This RFC is put forward before the broader community in a bid to re-orient our understanding of reliable sources within the Indian Ecosystem.[c] We will note down specific assertions, by the aforesaid sources, as to a specific publication (or a broader set of sources) and in light of that, propose options to deal with them, which may be !voted upon.
As a general disclaimer, anything contained herein, may not be applied to any pre-2000 publication of the concerned media-units due to grossly different circumstances.[clarification needed]
The huge amount of circumstantial evidence that has been painstakingly gathered by a few well-meaning journalists, unions of journalists, other individuals and organizations together with the testimonies of the politicians and journalists who have deposed before the Press Council of India, goes a very long way in establishing the fact that the pernicious practice of paid news has become widespread across media (both print and electronic, English and non-English languages) in different parts of the country. Interestingly, this phenomenon appears to be less pervasive in states (such as Kerala and Tamil Nadu) where the media is clearly divided along political lines.
The fortunes of the news industry and the state of journalism ought not to be conflated. Manipulation of news, analysis, and comment to suit the owners’ financial or political interests; the downgrading and devaluing of editorial functions and content in some leading newspaper and news television organizations; systematic dumbing down, led by the nose by certain types of market research; the growing willingness within newspapers and news channels to tailor the editorial product to serve advertising and marketing goals set by owners and senior management personnel; hyper-commercialization; ...; advertorials where the paid-for aspect of the news-like content is not properly disclosed or disclosed at all; private treaties; rogue practices like paid election campaign news and bribe-taking for favourable coverage. If this is what it takes to have thriving newspapers and other news media, then there is something seriously wrong with this growth path.
”
It was the 2009 general elections, when the issue of paid news made it to the national headlines for the first time. Though shut down by mainstream media, there were sparse reportings across a few newspapers by reputed journalists along with detailed coverage in investigative magazines, who located the spread and depth of the malaise.
Palagummi Sainath, former Rural-Affairs-Editor at The Hindu and a Ramon Magsaysay Awardee was one such journalist, who did immense pioneer work in the field. He noted of a deep nexus between candidates of political parties and the media houses which resulted in brazen advertisements of candidates and parties being masqueraded under the guise of political news. He went on to note that even national media houses centered in Lutyen's Delhi were not immune to the malaise; the individual journalist lacked importance in this corporate-controlled industry to the extent of some newspapers in Gujarat ordering their in-house journalists to not file political reports, at all. H.N. Cama, member of the Executive Council and past president of the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) asserted that everyone in the media-industry was aware of the ground realities and there were even instances of journalists who were receiving bribes on their own initiatives.
There were multiple debates on the issue, in both the Houses of the Parliament. When Member of Parliament Shri Sanjay Jaiswal spoke about the paid news phenomenon in the Lok Sabha, (during the debate on the President's address), members cutting across political lines had thumped their desks in approval -- the malaise was widespread.
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These media houses offer packages for the projection of certain individuals in all the forms of media that they own and control.
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— Arun Jaitley, the then Leader-of-Opposition in Rajya Sabha and current Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs, Press Council of India Sub-Committee Report on Paid News in India
Ambika Soni, the-then Information and Broadcasting (India) noted it to be a grave threat to the functioning of a free press that had a high potential to mislead the masses and called for corrective measures. Arun Jaitley (the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha), Sushma Swaraj, (the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha), Sitaram Yechury (Chairman of press-affairs committee) have echoed the concerns and urged for drastic measures to prevent these travesties of free-speech.
In Andhra Pradesh, Union of Working Journalists estimated the size of the paid news market to be somewhere between Rs 300 crore and Rs 1,000 crore. Arun Jaitley, the-then Leader of Opposition had pegged the size of the market in Maharashtra to have reached a figure of some thousands of crores. The Election Commission of India offers a more conservative estimate in the range of ₹ 400 crore to ₹ 500 crore, based on confirmed cases.
