The Indian blogosphere is up in arms against television channel NDTV’s controversial Managing Editor Barkha Dutt, for the second time in almost ten weeks.
Bloggers were scathing in their criticism of Barkha Dutt’s sensationalistic coverage of the 11/26 Mumbai terror attack, accusing her of broadcasting sensitive information about the position of hostages and security troops, sensationalizing the news coverage, and being borderline hysterical, in general. The National Security Guard, the Naval Chief, and the Information & Broadcasting Ministry had also criticized Indian news television coverage of the crisis. This groundswell of criticism prompted mainstream media to join in (The Hindu, The Indian Express) and forced Barkha Dutt and NDTV to go on the defensive (LiveMint).
Now, Indian bloggers have once again come together to condemn NDTV and Barkha Dutt for bullying blogger Chyetanya Kunte into taking down his post “Shoddy Journalism“, and posting a retraction, presumably under threat of legal action. You can still read the Google cache of the original post.
Chyetanya sent me an email on January 25th, requesting me to take down the link to his post in my roundup of reactions to media coverage of the 11/26 Mumbai terror attack. I haven’t taken down the link and excerpt yet, but I have refrained from blogging about the issue so far out of concern for complicating Chyetanya’s and, perhaps, my own legal situation.
In an ironic turn of events, however, Chyetanya’s retraction post has prompted even more bloggers to discuss the very same criticisms that NDTV had an issue with –
- a lack of ethics, responsibility and professionalism by Ms. Dutt and NDTV Limited;
- that Ms. Dutt and NDTV’s reporting at the scene of the Mumbai attacks during November 2008, resulted in jeopardizing the safety and lives of civilians and / or security personnel caught up in and / or involved in defending against the attacks in Mumbai in November 2008;
- that Ms. Dutt was responsible for the death of Indian Servicemen during the Kargil Conflict.
Let me say that I don’t necessarily agree with the opinions expressed in Chyetanya’s original post. In fact, I was one of the few bloggers actually defending Indian media’s coverage of the 11/26 crisis. I think that NDTV and Barkha Dutt are wrong in bullying Chyetanya, but that doesn’t mean that I’ll change my views on whether they were wrong to begin with.
I’m not a legal expert, so I’ll also refrain from decoding defamation law and speculating on whether or not NDTV had sufficient ground for legal action against Chyetanya or whether quoting from Wikipedia insulates you from defamation. I also have no direct insight into why Chyetanya decided to take down his post, instead of fighting back with NDTV.
I’ll also restrain myself from invoking the “freedom of speech” argument and insisting that bloggers should have the same rights and protections as journalists. Even in the United States, where more nuanced debate has happened on bloggers’ rights, there’s no universal agreement that bloggers should have the same protections as journalists. I’m sure that most Indian judges will have a less nuanced view on this issue. I also suspect that most Indian courts will decide that bloggers should have the same responsibilities as journalists, but not necessarily the same rights.
Many other bloggers have already argued all these points, and argued them well, and I’ll link to them at the end of the post. I’ll also continue updating the links as the story unfolds. In this post, I’ll focus instead on the lessons the Barkha Dutt episode has for bloggers, journalists and media organizations, and brands in general.
To begin with, media organizations need to accept that bloggers will watch them and criticize them, whenever they make a mistake. Many journalists, some of whom are bloggers themselves, welcome this reality and even see the blogosphere as a realization of Habermas‘ public sphere. Some journalist disagree. Shobhan Saxena at TOI has called blogs “rubbish” and Barkha Dutt herself has previously wondered if blogs should be regulated. The point is that, irrespective of which end of the spectrum they are on, journalists and media organizations will need to accept that blog sousveillance is here to stay.
