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A

Dissertation on

“Media Coverage Packages”: Maharashtra Assembly Election-2009

By

Shashikant Bhagat

Nalsar Pro ID No. MLH39_09

A Project Paper Submitted in Partial fulfillment of P.G. Diploma in Media Laws for Module – I (Media and Public Policy)

December 2009

Nalsar University of Law (Nalsar Pro), Hyderabad

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Table of Contents

Sr. No.

Heading Page No.

01. Introduction: -

a) Revenue Model:

b) Advertisements:

c) PR Articles:

d) Advertorial:

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4

5

6

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02 Treatment: -

a) The Social Scenario

b) The Issue

c) The Medium, Message and Money :

8

9

10

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03. Role of Journalism: -

a) Journalism for Sale:

b) The Way Ahead:

c) The Consequences:

15

16

18

19

04. Conclusions 21

05. Bibliography 23

06. Endnotes 25

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INTRODUCTION

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Revenue ModelThe newspaper industry in India is very different in both the style of its

operation and the nature of publication when compared to other countries across the world. One must first comprehend the two markets before passing judgment, the Indian Newspaper market is the only market in the world today with a scope for expansion and profitability. This market defies the current ongoing global trend where newspaper readership is plummeting in the developed countries. The Indian newspaper (daily) market has seen an increase of 1.26 Crore readers in the period 2005-06 (data according to NRS* – 2006).

This growth can be attributed to the significant rise in literacy and awareness coupled with the rapid growth witnessed by the country in the last decade. But we must consider that in order to sustain this kind of growth the newspaper rates must be low. The Indian Newspaper market offers the cheapest newspaper service in the world. The high readership and the large advertising revenue are major reasons for this trend of low parity pricing strategy.

The global scenario however is quite different with majority of the newspapers like The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune and several other eminent newspapers running in huge financial debts, due to decline in advertising revenue and a steady fall in circulation. Today several of these publications have been forced to shut their print editions and are merely surviving on their internet versions.

One must understand that the actual price of publishing a newspaper copy is much larger than the price the reader purchases it for, this reduction in price is brought about by the publisher by selling space in the newspaper for advertisements. The revenue so generated is then used to make up for the remainder of the expenses incurred.

This now clearly indicates that advertising revenue is the major cause for the very existence of the newspapers today, thereby clearly indicating that it would be nearly impossible for newspapers to give unbiased news coverage as is expected by

* NRS- National Readership Survey conducted by the Audit Bureau of Circulation. NRS 2006 is the latest conducted survey.

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their readers. Further the agenda of newspapers today too has varied to a great extent from focusing on developmental and educative news, the onus has now shifted to more commercial news i.e. news which is of a financial benefit to the newspaper.

AdvertisementsAn advertisement is a paid form of non personal presentation of ideas, goods

or services through an identified sponsor. It could be used as a medium to generate awareness or to promote or to sell a product .Today, the entire world of media depends on advertisements as a source of revenue to run their operations.

In the globalised world of high media coverage, it is essential that the marketer conveys his message to his prospective customers. The impact of media organizations is phenomenal and is therefore used by the marketer as a tool for persuasion to attain high profits. Newspapers are preferred as message carriers because of the high readership they have.

However one must understand that a medium for advertising is only chosen when the advertiser can obtain maximum viewers at minimum cost while also considering other parameters such as the target audience of the newspaper, the credibility of the publication and the public’s perception of the newspaper. The newspaper however ensures never to lose its clients as they are the financial bloodline of the publication.

It is a two way relationship where the newspaper needs the advertiser for the revenue while the advertiser also needs the medium for its impact and the favorable momentum it can generate, thereby clearly indicating the symbiotic relationship between the two as each aids the other in growth and maturity.

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Public Relation ArticlesPublic Relations can be defined as deliberate, planned and sustained efforts

to establish and maintain relations between an organization and its public in other words it’s a series of practices performed by an organization in order to foster and maintain amicable relations with its clientele.

This is an upcoming trend in media today where organizations try to give news stories to the media which are focused on the company’s growth, achievements and other such positive developments. The companies have understood today that in order to maintain a good public image they must constantly be in public’s eye.