Most newspapers maintain no paper-trails of these transactions and court-admissible-evidence is nearly impossible to discover.
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... There was no transactional evidence that would hold up to legal scrutiny
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— S. Y. Quraishi, the then Election Commissioner of India, Press Council of India Sub-Committee Report on Paid News in India
The PCI had called for drastic measures including enactment of a law, whereby, if one publishes an article after being paid a certain sum of money, it needs to be mentioned very clearly along with the article but little was implemented. Changes in ground scenario has been feeble, at best.
Yet, for some hope, ECI has set up monitoring cells during elections:-
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... During the Gujarat Assembly Elections of 2012, the PCI set up a four-member Election Coverage Monitoring Committee to look into the issue.64 Their report states that at least 444 suspected cases of paid news were reported in the state of which 224 were served notices by the state ECI ....
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— Anuradha Sharma, IN NEED OF A LEVESON? JOURNALISM IN INDIA IN TIMES OF PAID NEWS AND ‘PRIVATE TREATIES’, Reuters Institute Fellowship, Paper University of Oxford
During the 2014 elections to the Lok Sabha, the EC issued 3100 notices to individual candidates for having indulged in ‘paid news’ and confirmed 787 cases as those of ‘paid news’.
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... 647 cases of paid news were found During Lok Sabha Elections 2019 in Orisha ...
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— Election Commission of India, "647 Paid News Cases During Lok Sabha Elections 2019: EC", IANS, Orishatv.in, 19 May 2019t
We are not in the newspaper business, we are in the advertising business .... Rather than worry about editorial independence and the wall between the newsroom and the sales department, the one secret to a thriving newspaper business lies in dismantling that wall ...
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— Vineet Jain, Managing Director, TOI, "Citizens Jain-Why India’s newspaper industry is thriving", Annals of Communication, The NewYorker, 1 October, 2012
TOI is widely regarded as the avɑ̃ɡaʁd in the domain of paid-news and esp. private treaties. Beginning in the 90s, Vineet Jain, the Managing Director, recruited managers from consumer-product companies like PepsiCo and Unilever and invited them to attend editorial meetings. Amidst various other tactics, he favored these managers over the editors and was described to have successfully prevented them from leaving their mark on the paper by constraining them to work with the C-suite, in an integral fashion.
TOI's innovations in the sector began in its city supplements titled the "City Times". Containing color pictures of seductive women and muscular men, along with stories of Bollywood stars, handsome cricket pros, and international celebrities, they appealed to the youth. The lead story of a particular day had described how aspiring actors, including a sultry Saiyami Kher, were “keen to start their innings in Bollywood.” Jain explained to the author of the NewYorker piece that, like the surrounding stories, it was written by members of the reporting staff and paid for by the celebrities or their publicists. An internal company report in June lauded the strategy as “so important that today nearly all Bollywood movie releases pay for promotional coverage ahead of movie releases, and actors/actresses pay to develop their brand through coverage in the paper.” These advertorials were written by staff reporters and it was near implausible for a reader to ascertain that they were paid-for.
A Guardian article noted that space could be bought in the Delhi Times supplement or TOI's city pages, for £27 a centimetre on the front page, or £16 inside and could even be dressed up as a genuine news story, as long as it met a celebrity quotient. It went on to note that a recent Times article about the launch of a range of ballpoint pens had been paid for by a marketing company.
As these advertisement campaigns in the guise of news, were favorably received by the audience and the clients, TOI expanded its business maneuvers. They began to assert for a monopoly in the market and often, arranged for similar deals with its other regional brands, as kickbacks:-
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..... We tell advertisers that if you want to be in the Times of India you have to drop our Marathi competitors and take the ads to our Marathi paper
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— Ken Auletta, "Citizens Jain-Why India’s newspaper industry is thriving", Annals of Communication, The NewYorker, 1 October, 2012
Jain's philosophy was of a paper that minted money whilst satisfying the youthfulness of the populace -- to the extents of disproportionately focusing on the aspects of a disaster, that inculcated a spirit of optimism. Themes of sorrow and death were not to be made prominent. But, this change occurred at the cost of editorial rigor. Issues of importance, were pushed back, because they were supposedly mundane and the brand embraced to a quality of journalism, that became poorer with time.