Bloggers themselves need to assume that they are subject to some of the same laws that journalists are subject to, including defamation and libel laws. What’s more, they don’t have some of the protections journalists enjoy, both in terms of the law itself and access to legal support. Organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) may help, but only in a limited way, and only selectively. Some organizations will feel wronged by comments on blogs, forums and online review websites, and some of them will be foolish enough to threaten bloggers with legal action. Even if the legal threat has suspicious validity, most bloggers, who have regular 9 to 5 jobs, may not have the inclination or the resources to get involved in a lengthy legal battle. So, bloggers will do well to be careful with the language they use to criticize brands, celebrities, or organizations. A carefully worded criticism can have as much impact as an emotional outburst, without opening up the possibility of legal action.
Organizations, including media organizations, need to realize that, in spite of the rights and wrongs of a situation, threatening a blogger with legal action and forcing him to put up an apology is the worst PR tactic possible. Bloggers are famously defensive of free speech, and legal threats have a way of making bloggers into martyrs and rallying the blogosphere in their support. Yes, there was caustic criticism of NDTV and Barkha Dutt in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attack. Yes, some of it might have been excessive. But, I’m sure that it was nothing compared to the criticism Ms. Dutt is going to be subjected to now. Even bloggers like myself who defended her two months back feel compelled to denounce her double standards on freedom of speech now. What’s more, even though the original post has been deleted, it’s copies will exist perennially and activists and academics will refer to it repeatedly as an example of a damage control move gone wrong. So, I welcome NDTV and Barkha Dutt to the list of brands that got punk’d by social media and I won’t be surprised if the severity of damage to their brands by this blogger backlash escalates quickly.
Finally, this incident is eerily reminiscent of the Mediaah!-TOI controversy in March 2005 and the IIPM-Gaurav Sabnis controversy in October 2005. I think it’s worthwhile to remember what happened during those two incidents, so that we can learn from them, in dealing with this situation.
In March 2005, Pradyuman Maheshwari, who is now the Editor in Chief for Exchange4Media, shut down his media criticism blog Mediaah! after The Times of India served him a legal threat for libel and asked him to take down nineteen posts that criticized TOI on various issues, including its tendency to blur the boundaries between ads and editorial content. For more, see: Mark Glaser in OJR, Mediaha, Reporters Without Borders, Sevanti Ninan, Peter Griffin.
In October 2005, business school IIPM sent legal notices to Indian bloggers Rashmi Bansal, Gaurav Sabnis and Varna Sriraman after they exposed its unsubstantiated advertising claims. Gaurav quit his job at IBM to save them a PR disaster. The Indian blogosphere joined together to fight IIPM, and the mainstream media picked up the story, resulting in a huge PR nightmare for IIPM. For more, see: Mark Glaser in OJR, Gaurav Sabnis 1, Gaurav Sabnis 2, Gaurav Sabnis 3, Patrix at Desipundit, Amit Varma, Sambhar Mafia, Neha Viswanathan in Global Voices, TR Vivek in Outlook India, Ethan Zuckerman.
The two incidents were similar in many ways. A large organization threatened a blogger with legal action, unless they took down their posts and apologized. The blogosphere was mobilized by the David versus the Goliath situation and came together to condemn the bully organization. The legal threat backfired and activists and academics wrote case studies on the incident years after the it happened.
The two incidents were also different in an important way. In the Mediaah-TOI case, the online protests did not translate into mainstream media coverage, but in the Gaurav Sabnis-IIPM case, they did, and that made a big difference in the impact they had.
I have written before that “participatory media is most effective when it is able to push up important stories into the legacy news media.” Part of the reason for the difference in media coverage in the two cases was that media organizations didn’t want to criticize TOI, but part of the reason was also that the IIPM story, in itself, was more compelling.
If the willingness of Indian newspapers to criticize the 11/26 Mumbai coverage of TV channels is any indicator, we may witness the same sort of groundswell here that we witnessed during the IIPM controversy.
But that will only happen if we keep our focus on NDTV’s bullying tactics and not make it into a bloggers versus the Indian media issue. In spite of its tendency to be commercial, and sometimes even sensational, the Indian media is as vibrant and diverse as media anywhere else. Unless bloggers give Indian media the respect it deserves, they will not receive the respect they deserve. Let’s remember this as we come together to condemn NDTV’s bullying of bloggers.
