” he thundered to the Information Officer. I was very young in those days. I had been denounced publicly by the petroleum secretary. Could there be anything more mortifying for a young, professional journalist than to have a petroleum secretary eviscerate his story publicly? Obviously, I started to sweat. Fellow journalists looked at me in pity. The Press Information Bureau issued a lengthy denial the very same day.

My source was authentic and I had seen a sketch of the blocks being offered, but could not obtain a copy as I wasn’t close to him personally. Normally, such documents are not needed for reporting a development like that. But I could have staved off an attack like that and shouted back at the secretary had I possessed documentary evidence. Had the government gone back on its decision? I started to wonder. I could not embarrass my source by visiting him and, therefore, felt very miserable for days.

Three or four weeks later, the exploration round was announced and it proved that I had been correct all along: the government had offered blocks to foreign oil companies in Bombay Offshore. The very next day I wrote a piece in ET titled Cock & Bull Story Proves Correct where I narrated the entire episode and proved that the petroleum secretary did not know the difference between Bombay Offshore and Bombay High and backed it up with a map of Bombay Offshore that ONGC published. Lovraj Kumar called me and my boss for tea in his office and profusely apologised for the mistake. There was no trace of bitterness and we continued to be friends even after he left the government.

The second episode occurred in 1983. ONGC had started drilling in Godavari offshore as part of a World Bank-aided project. The World Bank had advised ONGC not to drill beyond a water depth of 300 metres as there was no proven technology at that time to produce oil or gas beyond that water depth. It was again a lead story in ET.

Journalists in Delhi have a bad habit of running each other down. The bureau chief would hold a meeting every morning where the only topic of discussion was the exclusive stories that the rival newspapers had carried on that day. The reporter who covered the beat would receive a rocket for missing out on the story and peremptorily ordered to do a follow-up story. Smart reporters soon started to argue that the story itself was wrong and therefore not worthy of a follow-up.

I soon learnt that my report on ONGC’s Godavari drilling had figured at the bureau meetings of UNI and PTI, the two leading news agencies. The concerned petroleum correspondents approached the ministry’s information officer who took them to the then ONGC chairman, Col S.P. Wahi, who reportedly dismissed the news item as “utter nonsense” while addressing what was claimed to be a press conference. Next day, most newspapers carried Col Wahi’s reaction.

My source was in Hyderabad where ONGC’s Godavari basin’s office was located. It took about a week for me to obtain a copy of the report. I reproduced verbatim the World Bank recommendation and tartly observed that Col Wahi , however, addressing a press conference attended by two journalists, dismissed the earlier ET report as “utter nonsense”. This provoked Col Wahi to go to the Bombay Office of Bennett, Coleman & Co, publishers of The Economic Times, and meet the then MD, Dr Ram S Tarneja. When I met Col Wahi a week later at ONGC’s press conference, he hugged me and said his visit to the Bombay office was just a courtesy call. Col Wahi is 87 now and he still calls me up once in a while.

The fact that I could take on these tallest figures in India’s petroleum sector professionally enhanced my standing in the world of journalism.

My submission to our esteemed readers is that a professional journalist will need documentary support to not only substantiate his story but also use it to counter any counter-attack that the story might provoke. A hard-hitting story will wound someone or damage somebody’s interests. An honest journalist will hunt for these documents and use them only to further a journalistic cause and not peddle it for a few pieces of silver. Journalism becomes a racket when such documents are traded.

Journalism is a serious profession. But as in any other professions, there are a lot of bad apples. Portals have lately come under attack because three or four of them allegedly indulged in trading of official documents. The law will deal with them but it should not tar everyone with the same brush.

There are a lot of dubious characters in the print media too. Let us not forget the fact quite a few corporate communications executives (earlier referred to as PR) have played their own role in severely undermining the ethics of professional journalism by promoting racketeers. And then they have the gall to run down professional journalists!