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... Fernandes recalled admonishing his reporters in a memo, “A quote is exactly what somebody said and the way he said it.” A fellow-editor dressed him down: “You’re bringing American standards to the newspaper.” Eight months later, Fernandes resigned.
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— Ken Auletta, "Citizens Jain-Why India’s newspaper industry is thriving", Annals of Communication, The NewYorker, 1 October, 2012
Darryl D’Monte, a Cambridge-educated editor and writer who once served in a senior editorial capacity at the Times, blamed Samir Jain and The Times to have corrupted the entire face of Indian journalism, including television.
As the group sought for even more profits, the next giant leap in the field came in the form of Medianet, which (for a price), openly offered to send journalists to cover product launches or personality-related events. While BCCL representatives denied providing any favourable editorial space to the contracted clients, multiple observers noted that the integrity of news was by and large compromised; often favoring private corporate houses. The advertorial coverage, that stemmed from these treaties, were often punched with mainstream news and even a fig-leaf of a disclaimer was often done away with.
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... A doctoral study of the Times’ coverage, by Vinod K. Jose, an editor at the magazine The Caravan, showed that the paper aired the concerns of Honda and the harm done to India’s investment climate, while largely ignoring the issues raised by workers.
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— Ken Auletta, "Citizens Jain-Why India’s newspaper industry is thriving", Annals of Communication, The NewYorker, 1 October, 2012
Palagummi Sainath, of the Hindu, offered an interesting case study about how the group skewed its news to favor these contractors. A full-page article, titled “Reaping gold through BT cotton,” published on August 28, 2011, declared that Monsanto’s genetically modified Bt cotton seeds have “led to a social and economic transformation of the villages.” It appeared to be a news story, complete with a byline, but close inspection of the small print revealed that it was a “marketing feature,” paid for by Monsanto. The advertisement had run “word for word” three years earlier as a news story in the Nagpur edition of the Times. Remarkably, both the story and the ad were misleading: in fact, the Bt seeds did not grow cotton as promised; the land lay fallow, and farmers went bankrupt. Since 2003, more than thirty-three thousand farmers had committed suicide in the state of Maharashtra, including nine in the “model farming village” depicted in the story and the ad.
Another independent watchdog noted that the Times of India had deliberately left out the name of its private treaty partner, Sobha Developers, while reporting on a work-site accident in Bangalore in 2008, unlike other English and Kannada dailies. A follow-up report too, simply said "a private construction company" without naming it. Famed journalist Sucheta Dalal had compiled a list of headlines, issued on behalf of private treaty clients, that revealed a heavy slant.
Independent observers have long noted the terms of these private treaties to be non-transparent and that it's not known whether equities are paid only for advertising space or for editorial space too. Jain has lightly rebutted these observations by asserting of a purported separation of powers between the editorial and sales team and alleging that the editors did not know of the private treaty clients (which's false, given that the website has a publicly available list of these clients). The group, however, did not have any major qualms about the often non-transparent dealings. An interview with their CEO, went as follows:-
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Interviewer:- There was a year-long series of articles on the brand Olay in Delhi Times. It was a paid marketing campaign, but a media ethics report says this was not clear to readers.
Times Group CEO:- Even if you make an advertisement, and put a circle around it, how is that important? Why is it important that it should be made clear to the reader? Are we writing something that is wrong? This kind of thing is only important to media persons. You as an editor would make a big deal about it, by saying this is my territory....
Interviewer:- No, it creates a buzz. It gives the impression that you are endorsing a product objectively, whereas you are doing so because you are paid to.