These articles when published create a positive aura pertaining to the company in the mind of the reader as unlike advertisements; here the reader can’t figure out the existence of a sponsor. These articles are also free of all the clutter which accompanies an advertisement thus conveying the message in a subtler but surer way.

This trend implies that these organizations try their best to make it into the news and often use illegal practices like bribing reporters, offering them gifts and other benefits to ensure publication of their articles. This trend has also led to the misconception that the content published in these articles is accepted by the news organizations and the positive opinion in the article is also endorsed by the publication.

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AdvertorialsAdvertorials are advertisements which look like editorials (Advert-orial) in a

broader sense they are advertisements placed by identified sponsors but placed in a way to seem like news. These are found to be more effective because the public is unable to distinguish between this and a news story.

To make things tougher for the public these stories have exactly the same structure as a normal news story and generally do have a headline, a lead paragraph, and does follow the famous ‘inverted pyramid†’ structure that is generally used to write a news story.

This trend is harmful to the reader because these stories deceive the readers as they are mere advertisements who only aim at persuasion of the potential customer. Though an even more dangerous trend has now emerged, this trend now sees the publishers not making any sort of demarcations between such advertorials and news stories.

Newspapers as being ‘opinion generators’ i.e. create an opinion in the minds of the people by carrying ideas and philosophy in their editorial content, highly influence the way the readers think and their approach to life and other social and domestic stimuli. The common man hardly suspects the presence of such trends in the media industry and is taken for a ride by these media organizations.

In a nutshell the advertorial is a very successful but manipulative tool which is used by the advertiser; this move seriously if noticed by the public at large can damage the credibility of the newspaper and also tarnish its image in the public’s eye.

† Inverted Pyramid: This is a News structure in which the most recent and the most important portion of the story comes first and the remainder of the story then follows

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TREATMENTS

The Social Scenario

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Now, that we have acclimatized ourselves with the business model and the sources of revenue for a newspaper, we now focus ourselves on the situation and circumstances in which ‘paid news’ was developed. Paid news though as the name suggests is news published or broadcast by an organization when an interested party pays the media firm to carry that news article.

The major steps were taken by this form of News during the recent Global Recession‡. It is said ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’ and so it has been in this case, the Recession lead to the drying out of funds and a huge decrease in liquidity§

in the global markets. Investors cashed on their stocks and rapid selling resulted in plummeting of the stock market. This negative trend hit several companies’ operations as no funds were available which in turn led to the loss of employment of several people. This loss of employment led to a decrease in demand of goods and services as the style of living too was reduced by the unemployed. This decrease in demand led to an increase in supply thus causing the prices to crash causing a shortage in revenue and an overall collapse of the industry.

The media industry suffered because its major source of revenue was advertisements and their clientele had no money to advertise this resulted in a huge decrease in profits and revenue for the newspapers. Newspapers were forced to cut down supplements, bring down the number of pages as the cash flow declined and soon other sources of revenue were looked for.

Amid such circumstances the idea of ‘Paid News’ was born as media organizations realized that people craving for media attention would happily pay for obtaining that attention, thus articles on people, features , Page-3 stories and other such articles were published in an exchange for cash strategy.

This trend soon caught up and important local news was soon being missed out upon as paid stories made their way into the normal news stories. This can be summarized as the cornerstone from which the trend of ‘Pay packages for news has sprouted’.

However the Question remains: With the revival of the economy is this practice here to stay or will it be done away with?

‡ Recession: A time period of financial turmoil and trouble in which the economy grows negatively due to shortage of liquidity or bad accounting processes

§ Liquidity: Being in cash or easily convertible to cash; debt paying ability

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The IssueThe issue now arises is the fact of these ‘media coverage packages’ which

have come to light today and are now being discussed all around us. The issue though which has been referred to the Press Council of India was unveiled in an editorial by P. Sainath of The Hindu** (published by M/s Kasturi & Sons) The article carried in the Hindu on the 31st October 2009 is as follows:

The medium, message and the money††

P. Sainath

The Assembly elections saw the culture of “coverage packages” explode across Maharashtra. In many cases, a candidate just had to pay for almost any coverage at all.

