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In defence of tehelka.com

Journalists, as a tribe, can be extremely territorial, as well as envious of others' achievements. Given this, they follow a very simple rule of thumb to judge the importance of a news report: did it appear under their own byline, ie, name? If it didn't, then the report needs to be trashed.

And apropos tehelka.com's superlative effort in taking the match-fixing/bribery/match-throwing scandal forward, the media has, unfortunately, chosen to tie itself into knots over the ethicality or otherwise of employing the hidden camera, rather than excoriate the establishment for playing the ostrich or try to take forward the truth.

Look at the twists and turns in the match-fixing scandal since it first exploded on our frontpages three years ago. Since then, despite the all-around conviction that yes, the Indian cricketing establishment, barring one or two, was on the take, all that we have seen were official efforts to brush the truth under the carpet. Oh yes, everyone was willing to implicate everyone else's father and sister in the scam -- but purely off the record. On record, the BCCI was as virtuous as a convent.

This, despite Hansie Cronje being nailed in India for deciding the outcome of a match off the pitch. Simple logic indicates that Cronje would not have done what he did had match-fixing not existed on Indian soil, but logic was something that those who preside over the game's destiny had kissed goodbye long ago.

So what did tehelka.com do? It went behind the scenes and ripped the masks off the faces of the very same people who either told us that match-fixing was a concept alien to India or that no Indian player was involved in altering the outcome of a match through unfair means. Obviously, to get the stiff upper lip to ease must have taken a bit of inveigling, and an element of deception, but Manoj Prabhakar was up to the task.

What he and tehelka.com produced may not win ratings for technical brilliance, but as someone who has spent 15 years in the production and presentation of news I have no hesitation in saying that this was brilliant journalistic work.

For, as I see it, the media's job is not to merely present the establishment's version of the truth, but to tell its audience -- whether readers of the print media, viewers and listeners of the electronic media, or surfers of the Internet media -- what the truth is all about. That is the prime responsibility, all other things are secondary. There is no ethics involved in getting at the facts, for truth is often its own defence.

The chorus against the means employed by tehelka.com could well have another explanation. Which is that there is no true investigative journalism practised in India, at least not in the mainstream media. The greatest exposes that lay claim to tenancy in the profession's hall of fame were all handed out on a platter, by interested parties who chose to involve the media in their quarrel so that public opinion could be moulded in their favour by outraged and underpaid scribes.

Journalists are so used to documents, facts, etc being delivered to them, that the task of actually going out there and finding out the truth has begun to pall them. What I would have liked to see our venerable media institutions do following tehelka.com's expose was to nail the cricketing barons who have lied through their teeth, and not go after those who are ranged on their own side.

Indian legends are full of instances where the hero has often veered off the straight and narrow to achieve his goal. Sugreeva could never have vanquished his elder brother, the innocent and heroic Vaali, but for Rama's timely, but concealed assistance. And yet, Ram is feted as the maryada purshottam while Vaali has somehow become the villain in our eyes. Instances abound of such dichotomy, when those who we worship as paragons of virtue have been shown up to be mere men. May not be full of warts as the rest of us, but surely not deserving of the adulation we heap on them, if only we stopped to think.

What our legends tell us is that apart from the ends justifying the means, very often the means also justify the end. tehelka.com decided that its end was the exposure of the truth, and it chose the only means available to it, the only means that could have delivered the truth, packed and sealed. Does it matter that the evidence it turned up may not stand legal scrutiny? Frankly, the case has been tried in the people's court and the jury has returned its verdict: guilty as charged.

So let not the rest of the media's insistence on ethics confuse you. If you want a soupcon of the media's high ethical standards, allow Manoj Prabhakar and his hidden camera to travel with the media on just one of the prime minister's jaunts. What he will unearth there will stun you...

Saisuresh Sivaswamy