Times Group CEO:- We are not endorsing any product, and the reader understands it.
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— Anjali Puri, "Our Paper Isn’t For Our Editors. It’s For People", Outlook, 01 November, 2010
The most vital evidence, as to the penetration of these clients, into the newsroom, came in the form of a leaked email from a top brass of Economic Times:-
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At ET (The Economic Times), we are carving out a separate team to look into the needs of Private Treaty clients. Every large centre will have a senior editorial person to interface with Treaty clients. In turn, the senior edit person will be responsible, along with the existing team, for edit delivery ... In this way, we will be able to incorporate PT into the editorial mainstream, rather than it looking like a series of press releases appearing in vanilla form in the paper ....
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— A leaked email, IN NEED OF A LEVESON? JOURNALISM IN INDIA IN TIMES OF PAID NEWS AND ‘PRIVATE TREATIES’, Reuters Institute Fellowship, Paper University of Oxford
The brazenness with which the group pulled it's advertorial news stunts, all through the years, had shocked numerous observers. An article over the Mumbai edition of the newspaper referred as to how Pantaloon‘s strategic partnership with the TOI group had paid off. It read :-
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... with the added advantage of being a media house, Times Private Treaties, went beyond the usual role of an investor by not straining the partner‘s cash flows. It was because of the unparalleled advertising muscle of India‘s leading media conglomerate. As Pantaloon furiously expanded, Times Private Treaties (TPT) ensured that (it) was never short on demand. The TPT has a better phrase for it -- business sense....
... “They have set standards where advertisers can ask for anything,” he told me. Brazen advertisers have said to him directly, “If the Times of India does it, why can’t you do it?” He described interviewing Times reporters for jobs, “and they told me they couldn’t write this story” because the subjects were private-treaty clients.
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— Ken Auletta, "Citizens Jain-Why India’s newspaper industry is thriving", Annals of Communication, The NewYorker, 1 October, 2012
Despite being traditionally non-aligned with any political ideology (and garnering praises for the stance), TOI in recent years, have been often observed to be in a bonhomie with the ruling NDA government.
A leaked WhatsApp message in June 2017 revealed the extent of collusion between TOI editors and the Narendra Modi government. Sent mistakenly on an internal TOI journalist group by the paper’s executive editor, the message detailed how he, along with former Economic Times and OPEN magazine editor, lobbied on behalf of an unnamed income tax official with finance minister Arun Jaitley.
Numerous articles critical of the ruling party were taken down, within hours of being published. An interesting cross-cutting of political-paid-editing, w/o any minimal disclaimer, cropped after the hugely controversial 2016 Indian banknote demonetisation:-
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“It’s a gospel truth that Narendra Modi is the best prime minister of the country. The initiatives undertaken by the honourable prime minister have brought a paradigm shift in the country’s progress…” – claimed an article in Times Group’s Mumbai Mirror.
While the article appeared on the Mirror website with no disclaimer, in the print edition it was published on page 27, which was marked in small print on the top of the page as ‘Promotion of business of entertainment’ – also known as advertising.
The PCI report noted of an advertising campaign by razor blade manufacturing company, Gillete, which called war against lazy stubble(!) and was broadcast on their news channel. The channel showcased features about it, interviewed celebrities and even had panel discussions on the topic of whether a man should shave or not with a foregone conclusion:― Indian women prefer clean shaven men.
Gillette and CNN-IBN were in an exclusive partnership which was a mutually beneficial alliance. The committee located many other such examples of advertorials.
Anuradha Sharma notes that HT Media (which is the flagship company of the newspaper) had its separate division Brand Promotions which oversaw sponsored content in the city supplements of Hindustan Times. Almost all major media houses were involved in the same practices, sometimes with even less clarity. The group uses the term strategic partnerships (instead of private treaties), wherein it invested into a company and advised it on building its brand value. Business Standard chief editor T.N. Ninan, defined them as a transfer of shares in return for advertising.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee had noted, as a general observation, that the introduction of private treaties often sold favorable coverage for barter and the business model has attracted very severe criticism for its inherent conflict of interest.