C. Ram Pandit can now resume his weekly column. Dr. Pandit (name changed) had long been writing for a well-known Indian language newspaper in Maharashtra. On the last day for the withdrawal of nominations to the recent State Assembly elections, he found himself sidelined. An editor at the paper apologized to him saying: “Panditji, your columns will resume after October 13. Till then, every page in this paper is sold.” The editor, himself an honest man, was simply speaking the truth.

In the financial orgy that marked the Maharashtra elections, the media were never far behind the moneybags. Not all sections of the media were in this mode, but quite a few. Not just small local outlets, but powerful newspapers and television channels, too. Many candidates complained of “extortion” but were not willing to make an issue of it for fear of drawing media fire. Some senior journalists and editors found themselves profoundly embarrassed by their managements. “The media have been the biggest winners in these polls,” says one ruefully. “In this

** The Hindu: Is a popular news daily in South India, established in 1875 and is estimated to have a circulation of 1.5 million copies daily.

†† The editorial column has been exactly picked up as it had appeared on publication in The Hindu on Oct.31 2009.

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period alone,” says another, “they’ve more than bounced back from the blows of the ‘slowdown’ and done so in style.” Their poll-period take is estimated to be in hundreds of millions of rupees. Quite a bit of this did not come as direct advertising but in packaging a candidate’s propaganda as “news.”

The Assembly elections saw the culture of “coverage packages” explode across the State. In many cases, a candidate just had to pay for almost any coverage at all. Issues didn’t come into it. No money, no news. This effectively shut out smaller parties and independent voices with low assets and resources. It also misled viewers and readers by denying them any mention of the real issues some of these smaller forces raised. The Hindu reported on this (April 7, 2009) during the Lok Sabha elections, where sections of the media were offering low-end “coverage packages" for Rs.15 lakh to Rs.20 lakh. “High-end” ones cost a lot more. The State polls saw this go much further.

None of this, as some editors point out, is new. However, the scale is new and stunning. The brazenness of it (both ways) quite alarming. And the game has moved from the petty personal corruption of a handful of journalists to the structured extraction of huge sums of money by media outfits. One rebel candidate in western Maharashtra calculates that an editor from that region spent Rs.1 crore “on just local media alone.” And, points out the editor, “he won, defeating the official candidate of his party.”

The deals were many and varied. A candidate had to pay different rates for ‘profiles,’ interviews, a list of ‘achievements,’ or even a trashing of his rival in some cases. (With the channels, it was “live” coverage, a ‘special focus,’ or even a team tracking you for hours in a day.) Let alone bad-mouthing your rival, this “pay-per” culture also ensures that the paper or channel will not tell its audiences that you have a criminal record. Over 50 per cent of the MLAs just elected in Maharashtra have criminal charges pending against them. Some of them featured in adulatory “news items” which made no mention of this while tracing their track record.

At the top end of the spectrum, “special supplements” cost a bomb. One put out by one of the State’s most important politicians — celebrating his “era” — cost an estimated Rs.1.5 crore. That is, just this single media insertion cost 15 times what he is totally allowed to spend as a candidate. He has won more than the election, by the way.

One common low-end package: Your profile and “four news items of your choice” to be carried for between Rs.4 lakh or more depending on which page you seek. There is something chilling about those words “news items of your choice.” Here is news on order. Paid for. (Throw in a little extra and a writer from the paper

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will help you draft your material.) It also lent a curious appearance to some newspaper pages. For instance, you could find several “news items” of exactly the same size in the same newspaper on the same day, saying very different things. Because they were really paid-for propaganda or disguised advertisements. A typical size was four columns by ten centimeters. When a pro-saffron alliance paper carries “news items” of this size extolling the Congress-NCP, you know strange things are happening. (And, oh yes, if you bought “four news items of your choice” many times, a fifth one might be thrown in gratis.)

