More Mountain Weed Turd

08.02.08 | 8 Comments | Filed Under Commentary, Indian Politics, Media Watch

Turdesai is not content with smoking Mountain Weed alone. He feeds it to his staff as well by making them write an “explanation” for why his channel didn’t telecast the damaging tapes. From trying to assuage his non-existent conscience to enforcing his guilt upon his staff, Turdesai sinks to newer and newer lows. Owe it to panic over the BJP’s boycott of CNN-IBN or to a late realization of his blunder, he CNN-IBN offers justification an explanation about the decision to not telecast the sting operation tapes. The “explanation” is a study in contradiction.

The title reads Why CNN-IBN did not telecast trust vote sting followed by the opening line, In the last week, there has been speculation over an alleged ‘sting’ operation conducted by CNN-IBN…

From trust vote sting to alleged ’sting’ operation. Note the quotes around sting. The piece reads like a CNN-IBN Policy and Procedure Manual on Self-righteous Reporting. BarbarIndians has a pithy take on it.

Since when does the media wait for a story to “complete”? [.] The story also goes on to quote Harish Salve at length. Salve adds little value except to agree with CNN-IBN not airing the tape, while simultaneously not providing any convincing legal reason for not doing so.

What gives Turdesai’s game away are these interesting nuggets.

1. As it transpired, even before we could complete the process of investigation, three BJP MPs made allegations in parliament of having been bribed and displayed cash in the House.

The sting operation was precisely meant to capture the said bribery. What then, needed to be “completed?”

2. In the politically surcharged circumstances, we felt that the more appropriate step would be to provide the recordings we had made till date to the Speaker of the Lok Sabha as the appropriate constitutional authority.

By this logic, why didn’t Turdesai follow the same hallowed procedure for all sting operations his channel conducted till date?

Turdesai is trying hard to not make his panic public. He should’ve thought a million times before revving up his cameras at the prospect of a juicy story. Indira Gandhi castrated whatever semblance of guts the Indian media allegedly had (Ramnath Goenka is perhaps the only name) at one time. These words have no meaning for this precise reason.

Truth that cannot be partial, inconclusive or sensational, but one that must adhere to exacting standards of fairness and accuracy.

As a parting note, is it amazing that not one media outlet condemned Turdesai’s shameless act?

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