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.... "I am sure media strategy is a very very big part of Sangh strategy, so you should attack in two ways. One is tying up with media houses, so if you are giving me a couple of crore rupees to talk positive about you, automatically my editorial is under pressure not to go deep negative .... you should find a PR company of repute which has inroads in the top market, right, and they can control the reporters, kyonki (because) they are the source of news ...."
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— Avneesh Bansal, associate vice president of HT Media Ltd.
The group had found an undercover reporter’s proposal of peddling a political religio-ideological narrative under the guise of news to be quite attractive. The group’s executives even offered “editorial support” to ‘Acharya Atal’ for his activities as part of an advertising package. The agenda included promoting Hindutva in the initial phase of three months through customised religious programs to create a congenial atmosphere and then, as elections approach, to target opposition leaders.
The incidence of paid news have been documented to be much more prevalent in regional sources.
The PCI report notes multiple instances of impropriety followed by journalists and media organizations in Hindi-speaking states (esp. Haryana, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh et al) before the 2009 general elections.
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... Several editions of newspapers published from Maharashtra in between October 1, 2009 and October 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.
Barring a few, most newspapers in these states entered into deals with candidates of various political parties contesting in the general elections whereby they offered publicity packages to specific candidates and/or political parties to which they belonged for money. Reports coming from Gujarat, Karnataka and Chattisgarh showed how editorials of various newspapers were pressurized by their respective managements to stop asking questions, unfavorable to certain parties. Sainath described a brazen case of affairs wherein the local language papers readily accepted his accusations (of renting their editorial privileges) and merely subverted the blame onto the cut-throat competition from local editions of national dailies.
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... had been offered a package of up to Rs one crore by a media organisation to publish news in my favour and print my campaign photographs .... My supporters came to me and pleaded with me to please pay. They said that otherwise my political opponents would get all the publicity and I would get nothing....
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— Sushma Swaraj, the then Leader-of-Opposition and current Minister of External Affairs, Press Council of India Sub-Committee Report on Paid News in India
Rate cards were prepared and given to candidates together with a warning that the newspaper offering the package would publish no news whatsoever about the individual candidate and/or his or her party if the candidate/party did not accept the package. Senior journalist Mrinal Pande came across one such rate-card of one famed Hindi daily published from a rich western Indian State which laid down a sequential map of activities to promote the party or individual candidates, quoting prices for each step. Four-page supplements in color, exclusive interviews, positive views of the voters, positive editorial analysis, "only positive coverage".
Politicians, from across the spectrum, has accused the regional newspapers of asking for huge sums of money, to publish news about election campaign and biasing news, in their favor.
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... Every single newspaper was on sale in my constituency and I was told that I had to pay up for publicity ...
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— Yogi Adityanath, the-then BJP Member of Parliament from Gorakhpur and current Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Press Council of India Sub-Committee Report on Paid News in India
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... Got a press release full of falsehoods—claiming he campaigned in places he didn't— published verbatim in exchange for money ...
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— Paul Beckett, “Want Press Coverage? Give me some money”, Wall Street Journal, May 2009,
.... published articles praising various candidates before the Parliamentary elections .... added "HT Media Marketing Initiative" at the bottom of such items ...
.... On April 15, the Varanasi edition of Hindustan newspaper published three articles on its front page praising a particular candidate named Tulsi Singh Rajput. In addition, three photographs of Shri Rajput, (including one spread over three columns), were printed over the same page. The following day's edition carried a clarification that what had been published the previous day was an advertisement.
