Tag Archives for N.Ram

Bofors source revealed by The Hindu Editor N.Ram?

N. Ram, a former editor-in-chief of The Hindu, whose efforts in exposing high-level corruption in the Bofors deal in 1989 were recently recognized by Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, seems to have indirectly revealed his source after 25 years. In an interview given to the livemint.com, he doesn’t deny or confirm whether Sten Lindstrom, was the man who he termed as ’highly privileged & authoritative Swedish’ source, who released the Bofors Deal documents. N. Ram said:

I am not going to confirm or deny who the source was. For us, protecting the highly privileged, authoritative source was, and is, important, a matter of journalistic integrity and honour. Nobody other than the few who needed to know within the newspaper ever asked me who the source was— not Mohan Katre, the CBI director who flew in to meet me in Chennai, not defence minister K.C. Pant, who met me and spoke off the record, not Rajiv Gandhi, who discussed Bofors with me, at his request, in mid-1988.

But I’m sure the Indian government and some of the others involved in the affair had their suspicions, from the nature and irrefutable authenticity of the documents published by The Hindu. We always made it clear that the documents were given to us by a privileged, authoritative source in Sweden; and that formulation was in agreement with the source. I can’t answer to purported rumours that “did the rounds in Delhi’s political circles” a quarter of a century ago. I never heard them at the time but if the rumours indeed went around, they didn’t emanate from us.

To another question whether he and Lindstrom have a disagreement about when the stories would be published, he said (as if Lindstrom was his source): 

Not once during the period of the investigation did our source have or express any disagreement about the timing of publication of our document-backed Bofors stories. In fact, the boot is on the other foot. Our privileged source in Sweden was not willing to give the entire documentation in possession to us. So it was a process of negotiating over a period of about one and a half years with the source. The source was, for whatever reason, not willing to part with the document cache in one go, and would only give it in phased-out instalments over this long period. This certainly added to the drama and the feeling of high insecurity, if not paranoia, that had seized key functionaries in the government and the ruling party, the Congress.

There was no question of the newspaper publishing the documents and other information arbitrarily, as and when we pleased. We were not fools to hold back material without due cause and incur the risk of letting others run away with our story! In a story with such big stakes, involving a great newspaper’s credibility and people’s reputations, there was a need for due diligence, for devil’s advocacy, for making connections and drawing inferences, for being fair and just. We needed to translate—accurately—some of the material from Swedish. As for the Ardbo diary—which the police had seized and returned to him, preserving only photocopies—it presented a tough challenge.

Some of the handwritten diary entries made explosive suggestions but these were semi-coded, using initials and sometimes misspelling key names. What I can say about our source, for whom I have nothing but warm appreciation and goodwill, is that the motivation for leaking the highly confidential, privileged documents was moral outrage, that no financial transactions of any kind took place between leaker and recipient, and that the source took a big professional and legal risk. We were always aware of this risk and were consequently highly protective of the source’s identity. We left no fingerprints and our data security methods, I’m pleased to say, worked without a hitch. No one outside our newspaper and our trusted translators (from the Swedish) got their hands on any of the documents before they appeared in print in The Hindu.

One thing though is contrary to what N. Ram told the interviewer (“We were not fools to hold back material without due cause and incur the risk of letting others run away with our story! “) and a reader point out very rightly with a question too,  is :

When Kasturi, as editor held back one story on the ground there was nothing new in it, Ram gave it to all other newspapers. And as he himself admits, the Hindu stopped the expose in October 1989, that is after Rajiv lost power and V P Singh Government assumed office. Now it was up to the new government to carry on the investigation, he contended. Then, wasn’t the expose agenda driven? 

Read the full interview by Nikhil Kanekal : http://www.livemint.com/2012/04/25231225/N-Ram–Rumours-didn8217t.html

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N.Ram:Bofors was a game-changer, both for Indian politics and journalism

An interview with N. Ram, former Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu

How difficult or challenging was the Bofors story?

Challenging, obviously, but in an energising, ‘in-the-zone’ way most of the time after the first year of investigation, 1987.