Here is a regularly updated list of blog posts condemning NDTV and Barkha Dutt for their highhandedness in bullying Chyetanya Kunte –
DesiPundit has an ongoing thread on the controversy –
Terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Media reports. Bloggers blog. Twitterers tweet. People don’t like media’s coverage. Bloggers opine and report on media’s role. Media sues blogger for libel and defamation. Blogger forced to withdraw ‘offensive’ post.
Unfortunately for NDTV, other bloggers continue to blog. In strong protest of such intimidation.
Shripriya says that NDTV and Barkha Dutt should be ashamed of herself –
According to NDTV and Barkha Dutt, he (Chyetanya Kunte) is not entitled to freedom of speech. He’s only a piddly little blogger, so he’s not entitled to the freedom of the press caveat either. Who is he? A poor sod who’s an individual blogger? Well then, throw the entire weight of the NDTV legal staff at him and coerce him into a retraction.
This is pathetic. This reeks of a double standard so despicable it probably violates some journalistic ethic. There, I said it. Sue me!!
Patrix points out the double standards in NDTV bullying Chyetanya Kunte –
From a business perspective, you don’t go after your consumers and from a democratic perspective, you don’t turn against the people whose interests you claim to safeguard from the mai-baap government. When the reporter becomes the reported, it is usually time to take a closer look at your life and wonder what happened. I hope you understand and not sue me instead.
Pramit Singh says that NDTV has made a hero of Chyetanya Kunte –
No one creates heroes better and faster than old media. Sometimes, they do it inadvertently. Like in the case of blogger Chetan Kunte (Chyetanya Kunte), who ‘dared’ to question the work of a mainstream media journalist Barkha Dutt of NDTV news channel.
Chetan Kunte was not alone in criticizing the media coverage during the Mumbai Terror Attacks… But, in the end, it was Chetan who got the Golden Notice, the letter that makes careers, the letter from the lawyers.
Prem Panicker says that this incident gives us another reason not to watch Barkha Dutt’s antics on TV –
A Barkha Dutt who grandly titles her show ‘We the People’… and who sheltering under that inclusive flag assumes the right to criticize the conduct of every politician, businessman, movie star and public figure in this country, needed to have shown more grace in accepting criticism directed her way.
So we will now add this lack of grace, this intolerance for criticism, this tendency to the notion that you are immune to the searching examination you subject others to, to the already long list of reasons to reach for that remote.
Rohit argues that the bullying is part of a long pattern of Barkha Dutt’s paranoia about bloggers –
In an op-ed written over an year ago, Barkha Dutt, the managing editor of NDTV, had vented against anonymous bloggers who espouse popular opinion which are ”often bigoted, blasphemous and banal.”
It is an interesting choice of words–Dutt covers the entire gamut from communal speech to plain boring. And she takes care to point out that ”majority opinion can steamroll enlightened thought, and we, in the media, must be mindful of that.”
It is a truly shocking display of hubris on part of an average journalist known more for her histrionics on television and poorly written opinion pieces. She not only passes judgment on thought process of others–which is her right–but argues that their opinions must be checked by the enlightened few.
In another post, Rohit quotes Barkha Dutt from a discussion thread on her Facebook page to confirm that NDTV did send a legal notice to Chyetanya Kunte –
Just because some random bloke can sit at a computer and make up stuff doesn’t mean he or others like him need to be dignified with responding to their utter and total rubbish. Rubbish is what it is. And as already mentioned, Mr. Kunte has been served a legal notice for libel by NDTV.
Santosh wonders if “it time for desi bloggers to form some sort of umbrella organization that protects them from various forms of cyber bullying by major media outlets and large corporations, by providing resources to services like legal help”.