The Ranchi edition of Dainik Jagran published a news package on page 3 of its April 15, 2009 edition, in favour of a candidate belonging to the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) Shri Kameshwar Baitha. This news item stated that Shri Baitha was getting the support of each and every section of society and that he would win elections from the Palamau Lok Sabha constituency. There is no credit line to this news item and the font used for this news item was different from the font used in other news items in the publication. On the same page, the newspaper had published another news item stating that there would be a triangular contest between three candidates belonging to the JMM, the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha and an independent candidate. This report has been credited to a reporter of the newspaper.
On April 13, 2009, the Ranchi edition of Dainik Jagran published two news items on page 7, both relating to the Chatra Lok Sabha constituency. The first item was in favour of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) candidate Shri Nagmani (one name) with the headline stating:- Nagmani is getting support from every class and section virtually declaring that he would become the undisputed winner. The same page had another news item claiming that Shri Arun Kumar Yadav, a candidate belonging to Janata Dal (United), who contested from the same constituency, would emerge a clear winner. Both the items do not carry any byline although the font used is different from the font used for other news articles in the publication.
A representative of Dainik Jagran came to me 20 days before the election and clearly told me: If you want coverage in this election, you have to buy a "package". These packages were worth lakhs of rupees. After that, a representative of Dainik Bhaskar visited me in my home. He too offered me a package.....Certain reporters also told me that reports that they had written about my election campaign were not published. I realized that newspaper owners were using reporters as their tools
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— A former civil aviation minister, Press Council of India Sub-Committee Report on Paid News in India
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After I had filed my nomination paper, a representative of the Varanasi edition of Dainik Jagran contacted me and asked me to buy one of two packages worth Rs 5 lakh and Rs 10 lakh respectively, for which I was offered comprehensive coverage of my election campaign.
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— A candidate of Congress party from Azamgarh, Press Council of India Sub-Committee Report on Paid News in India
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Newspapers such as ... Dainik Jagran .... asked me for money and offered packages varying between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 10 lakh.
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— A Samajwadi Party candidate, Press Council of India Sub-Committee Report on Paid News in India
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During the election campaign in 2009, the bureau chief of Dainik Jagran came to me and asked me to pay money for coverage ..... He demanded Rs 15 lakh from me. During those days, his newspaper had published a few lines about me. But much more space, in fact, two full pages, was devoted to reports about the activities of Smt Sudha Rai, the Congress party‘s candidate from the constituency.....
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— A BJP candidate, Press Council of India Sub-Committee Report on Paid News in India
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Dainik Jagran demanded money to publish positive news about me. When I refused to pay, the newspapers responded by blacking out any news about me altogether from its pages. My election campaign went unreported.
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— Atul Anjaan of the Communist Party of India, Press Council of India Sub-Committee Report on Paid News in India
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A Lucknow-based non-government organization, the National Alliance of People's Movements, analysed issues of Dainik Jagran that were published between April 01, 2009 and April 30, 2009 .... documented a number of instances of paid news articles ... It suggested that the Registrar of Newspapers of India should cancel the registration of the concerned publications ....
... published a news item in the Panipat edition... that was in favour of the electoral prospects of the Congress. The news item did not carry any byline ... Says that non-Congress parties would not be able to make a mark in the elections.... Each and every sentence of this news item is in favour of the Congress party ..... the Ludhiana edition of the same newspaper published a news item days later, with a headline that stated that the HJC would play the role of king or king-maker after the elections. Each line of this news item sings paeans of praise in favour of the HJC .... Surprisingly, on the very next day, the Ludhiana edition of the same newspaper again published a news item that was apparently paid for in favour of INLD and is credited to a reporter. Each line of the last-mentioned news item clearly favours the INLD. This news item reported that there was a wave in favour of the INLD in Haryana ..... On the next day, that is, on October 13, 2009, the Ludhiana edition of the Dainik Jagran reverted to praising the Congress in another news item. There is no credit line given to this news story, the headline of which claimed that the Congress was ready to repeat the history.
