Kings of sting: Tarun J. Tejpal. and Aniruddha Bahal

The practice began a good five years ago — tiny cameras hidden in handbags or pens of journalists that intruded into the dark recesses of homes and offices of people of consequence to bring out elements of truth that rocked the whole nation. Sting journalism arrived in India, and the joke was that any journalist who sought appointments with powers-that-be were checked — many times over — to ensure that he wasn’t smuggling in cameras that had the potential to tell all. Cricketers who fixed matches, defence personnel on the take and politicians who had no qualms stuffing money into their drawers were the first lot of people to fall prey to the covert operation. Soon, those from other walks of life followed. It seemed that the sting — loved by the common man and hated as much by the powerful — would spare no one who was guilty.

But a move by the government to redraft the broadcast law of the country to ensure that sting operators are cut to size has renewed a long-raging debate on whether or not sting journalism ought to impinge upon privacy in order to bring out the truth. Besides, the Supreme Court of India has taken exception to the fact that sting operations have, over the years, become a ‘money-making venture’. Politicians also continue to question if sting journalism, as claimed by their undertakers, is always for the greater common good.

A Bill, slated to be considered by Parliament in the coming months and designed to overhaul the existing Broadcasting Services Regulation Bill, proposes to arm the central government with powers to even cancel the licence of broadcasters in the public interest. However, many broadcasters are viewing this with caution. ‘The government may, if it appears necessary or expedient to do so in public interest... direct the licensing authority to suspend or revoke its licence or direct the service provider to stop broadcasting... as may be considered necessary,’ it states. Besides, it goes on to list several regulations which, if and when implemented, would require those carrying out sting operations to justify that these are warranted by public interest.

Many see this as an effort by ruling politicians to clip the wings of investigative journalists in an attempt to safeguard their own interests. A Cobrapost operation carried out last December, called Operation Duryodhana, which exposed members of Parliament who took money to ask questions in the house, was perhaps what set the whole thing off. Soon after, another operation carried out by news channel CNN-IBN which spilled the beans on the Uttar Pradesh house by exposing the corruption prevalent there only added fuel to the fire. “The initiative comes from those who most fear being shouted out,” argues Tehelka boss Tarun J. Tejpal. “Powerful people don’t want the sting.”

Aniruddha Bahal, a former colleague of Tejpal who now heads Cobrapost and is credited with several revealing sting operations, takes a pragmatic position on the extent to which sting operations can breach personal privacy. “Of course it would be wrong to intrude into anyone’s private space merely in the name of a sting operation. But as long as an operation does that to expose something that is detrimental to the public at large, there’s no reason it shouldn’t be done.”

That, roughly, is what the government may be trying to say as well. But then, the media have concerns on how the whole issue of public interest may be defined. In the lack of a proper definition, things can only get more convoluted in the future. “I think professional journalists are in a better position to define ‘public interest’ than the government, where the notion of public interest is often shaped in partisan terms,” says CNN-IBN chief Rajdeep Sardesai. “So limitations are undesirable. Yes, we need a law on privacy, but this should be determined by the courts, not by the government. Limitations imposed by the government on sting operations will reduce their efficacy,” he adds.

As for the court’s opinion that sting operations are often outsourced and become, in the process, a money-minting exercise, Sardesai has his own justification. “Yes, sting operations are sometimes outsourced, but that doesn’t invalidate the sting,” he argues. “Besides, there is little evidence to suggest that a sting increases television rating points (TRPs) for a channel. We want journalism that is impactful. If a sting can achieve that, so be it.”

Not everyone, however, is ready to give sting journalism such a wide latitude. The issue of entrapment, where journalists have posed as bribers or wannabe starlets to entice people into an act that is recorded on hidden camera has invited criticism in the past. On the one hand, it may have exposed corrupt ministers with greasy palms. On the other hand, it has blown the lid off Bollywood stars with a weakness for wannabe starlets. Not many are sure if the two faces of sting journalism can be measured by the same yardstick.

“In this context, it’s hard to judge the ethical aspects of sting journalism in black and white,” says Delhi-based media analyst Shubhra Gupta. “But while I might want to know what my ministers are up to, I would not even be concerned about whether a film star sleeps with nubile girls in the name of casting them in films. So if the first kind of entrapment is justified, the second kind perhaps isn’t,” she says.

Supreme Court advocate Rajeev Dhawan has his own approach to the issue. “A realistic approach would be to first distinguish between public and non-public persons, and having done that, mark out the public duties and functions that the former kind carry out,” says Dhawan. “Then it would be up to media houses to narrowly structure their operations, so that they can justify them as being in the public interest. All said, the data collected through a sting operation may not always have evidence value in a court of law, so to use it to expose personal tastes and preferences may prima facie not be justified,” he observes.

How the political establishment finally tackles the issue remains to be seen. Interestingly, Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee is reported to have presented Bahal with a pen after Operation Duryodhana was aired on Aaj Tak, the Hindi news channel. Maybe it was the humanist in him congratulating Bahal, while saluting the power of the pen. Or perhaps was the politician in him telling the king of sting to stick to old-fashioned journalism?