The investigation went on for more than two years and we published our Bofors stories in several instalments. The ruling party, the Congress, smelt a conspiracy, a plot, and many of its senior functionaries often reacted in a jumpy and highly insecure, if not paranoid, fashion. For us, it was decidedly a team effort, with many people, notably Chitra Subramaniam, Manoj Joshi, Malini Parthasarathy, and V.K. Ramachandran, making good, solid contributions that helped put various pieces of the puzzle together. Swedish Public Radio fired the opening shot in April 1987, alleging kickbacks and hinting at names before switching off; other newspapers, notably The Indian Express, were competing actively to get at the truth. Arun Shourie, a formidable journalist, and Ram Jethmalani, the ace criminal lawyer with his many interrogative questions hurled at Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, were in hot pursuit.

 

I think what worked for us at The Hindu was a methodical approach, an investigative discipline, a way of journalism that was factual, persistent, patient — and fair and just. We relied almost exclusively on documents, more documents, hundreds of documents, in fact, all of them laid out across pages and published in facsimile form in The Hindu (in the pre-digital age). We played the devil’s advocate on key story angles, verifying every detail.

I remember one occasion when we had made a significant factual error, misconstruing something Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had said in a closed meeting. We immediately published a correction, with an apology, on the front page and some people outside our newspaper believed the prominence given to the correction and apology was quite unnecessary. But we highly valued our credibility, our reputation, the trust readers placed in us. We believed in fairness and justice and scrupulously avoided throwing dirt on people against whom there was nothing like evidence (Amitabh Bachchan, famously). We did not practise anything that would be recognised as deceit in this era of hidden mikes and spy cameras. We had our own data security methods, which, surprisingly, worked. We got lucky, repeatedly, with our sources.

Our team was bold and confident in linking pieces of evidence, in establishing factual ‘concordances’, in making inferences from sensitive and complex data. Thus, we were able to offer this assessment in a prominent story in The Hindu of October 9, 1989, which the Columbia J-School has chosen to highlight in its centennial ‘50 Great Stories’ site (http://centennial.journalism.columbia.edu/1989-scandal-in-india/):

“If the whole interaction from June 1987 between Bofors and the Government of India can be understood by the public in terms of a ‘fixed’ football match in which all the goals scored against India have been ‘own’ or ‘self’ goals (scored into the Indian goal by Indian boots or heads), it is now established that the Swedish official referee, Mr. Ingvar Carlsson, has been an accomplice in the ‘fixing’ of the game.”

At times, it seemed to be an unsolvable puzzle. After a full year’s slog, we made a breakthrough in April 1988 when Chitra Subramaniam struck gold with a privileged, authoritative source (whom I met and checked out) and who never let us down. And then we were on a roll, you might say.

I did most of the writing through our Bofors investigation, many thousands of words, but others contributed handsomely as well. We had our internal differences, which did turn dramatic in 1989, but what stands out today for me is how well everyone on our team, from the Editor down, pulled together to shape an unforgettable experience. And it was not as though this was the first or last investigative effort by our 133-year-old newspaper!

Analytically, I have proposed in several articles, the Bofors-India kickback affair can be understood in terms of five modes of action.

The first was the decision-making on the choice of howitzer. The second comprised the arrangements for the payoffs. The third was the prolonged cover-up and crisis management. The fourth was the journalistic investigation and expose. The fifth was the CBI’s criminal investigation, assisted by the Swiss Federal Police and the Swiss courts, and prosecution before a Special Court for CBI cases.

What came of it all?

This is a legitimate question we have been asked. Some of the key accused died before the matter came up in court. Others, including Ottavio Quattrocchi, got away from the law. There was also the challenge of reconciling, or rather bridging the gap between, standards of evidence in journalism and under the Indian Evidence Act. But Bofors became a byword for top-level, political corruption, even entering the vocabulary of some Indian languages as a synonym for sleaze and skulduggery. Bofors, I believe, was a game-changer, politically and for Indian journalism. I won’t say more, except that it was eminently worth it.

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Indian print media still has time before negative trend starts: N Ram

Newspaper "gone to the Web."

Newspaper "gone to the Web." (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

MUMBAI: The Indian print market is different from the west and is still showing growth in readership unlike many matured markets where digital growth is affecting readership. India has a ‘new kind of advantage’ as readership is still growing.

However, even if the media here is growing, it can’t afford to be complacent about the timing because India could head towards “a mature market-like situation”. These were the thoughts of The Hindu former editor-in-chief N Ram, who was delivering a keynote at the third day of global media convention Ficci Frames 2012.