There were a few significant exceptions to the rule. A couple of editors tried hard to bring balance to their coverage and even ran a “news audit” to ensure that. And journalists who, as one of them put it, “simply stopped meeting top contacts in embarrassment.” Because, often, journalists with access to politicians were expected to make the approach. That information came from a reporter whose paper sent out an email detailing “targets” for each branch and edition during the elections. The bright exceptions were drowned in the flood of lucre. And the huge sums pulled in by that paper have not stopped it from sacking droves of staffers. Even from editions that met their ‘targets.’

There are the standard arguments in defense of the whole process. Advertising packages are the bread and butter of the industry. What’s wrong with that? “We have packages for the festive season. Diwali packages, or for the Ganesh puja days.” Only, the falsehoods often disguised as “news” affect an exercise central to India’s electoral democracy. And are outrageously unfair to candidates with less or no money. They also amount to exerting undue influence on the electorate.

There is another poorly assessed — media-related — dimension to this. Many celebrities may have come out in May to exhort people to vote. This time, several of them appear to have been hired by campaign managers to drum up crowds for their candidate. Rates unknown.

All of this goes hand in hand with the stunning rise of money power among candidates. More so among those who made it the last time and have amassed huge amounts of wealth since 2004. With the media and money power wrapped like two peas in a pod, this completely shuts out smaller, or less expensive, voices. It just prices the aam aadmi out of the polls. Never mind they are contested in his name.

Your chances of winning an election to the Maharashtra Assembly, if you are worth over Rs.100 million, are 48 times greater than if you were worth just Rs.1 million or less. Far greater still, if that other person is worth only half-a-million rupees or less. Just six out of 288 MLAs in Maharashtra who won their seats declared

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assets of less than half-a-million rupees. Nor should challenges from garden variety multi-millionaires (those worth between Rs.1 million-10 million) worry you much. Your chances of winning are six times greater than theirs, says the National Election Watch (NEW).

The number of ‘crorepati’ MLAs (those in the Rs.10 million-plus category) in the State Assembly has gone up by over 70 per cent in the just concluded elections. There were 108 elected in 2004. This time, there are 184. Nearly two-thirds of the MLAs just elected in Maharashtra and close to three-fourths of those in Haryana, are crorepatis. These and other startling facts fill the reports put out by NEW, a coalition of over 1,200 civil society groups across the country that also brought out excellent reports on these issues during the Lok Sabha polls in April-May. Its effort to inform the voting public is spearheaded by the NGO, Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).

Each MLA in Maharashtra, on average, is worth over Rs.40 million. That is, if we treat their own poll affidavit declarations as genuine. That average is boosted by Congress and BJP MLAs who seem richer than the others, being well above that mark. The NCP and the Shiv Sena MLAs are not too far behind, though, the average worth of each of their legislators being in the Rs.30 million-plus bracket.

Each time a giant poll exercise is gone through in this most complex of electoral democracies, we congratulate the Election Commission on a fine job. Rightly so, in most cases. For, many times, its interventions and activism have curbed rigging, booth capturing and ballot stuffing. On the money power front, though — and the media’s packaging of big money interests as “news” — it is hard to find a single significant instance of rigorous or deterrent action. These too, after all, are serious threats. More structured, much more insidious than crude ballot stuffing. Far more threatening to the basics of not just elections, but democracy itself.

The article clearly written by one from the journalists’ community has created a public outrage and has caused one to view the entire election process with an angle and perspective that never before existed clearly indicating that ‘Paid Journalism’ was at its peak and was worth at least a few thousand crores in revenue to the various media organizations that practiced it.

This article led to the publication of several such articles and acted as a trigger which uncovered the whole ruckus that was part and parcel of the election process in 2009 across the country. This article led to a public outcry and a feeling

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of being deceived and manipulated by the public at large, which no longer feels that the Media Organizations are interested to act as the ‘fourth pillar of democracy’‡‡

they were expected to be clearly indicating that the media organizations have ceased to remain impartial and unbiased in the whole process and will most likely promote and publicize only their vested interests.

‡‡ A metaphor used by Dr. Keval J Kumar in his bokk Mass communication in India by Jaico Books.