The PCI report notes Shri Nishikant Thakur, Chief General Manager, Jagran Prakashan Ltd., to claim :-
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... the controversy relating to paid news was nothing but rumours spread by lost candidates in frustration .... frivolous and factually incorrect .... the ceilings of expenditure laid down by the Election Commission of India were unrealistic and out of tune with reality .... attempts by candidates to influence individual reports ―in the rush of election coverage could go undetected by the editorial board ..... 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 ....
... Published articles praising various candidates before the Parliamentary elections .... added "PK Media Marketing Initiative" at the bottom of such items.
... Another newspaper, Aaj, asked for an amount varying between Rs 50,000 and Rs 5 lakh ...
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— A candidate of Congress party from Azamgarh, Press Council of India Sub-Committee Report on Paid News in India
Politicians, from across the spectrum, has accused the newspaper of asking for huge sums of money, to publish news about election campaign and bias news, in their favor. The representatives of these newspapers allegedly claimed that they were abiding by orders given to them by their managers. Was a victim of the Cobrapost sting.
Amar Ujala asked me for money and offered packages varying between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 10 lakh.
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— A Samajwadi Party candidate, Press Council of India Sub-Committee Report on Paid News in India
Politicians, from across the spectrum, has accused the newspaper of asking for huge sums of money, to publish news about election campaign and bias news, in their favor. Was a victim of the Cobrapost sting.
The Rohtak edition of Haribhoomi published a news item on October 8, 2009 in favour of Congress candidate Shri Birendra Singh. .... However, this news item carried no byline. This news item claimed that Shri Singh had been getting support from all and sundry in society. Detailed descriptions of the plans of his election campaign were also mentioned. Using the same format, Haribhoomi published a news item in favour of BJP candidate Shri Meva Singh the following day, that is, on October 9, 2009 .... this news item claimed that Meva has got support from each and every section of society ....
The PCI report notes of a Lucknow-based non-government-organization, the National Alliance of People's Movements that suggested of the above measure, after analysing issues of Dainik Hindustan that were published between April 01, 2009 and April 30, 2009 which exhibited a number of instances of paid news articles.
The PCI report notes of a Lucknow-based non-government-organization, the National Alliance of People's Movements that suggested of the above measure, after analysing issues of Rashtriya Sahara that were published between April 01, 2009 and April 30, 2009 which exhibited a number of instances of paid news articles.
The PCI report notes of a Lucknow-based non-government-organization, the National Alliance of People's Movements that suggested of the above measure, after analysing issues of Voice of Lucknow that were published between April 01, 2009 and April 30, 2009 which exhibited a number of instances of paid news articles.
... Punjab Kesari demanded money to publish positive news about me. When I refused to pay, the newspapers responded by blacking out any news about me altogether from its pages. My election campaign went unreported ...
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— Atul Anjaan of the Communist Party of India, Press Council of India Sub-Committee Report on Paid News in India
A senior manager ofthe publication accepted in an interview that the newspaper had earned anywhere between Rs 10 crore and Rs 12 crore for carrying ―paid news items during the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. Was a victim of the Cobrapost sting.
Copies of three newspapers: Lokmat, Pudhari and Maharashtra Times, which are essentially competing brands, carried the same article on Shri Ashok Chavan, (leader of Congress party) word for word except for bylines. The article appeared in Pudhari on October 7, while the other two newspapers carried it on October 10.
The PCI report went on to note that the Lokmat had published 156 pages of advertisements in the run-up to the election and all of them were in favor of M.S.Chouhan, a Congress leader. It as a victim of Cobrapost sting.
Copies of three newspapers: Lokmat, Pudhari and Maharashtra Times, which are essentially competing brands, carried the same article on Shri Ashok Chavan, (leader of Congress party) word for word except for bylines. The article appeared in Pudhari on October 7, while the other two newspapers carried it on October 10.