Don’t Trust the Indian Media believes that NDTV might have shot itself in the… well… err… foot here –
How NDTV manages to constantly manage to piss off its core audience amazes me. Times are tough for everyone, and when your losses are mounting pissing off viewers is not a smart move. Honest! The Mediaah! incident happened too long ago when the community was far too small (and) it would be a shame if NDTV manages to shoot itself slap-bang in the ass on this matter.
Gaurav Sabnis wonders how the Indian news media will react to the story –
What remains to be seen is, how will the other news channels, i.e. NDTV’s competitors handle this news? Since their own 26/11 coverages didn’t exactly receive bouquets, will they take a “chor-chor mauserey bhai” approach and ignore this story in solidarity with NDTV? Or will the competitors actually report on this and take the opportunity to claim they are better than that? Can’t you just picture Rajdeep Sardesai on screen talking about this story at the top of his voice, probably with Mahesh Bhatt, saying “CNN-IBN is mature enough to take criticism in its stride. Mahesh Bhatt, why do you think our competitors are making an issue out of one blogger’s opinion? Your response??” And how will the newspapers react? There are enough interconnections between TV channels and newspapers to kill the story everywhere but on the internet.
Sumant asks Indian bloggers to think about the issue objectively instead of giving in to us-versus-them impulses –
The furore amongst the bloggers comes mostly in the form of outrage against the perceived censorship of Kunte’s commentary by Barkha Dutt and NDTV. I don’t know how much of it is considered opinion versus knee-jerk responses to us-versus-them impulses.
Meanwhile, what has NDTV achieved? In attempting to silence the libelous post, they have succeeded in proliferating it across several blogs and websites, thus making their problem worse many, many times over. It has resulted in severe damage to the NDTV brand and to Barkha Dutt’s own image as a crusader for the freedom of the press. Their attempt to muzzle negative commentary has now portrayed them as hypocrites.
Abinandanan offers another reason why NDTV’s libel notice has backfired –
The “criticism” section of the Wikipedia entry on Ms. Dutt is only going to swell. What is worse, Chyetan’s original observations about Ms. Dutt’s live coverage of the Mumbai terror attacks will also be fact-checked, and documented in detail.
Vimoh shares his failed attempts to elicit a reponse on the controversy from mainstream media –
I emailed Barkha Dutt, requesting her comments on the matter. I am still to receive a response. I also mailed some other mainstream media outlets, asking if they considered the story worth some attention. Here too, I was met with silence.
NDTV and Barkha Dutt, by and large, have ignored the angry voices and are either waiting for things to cool down, or simply don’t care about what we, their audience, think of them.
By the way, I also tried to pitch the story to my friends in the media and was told that “usually, folks in the media don’t like to write against their own kin.”
Finally, some newspapers have started covering the controversy, but not in a meaningful way yet.
Santanu Borah in Pune Mirror wrote a rather flippant piece on the issue. B F Firos in Mid-Day did a half-hearted roundup of blog posts on the Cunte-NDTV controversy but refused to used our names and called us the generic “a blogger” or “this blogger”. Sudhakaran at CIOL also did a roundup of blog posts on the topic.
Here are some other bloggers who have written about the controversy: Nikhil Pahwa, Amit Agarwal, V.P.Jaiganesh, The Comic Project, Gaurav, Venkatesh Shridhar, Falstaff, Ashwin, Amrutha Upendran, Prasoon, Vimoh, Naavi, Rahul Siddharthan, Arzan Wadia, Amrit Hallan, Neo Indian, Harini Calamur, Sanjukta, BlogBharti, Binu Karunakaran, Mad Momma, Subaltern Media, Aditya Mhatre, Veena, Boycott NDTV, Pragmatic, Churimuri, Sandeep, Gaurav Sabnis, Chandni, Naavi, Nick Farrell.
Update: Sandeep has created a Facebook group to protest Barkha Dutt’s bullying of Chyetanya Kunte. The Facebook group that advocates taking Barkha Dutt off the air has 4500+ members now. Another Facebook group which nominates Barkha Dutt as the worst journalist on the planet has almost 1700 members.
