Sunetra Choudhury: Scribe vs Scribe

Unlike the prevalent impression over the years, I’ve never been too cynical about our tribe. I may have agreed when people said journalism was the most dog-eat-dog industry, and some of our idiosyncrasies do make me cringe, but once the story’s filed and our claws are withdrawn, journalists are the people I enjoy the most — my best friends are all journalists, I married a journalist, and hell yes, I even want my toddler son to grow up to be a goddamn journalist!

But my newsprint-covered mushy worldview has been missing the joy, at least this past week, the week when you should have been inundated with follow up stories and breaking news emanating from my big, exclusive interview. But it turned out to be the interview that was sabotaged.

I had been chasing this UPA minister for some time. He’s never been part of a TV discussion, he rarely gives interviews and yet, he’s often the newsmaker himself. His lack of media savvy perhaps worked in my favour as after the millionth call to his people and haranguing them with my questionnaires, I finally got them to convey my message. When they called me to confirm a half-hour interview slot, I couldn’t believe my luck.

It was a really big deal. So with total secrecy, we got to work. Since he was such a clever politician who could easily duck all my questions, I practiced on others for days, imagining all his possible answers, and what I could ask to extract the headlines.
At the appointed hour, I arrived with my tiny battalion of producer, camera people and assistants to claim my date with breaking news. The Minister had just arrived, and we were setting up, when I was called in for ‘a word.’

“Let me give you the interview like this only, why the camera?” “Excuse me, sir, you know I’m from a TV channel?”
Finally, he decided to level with me. “Actually some other journalists got to know about this and they cornered me in the Central Hall,” he said, referring to the area in Parliament where senior journalists can mingle with MPs and ministers over tea. “They said you can’t talk to her. They made me promise that I won’t be seen talking to you on TV or I would have to speak to everyone which I don’t want to do.” “But, Sir, you promised me?” “I know but what can I do? They weren’t just any old reporters, they are well-known editors,” he said apologetically, naming the heads of two other channels. He looked
helpless, and I heartbroken.

Now with my headline-hunting dream shattered, I returned to office telling my colleagues this unbelievable tale of how big-time editors were going around ruining opportunities for small fry like me. “But why are you surprised?” they said. Apparently, this happens every day in pursuit of the ‘exclusive story.’ The same Editor who stopped Mr Minister from talking to me, apparently interrupted another colleague who was trying to interview BJP president Nitin Gadkari. While the interview was on, he led a group of angry rival journalists in, almost breaking down the door! Apparently, Gadkari looked pretty shaken and scared and almost tried to jump off the interview chair to calm down the others.
So if politicians are scared, you can imagine how regular people deal with such outbursts by vengeful journalists.

Apparently, when Nupur Talwar chose NDTV to break her silence for the first time, it was too much for the million other channels to digest. They found it unacceptable that Nupur had built a rapport with a particular journalist. So they staked out at her house all day for their own ‘exclusives’ and when she didn’t give in, unlike the politicians, they spat out expletives before leaving.

You can’t make excuses for behaviour like that, but there is an element of uninterrupted 24x7 stress that has built up and made all of us loopy. It made an otherwise gentle reporter who was waiting for hours to get a statement from a minister barge into a North Block meeting and say, “Will you guys keep talking or do you intend to come out and tell the public what you’re doing?” It’s also made camera people and reporters hit each other lots of times, because they both want to interview the same people, often physically trying to pull them away from the other.

But in the midst of my despondency about a sabotaged story, thanks to the cruel elements in my industry, I want to leave you with the madness of one reporter that actually landed a great story. When former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee went on his annual Manali break in the midst of the Advani-Jinnah controversy, a rat pack followed him to the hills. They apparently entered into a pact that they wouldn’t go to the airport, but in the bitchiness of the game that this is, two of them broke that pact and did just that. They got an ‘exclusive’ 30-second bite which upset the others, especially one Hindi channel reporter. He was so angry, so hurt (like how I’m feeling right now), he decided to sit on a dharna outside Vajpayee’s home. When he wouldn’t leave, apparently the former PM’s aides gave in and asked him to come with his camera the next day. It turned out to be one of the most extensive TV interviews, where Vajpayee didn’t just talk politics, but also talked about his favourite movies.

I’m just wondering, will my story end with this kind of poetic justice? Or am I destined to be left scooped out by wily editors?