Copies of three newspapers: Lokmat, Pudhari and Maharashtra Times, which are essentially competing brands, carried the same article on Shri Ashok Chavan, (leader of Congress party) word for word except for bylines. The article appeared in Pudhari on October 7, while the other two newspapers carried it on October 10.
Television channel Aaj Tak demanded money to publish positive news about me. When I refused to pay, the newspapers responded by blacking out any news about me altogether from its pages. My election campaign went unreported.
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— Atul Anjaan of the Communist Party of India, Press Council of India Sub-Committee Report on Paid News in India
“
Aajtak had broadcast numerous paid-for segments w/o notifying the viewers about the same.
”
— Press Council of India Sub-Committee Report on Paid News in India
... 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
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— Parcha Kodanda Rama Rao of the Loksatta Party, Press Council of India Sub-Committee Report on Paid News in India
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... carried an article on the front page claimed a huge victory was awaiting the TDP candidate .... The same edition of the newspaper, on its back page, carried a story saying the Congress candidate from the same constituency was going to win the seat....
... paid news is part of a larger malaise afflicting the media in the country ... Eenadu maintains a strict distinction between advertisements and news .... With the money power at his command, new entrants manipulated the local media person to gain popularity and public acceptance .... Money thus acted as a ladder to gain political power .... The so-called paid favourable coverage by the press is one of the offshoots of this tendency ....
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— Ramaji Rao, founder, Eenadu group, Press Council of India Sub-Committee Report on Paid News in India
... in a tabloid attached to its West Godavari district edition dated April 23, 2009, carried an article on the front page claimed a huge victory was awaiting the TDP candidate .... The same edition of the newspaper, on its back page, carried a story saying the Congress candidate from the same constituency was going to win the seat....
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... for 27 days between March 28, 2009 and April 23, 2009, Eenadu published 87 political advertisements and 163 paid news stories ...
... 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 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....
... While the journalists were fixed on the figure of Rs 100 crore (almost £11 million), the company executives were insisting it was a massive amount and wondering how the figure rose from an earlier quotation of Rs 20 crore. "If you forge a relationship with us, I‘ll see what best I can do", one of the journalists promised in the end ....
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— Anuradha Sharma, IN NEED OF A LEVESON? JOURNALISM IN INDIA IN TIMES OF PAID NEWS AND ‘PRIVATE TREATIES’, Reuters Institute Fellowship, Paper University of Oxford
The above quote was part of a bargain-deal at an upmarket coffee shop in New Delhi in the autumn of 2012 between two senior journalists from the Zee News TV channel and top-tier executives of the Jindal Steel and Power Company. Little did Zee realize that they were being entrapped in a sting operation and would make the headlines the next day, for attempting to extort money. On November 27, 2012, Zee's Group Editor Sudhir Chaudhary and Business Head Samir Ahluwalia were arrested by Delhi Police on charges of trying to extort a Rs 100 crore advertising deal in exchange for favorable news coverage. A bevy of legal cases were filed by JSPL and Zee Group against each other; six years later, the parties decided to call it a day and signed a MOU, that blamed the past saga on some misunderstandings.
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... Purushottam Vaishnav, who is now CEO regional news channels at Zee Media stated:- Whatever input you will send in the form of content that will be absorbed ...
^Paid news is a practice through which organizations (for-profit and non-profit), public figures/celebrities, politicians, political parties, brands/movies pay cash or equivalent to a media group or television channel or a newspaper or a magazine or a journalist, to be in the news, for sustained positive coverage, and to avoid negative coverage -- biased and one-sided news items are passed off as routine news coverage. Its occurrence goes up during elections, when individual candidates or their parties could do with orchestrated hype.
^Private treaties (or "brand capital agreements") are signed, long term private confidential agreements between a person or party or organization and a media group or television channel or newspaper or magazine. A private treaty gives an equity position, or equivalent ownership/commission/payment interest to the media group/owners.
^The origins of this discussion may be noted over here.
