Tehelka brand stings are past their sell-by date

If Tehelka is up the creek, thanks to the shenanigans of its boss who is alleged to have sexually assaulted a female colleague, and hamhanded efforts by his managing editor to keep the s*** from hitting the fan, few tears will be shed over its current travails. Many journalists think Tehelka provided great journalism. I doubt it. Tehelka probably did a great disservice to the profession. And proof of it comes from none other than Tarun Tejpal himself in his bail application. Among other things, Tejpal has not only tried to suggest that the woman’s allegations were untrue, but that the whole thing was part of a BJP conspiracy to get back at him for his sting operations against the party and the Sangh Parivar. He said: “Goa Police investigation is ’tainted and unfair’; it is a BJP conspiracy and being carried out due to political grudge.” [caption id=“attachment_1255757” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Tarun Tejpal. AFP[/caption] Even assuming this was indeed a parivar plot, what Tejpal is indirectly admitting is that his sting operations were targeting one legitimate political party for ideological reasons. In India, all crimes can be justified if you can claim to be fighting for a “secular” cause. Secularism has always been the last cloak of the political scoundrel; it now appears to be a good enough defence to protect oneself from the consequences of sexual misconduct too. In making these claims, Tejpal has unwittingly rendered us yeoman service: he has effectively delegitimised free-lance sting operations and exposed the fact that our secularists have no clothes. On the other hand, Tejpal has also done enormous damage to both causes: the cause of genuine secularism, and the cause of journalism. If you think video-graphing unsuspecting targets is great journalism, you are free to think so, but sting is untrustworthy voyeurism, not journalism. I am not saying it should never be used, but if a sting is the only way to get to the truth, it should be used with a great degree of responsibility and with a neutral authority vetting the detailed plans and reasons before they are sanctioned or executed. Else, any free-lancer with a hidden camera and tape-recorder will think anyone is fair game. From there to blackmail and extortion is just one slippery step ahead. A sting cannot be a fishing expedition to find out who is honest and who is not. This is okay for candid camera on TV channels, not for journalism. By this yardstick, the first Tehelka sting—which exposed the reality of money greasing the wheels of defence deals—merely confirmed what we have always suspected. After Bofors—which predated Tehelka by 15 years—why did we need to know that commissions are paid to all kinds of unsavoury characters in multi-million dollar defence deals? In any case, more defence deals have been done in the 10 years of the UPA than ever before – but we have not heard of one sting to expose even a minor and actual misdeed. But other journalists have manged to pierce the veil even without stings. (Read here for one such example) One of Tejpal’s former colleagues at Tehelka, Hartosh Bal, also told _Firstpost_ in a recent interview that Tehelka appeared to be soft on one political party. He said: “I had seen attempts made to slant political coverage not out of commitment to a certain set of values, but out of an obligation to a particular political party.” Apart from often being politically compromised, there are several reasons why Tehelka-style sting journalism is past its sell-by date. Here are some of them. One, in these days of cheap surveillance cameras, anyone can become a sting journalist – as the Aam Aadmi Party found out to its cost in the recent sting by a little known media outfit. Two, stings against just one political party or group are inherently illegitimate. It is interesting to note that Tehelka was the first to decry the cash-for-votes sting planned by some BJP leaders to expose the UPA’s efforts to buy MPs’ loyalties before the 2008 confidence vote. Among other things, Ashish Khetan of Tehelka, now in Gulail, noted that the BJP was desperate to “pull off a sting operation that could discredit the UPA government”. So, a Tehelka sting to discredit the NDA with the defence scam is okay, but a sting to discredit the UPA is not okay? My sting is holier than yours! Three, stings destroy human faith in general. If they are used so frequently for checking who is honest and who is not, there is nothing to stop all people from mounting stings and clamming up before all media and the trusted few. It will destroy sources of information even before they are cultivated. It will be only a matter of time before corporate houses and politicians conduct reverse stings against journalists in order to gain leverage over them. What will remain of journalism then? Even outside politics, what if corporate officials and journalists routinely sting their bosses and colleagues to put up damaging videos on YouTube? Where will the whole thing stop? Frequent stings will make us even more distrustful of one another – at a time when we are already a low-trust society. Four, stings will soon become counter-productive and hurt journalists themselves at some point. Let’s take the example of the first Tehelka sting: what if one of the people stung had actually turned out to be honest and reported the attempt to bribe to the police and the journalist was jailed? Who will then vouch for the journalist’s bonafides? Only his editor? Who may be compromised? The only situation in which stings can be legitimate is when they are authorised by a larger, and more non-partisan group of editors and socially respected people who are told why a sting is absolutely necessary in a certain situation. This will protect the journalist and also ensure stings are not mounted against the unsuspecting at the drop of a hat. Investigative journalism is important for India, but the Tehelka brand of sting journalism is not. It deserves to die.