Throwing a word of caution, Ram said that in 3 to 7 years, Indian print would start suffering the same fate as that of the US.

Citing the example of matured markets, Ram said that newspapers and broadcast are in “irreversible decline” mode and there is “anxiety and gloom”.

Ram was talking on ‘Building Deeper Reader Engagement- Sustaining Long Term Newspaper Loyalty over Regions’. He said that in the mature markets, news media is in crisis because of a decline in the circulation as more people are embracing digital. Even in the broadcast media the dominant players are witnessing sharp decline, he said.

However, India has a different advantage, said Ram while outlining the “Two Media World Phenomenon”. He said that regional languages and Hindi newspapers are seeing increase in their circulation. He was optimistic that the medium term prospects for the media industry are looking good.

He stressed on the need of building the bond of trust with the readers, which according to Ram can engage the readers to sustain their loyalty.

Ram said that the most important thing is to stick to the basic principles of journalism – context, accuracy, perspective, fact checking and verification. This, according to him, is imperative in building a relationship with the readers.

Ram said that “trust is the key to good journalism”. He emphasised on the need for a brand to be clear about its identity, core values and focus without imitating anybody else.

He also warned against “editorialising in the guise of news” and said that the readers want shorter articles and more analyses and editorial content and views, especially in the digital viewing context.

Talking about digital, Ram said that the time is more challenging and exciting than ever before. Increasing popularity of the digital media will hurt circulation.

Terming it as a “Digital Age Paradox”, Ram said that the newspapers are witnessing increase in readership of their online editions. However, there is no business model.

Ram said that the revenue model has not been evolved for the digital yet and so it will not replace the old revenue model of the newspapers any time soon. In the digital era, a major share of the revenue goes to the search engines like Google and content providers like iPad apps.

This, he said, is squeezing the newspapers’ revenue, as they have to subsidise digital journalism, which is cannibalising their circulation.

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Hindu’s Retaliation On Times Of India ” WAS NEEDED” : N.Ram

PCI no more a toothless tiger: N Ram

The Press Council of India is no more a toothless tiger, believes Publisher and Former Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, N Ram. The reason for it being its new Chairperson and the emerging debates around journalistic ethics and regulations.

N Ram credits the emerging discussions on Indian news media to the new Chairperson of the Press Council of India, Justice Markandey Katju. “He has triggered off a debate and 90 per cent of people seem to support his views on post-globalisation journalism and eroding ethics of journalism in India,” said Ram.

He shared that a strong chairman alone cannot bring about changes and that the council needs to be strengthened significantly. “I was one of those who argued that news media doesn’t need external regulation, but self regulation. But after the evidence of paid news, particularly the disturbing news that it continues to happen defiantly, there is a need to strengthen the Press Council of India.”

In Punjab, paid news has been documented and it has been defiant which means it has been going on, he said. According to Ram, the business of paid news rampantly continues in several parts of India and that there was enough evidence to establish it. When asked whether broadcast news should also fall under the ambit of the Press Council of India, as argued by Justice Katju, he said, “It needs a widespread debate. There is a difference between both the media. Print is about news media, but news constitutes close to seven or eight per cent of the Indian broadcast industry.”

On his role in The Hindu

Ram continues to remain a member of the board of The Hindu and publisher of the newspaper. Though he is not involved in day-to-day editorial activities of the company, he continues to take an active part in the business side of the company. When asked about his agenda for The Hindu, he told , “The board has some important responsibilities. On the business side a lot needs to be done. I no longer participate in the editorial operations. We have insulated the editorial process from shareholder intervention.”

On TOI vs The Hindu ad war

Ram supports the retaliation of The Hindu to the advertisement of the Times of India in Chennai, but calls it ‘a very small part of the play’. Ram clarifies that the advertisement that almost named the Times of India in its TVC attacking its Page 3 journalism, was a marketing initiative, partially influenced by the editorial division. “The Times of India published a campaign and this was a response to that,” Ram clarified. He also said that the attacking advertisement was consulted with the editorial team, before it went on air. “I had no problems with it. Though I didn’t initiate the campaign, once it came, it was clear in their (marketing team’s) judgment that there should be a response to it. I think it was needed,” he said

(courtesy: exchange4media)