Grey area: proceed with care

Sting: A complicated confidence game planned and executed with great care, especially an operation organised and implemented by undercover agents.

HIDDEN cameras, ultra sensitive microphones — all these were virtually unheard of in Indian journalism twenty years ago. Yet undercover journalism albeit on a much smaller scale than the Tehelka operation — back in the news thanks to the recently uncovered sex angle — was not uncommon.

The example often quoted among feature writers was of Gloria Steinem becoming a Playboy bunny to expose the world of painful high heels and lecherous customers.

In Bombay, writer C.Y. Gopinath donned various disguises including a beggar’s garb to shed light on the seedy underbelly of the city. The magazine I worked for, Imprint, did a few such stories too: one on the small ads found in tabloids (the ‘you can be a model/photographer in fifteen days’ variety); Bollywood’s casting couch and a magazine that claimed to encourage ‘friendship’ between men and women. In each case staffers discovered the truth by posing as potential clients/applicants.

In those days of innocence there was of course no stealthy taping; in some cases, identities of the people we were writing about too were concealed. We were breaking no laws. And there was little doubt that the stories we uncovered could not have been obtained any other way. The methods, it would appear, justified the means.

And yet, I cannot forget the sickening feeling that accompanied working on such stories. The fear that the subterfuge would be discovered; the awful realisation of our power (one of the people we met, sensing that something was awry was on the phone immediately pleading for the return of an item as innocuous as his visiting card). And always the terrible awareness — no matter how creepy the person we were dealing with — of having been duplicitous.

These thoughts came to my mind with the recent Tehelka revelations. Loathe as one is to give the slightest encouragement to those like the Samata leaders who would use misgivings over methods to detract from the significance of the investigation or the culpability of those caught in the wrong, it is true that the matter has sparked off a debate over media ethics. As I can see it, there are many ways of looking at the issue. There is the straightforward legal issue: did Tehelka perform a criminal act? Should it be prosecuted for it? There is the matter of degree: should the web site have used money but not sex as bribes? Should it have used sex but not taped it? Then there are the unanswered questions. Did the prostitutes know they were being taped? Who supplied them? Did the officers ask for them? Did the initiative come from Tehelka? Important, but still details.

As far as I am concerned, I have some reservations about sting journalism itself, as it has come to be defined in the wake of the Tehelka investigations. For apart from the legal and other issues, there is a significant grey area that such an operation flirts with. An area that includes issues such as abuse of trust and the right to privacy. The potent nature of evidence collected by such means is also open to misuse if not by one investigator then by another less scrupulous one. But perhaps what bothers me most of all about this method is its voyeuristic undertone; the inevitable consequence of the unblinking camera. All factors that would suggest that an investigation of this kind must not be undertaken lightly and only if it is the only practicable way to arrive at the truth.

Tehelka might claim, with some justification — for who would have believed its claim without the startling image of Bangaru Laxman accepting money — that its probe fits the bill. It would however be both dangerous and wrong if it was to set a precedent as being the only way and the only method of investigative journalism. The truth is sting operations take many forms. In a small town in Oklohama cops photocopied dollar bills and gave them to minors to buy alcohol and cigarettes and then used the evidence to bust guilty shopkeepers. Elsewhere, the satellite TV industry gave away 3000 illegal smart cards to dealers which allowed them to pirate signals in an effort to expose the underground market for such cards. There is also the story of a publishing house that placed a note that could be exchanged for money inside ‘important’ must reads and found that not one was encashed suggesting the fact that nobody actually read these books. There are probably a million other ingenuous methods of collecting evidence.

And then there is of course old fashioned investigation: the piling of fact, figure, image, quote, document etc. But in these days of instant and saturation news coverage, PR hard sell, limited editorial budgets and page three gossip, who has time for all that?

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