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ROLE OF JOURNALISM

The public sentiment was then further echoed by The Hindu again on the 7 th of November, 2009 in another article which ran as follows:

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Journalism for sale§§

India’s elections, which in mid-2009 brought 415 million voters to the 1.18 million ballot units in 834,944 polling stations and were mostly peaceful, may be one of the wonders of the world. But it is widely understood that in 2009 the free, fair, and democratic attributes of these elections have been compromised as never before by the large-scale, illegal, and scandalous use of money power — which, to a considerable extent, involved recycled dirty money garnered through corruption in executive and legislative office. The role of the Election Commission of India in curbing booth capturing, intimidation of voters, and some other kinds of electoral fraud has won public appreciation. But as P. Sainath points out in his article, “The medium, message and the money,” published in The Hindu on October 26, 2009, “it is hard to find a single instance of rigorous or deterrent action” by the ECI in the face of such a serious danger to the democratic process. That is a large question that needs to be addressed in depth and in all its complexity by the various players in the political system.

The new shame is the extensive and brazen participation of not insignificant sections of the news media, notably large-circulation Indian language newspapers in two of India’s largest States, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, in this genre of corruption — which a politician speaking at a Hyderabad media seminar memorably characterized as a “Cash Transfer Scheme” from politicians to journalists. Sainath’s article exposes the phenomenon of “coverage packages” exploding across India’s most industrialized State during the recent Assembly election. Candidates paid newspapers different rates for well-differentiated and streamlined packages of news coverage. Those who could not or would not pay for the packages tended to be blacked out.

The Andhra Pradesh Union of Working Journalists has, on the basis of a sample survey conducted in West Godavari district, estimated that newspapers across the State netted Rs. 350 crore to Rs. 400 crore through editorial coverage sold to candidates during the 2009 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. Some candidates even recorded the expenditure incurred in purchasing editorial coverage in their official accounts submitted to the ECI. With some senior journalists drawing its attention to this new-fangled cash transfer scheme in Andhra Pradesh, the Press Council of India has constituted a two-member committee to inquire into the matter. What to do about such a shocking breach of readers’ trust (which is unlikely to be

§§ The editorial column has been exactly picked up as it had appeared on publication in The Hindu on Oct.31 2009.

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confined to Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra) by the so-called Fourth Estate will form the subject of a follow-up editorial.

The verdict of the issue sadly won’t be out till the Press Council of India debates the pros and cons of the situation, the violations and transgressions made by the media houses during this controversial period and finally comes out with a verdict it feels will be fair in its regard.

But the articles clearly expose that the phrase ‘voice of the poor and the meek’ can no longer be associated with the kind of journalism practiced today. The commercial needs of the media have resulted in it being handicapped and financially driven in order to meet its commitments. This has caused the viewers and the readers to consider whether the news reported by these organizations is true? Or reported in the right earnest frame of mind with the right balance and free of any form of bias.

The Way Ahead This issue has clearly conveyed a singular message that the credibility of

news reported by news organizations has taken a huge hit and the common man or

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the average viewer/ reader has been deceived by those very people whom he pays to keep him abreast with the latest developments he feels are important. This issue has also made the common man realize the unbiased scene of media coverage today as well as the stands taken by media houses on issues owing to advertisers and their other commercial commitments, ensuring that an agenda free news service is impossible in today’s scenario.

The question now arises that irrespective of everything, the only reason the media house receives advertisements is because of the number of people who subscribe to its news and entertainment services and who would like to view and read the content put forth. So, it is surely not a wise decision on part of the media to sacrifice these dedicated people for the sake of a few extra bucks.

If advertisements and financial benefits are all what an organization seeks then we must realize that less news content or news content of lower quality would reduce its target readers thus clearly hurting the prospects of higher readership and also as a consequence higher revenue as the two are inter related.

This implies that media organizations need to strike a balance between the two and know that if one is to be sacrificed for the other than it would have an adverse effect on the entire newspaper and its publication. This balance would ensure the successful running of the organization.

The Consequences

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This issue’s consequences can be seriously be debated and reams of paper will be inked on these issues. The issue has exceeded moral ethics as well as hurt the entire process of democracy as a whole seriously leading to contemplation of the failure of the Media as a unit as well as clearly highlighting the fact that the manipulative power of the media is unchallenged and democracy ill-equipped to fight it.

The impact of these steps can be analysed in two steps:

1. Elections: The elections witnessed this fiasco and the power and impact of the media is now evident to the public. The result of this huge media balloon which created a series of opinions in the minds of the public would have been instrumental in the final outcome. This implies that the election is equal to be rigged as not all candidates had an equal opportunity to canvass.

The issue also clearly indicates that the richer candidates were benefitted as they could afford to pay for higher media coverage and were eventually the final winners, thus clearly violating the extreme limit of expenditure set by The Election Commission at Rs. 10 Lakh per candidate and what’s more the media which were to help the EC uphold this set of directives helped the candidates violate these rules.

The independent candidates stood no chance as they couldn’t match the funds that could be generated by the political parties thereby faring horribly at the elections. Democracy seems the final loser as one must remember that in a democracy the voice of the majority is heard which doesn’t imply that the minority will be sacrificed for the sake of the majority.

2. Moral Issues: This issue has also seemed to cross ethical and moral boundaries as the media have set the example of being corrupt and immoral to the public at large.

The same money could have been made had the candidates advertised, sure the impact for the candidate would have lessened but the credibility of the journalism community would have remained untarnished. Ina country like India where corruption and crime are the order of the day it is the media that is expected to scrutinize the system and pass a verdict on such social evils but the media itself committing the crime has clearly indicated the spread of

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corruption to the upper echelons of the intelligentsia thus crippling the ability of the entire country to think in a free and unbiased manner.

The final picture only indicates that the media must have a regulatory body which monitors its activities and ensures that journalism goes the right way and remains true to the principle it was founded upon. Media is to play the role of a mirror to the rulers to show them their flaws and to the ruled a guide. The rulers must understand the ruled through the media and only then will the country be at peace. The Media too like the Democracy in the words of Abraham Lincoln is “of the people, for the people and by the people***.”

*** Words from Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address Nov 19, 1863

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CONCLUSIONS

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Conclusion

This entire procedure like the entire country awaits the judgment of the Press Council of India on the issue. But this entire research and analysis clearly reveals that the media has failed to remain the ombudsman of the democracy. This brings into consideration the famous line “Who watches the watchmen?”

The consequence of the trial could be the establishment of a media organization that will govern and guide the media organizations. This may seem as move against article 19 (A) which guarantees freedom of speech but one must remember that this always not the case. In this case we must sacrifice the freedom of speech to prevent manipulation of the public and to ensure that the right information and news is disseminated.

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BIBLOGRAPHY

Books Refered:

Basu, D.D. 1986 Law of the Press. Nagpur: Wadwa Publications.

M.P. Jain Indian Constitutional Law 2003 Nagpur: Wadwa Publications.

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Joseph, M.K. 1997 Freedom of the Press. New Delhi: Anmol Publications.

Ambrish Saxena 2004 Right to Information and Freedom of Press. Kanishka Publications, New Delhi.

Sharma, Jitendra Kumar. 2002 Ethics of Journalism in Transition. New Delhi: Authourpress.Iyer Vendkat. 2000 Mass Media Laws and Regulations in India. Singapore: AMIC.

Bandhyopadhyay, P.K. and Arora, Kuldip Singh. 1998 A Practitioners Guide to Journalistic Ethics. New Delhi: D.K.

P. B. Sawant & P.K. Bandyopadhyay Advertising Law And Ethics

Anil K. Dixit Press 2006 Laws and Media Ethics. Reference Press, New Delhi

Arun Bhatia Media and Communication Ethics Anmol Publications Pvt Ltd. New Delhi B. Manna. 1998 Mass Media and Laws in India.

Websites

www.presswise.org.ukwww.thehoot.org - Watching Media in the Subcontinenthttp://www.nwmindia.org/ - http://www.pucl.org – http://www.rtndf.org/ethics/ethicsguidelines.shtml - Journalism ethics guidelines

http://www.ire.org/

http://www.rcfp.org/ -

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/jbalkin/writings.htm

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ENDNOTES

Given every endnotes on the topics.