In its 60th year since independence, India’s squabbling male politicians have finally placed a woman at the altar of Rashtrapati Bhavan. But that is where the good news has ended for Pratibha Patil, the UPA candidate.
Because even before her election campaign can kick off, the opposition politicians and sizeable sections of the media have pounced on her past and dug up shovels of dirt. Murder charges involving her brothers, interest waiver on loans, siphoning off loans meant for women, controversial statements on the purdah and sterilisation, even more controversial claims on her communicating with the dead… have all been unearthed in a steady torrent.
Vinod Mehta, the venerable editor of Outlook, places the blame for the dirty tricks squarely at the feet of his colleagues and compatriots in the journalistic fraternity. In a column in this week’s issue of the magazine, Mehta writes:
“Journalists should never forgt that they are spectators, not players. We may have the best seats in the stadium, but we are, and must always remain spectators. I know for some of my colleagues it is a big temptation, but once spectators (journalists) become players (politicians), the media is into a very different ball game—one which has nothing to do with journalism.”
Read the full column here: Tainted ethos
Related link: The eyes and ears of the public as guests
Cross-posted on sans serif
churumuri 
Venerable? Vinod Mehta?
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Journos should be spectators….??? hanh???….roll over and play dead!!
View of Vinod Mehta on what journalism should be – is stunning!!..if not for the fact that he is Outlook’s editor – the quote would be a good Standup Comedy material…
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Now one editor is with Prathiba ji!!! Well done Vinod! You will be in 26th Jan 08 awards!!
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Vinid mehata ravare why do you want to inslt jounalism! But you do not seem to have said anything good in your blog!
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I have seen Vinod Mehta in TV particiapting in several issues raised and there is an unmistacable impression that he is mouthing the same arguments of the redoubtable Congress spokesmen when they defend the indefensiblebut but more in a sauve fashion unlike Kushwant Singh who makes no excuses about his love for the Congress. As for his observation regarding the media, but for their sting action many of the things would not have come to light. They are the part of our society and have to involve themselves instead of becoming spectators. In fact it is their ethical duty as journalists.
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Such rubbish. Journalists, Historians, people in the humanities and hookers can’t afford to be apolitical. It is a matter of survival.
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I think Vinod Mehta is indirectly taking a shot at Arun Shourie. If Mehta disagrees, he should come up with an equally eloquent rebuttal to Shourie’s expose, not cheap pot shots and tantrums.
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MUHAHAHAHA!
The legendary asswipe is preaching ethics and nonpartisanism!
Hear, Hear! :D
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This, nearly 35 years after the rise of Gonzo Journalism, is hilarious!!
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Bapu avare well said! journalists should be a nutral umpair, not take any side like Mehata.
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If Arun Shourie or Sudheendra Kulkarni or Chandan Mitra or Swapan Dasgupta and the hordes of Indians who are pathologically ill-disposed towards to the Congress or the Gandhi family can be seen to be batting for the BJP, is it a crime for Vinod Mehta to be batting for the Congress or the Left or the DMK, especially if he has the courage to attach his name to it, rather than hiding behind the bushes of anonymity and becoming a minister, a speechwriter, a Rajya Sabha member or a paid factotum?
At the same time, if Vinod Mehta and his cohorts who are equally ill-disposed towards the BJP can suspend their disbelief and be seen to be batting for the Congress, is it a crime for Shourie and Kulkarni and Mitra and Dasgupta to be batting for the BJP, especially when there is a mountain of evidence piling up against Pratibha Patil? Does the possibility that she could be India’s first woman President absolve her of all sins, real and imagined?
The truth, as always, in India is somewhere in between. The UPA may have made a mistake in picking on Patil in spite of knowing her past. But the NDA has also clearly overplayed its card by so viscerally hating Patil and in public. To India’s women who relate to Patil merely because she is a woman, the BJP, which doesn’t have a sterling record with women, has sent a very misogynistic signal.
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Atmasakshi:
“If Arun Shourie or Sudheendra Kulkarni or Chandan Mitra or Swapan Dasgupta and the hordes of Indians who are pathologically ill-disposed towards to the Congress or the Gandhi family can be seen to be batting for the BJP, is it a crime for Vinod Mehta to be batting for the Congress”
Being politcally aligned is not the issue. Being respectable is.
Shourie demonstrates the point that it is possible for to bat for BJP, and yet not compromise one’s honesty and integrity.
It is yet to happen that a journalist with impeccable personal integrity comes along and bats for Congress.
But the larger point is, nobody is questioning Mehta’s right to bat for Congress. People are pointing to the fellow’s very obvious duplicity: if he is batting for Congress, he shouldn’t be delivering that sermon on nonpartisanship of journalists.
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I agree with Narahari’s comment.
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Vinod Mehta talking of journnalists as spectators? The guy thinks that his readers are dolts like him. This is the man whose smearpiece on Jayendra Sarasvati for the BBC was taken down by the selfsame Beeb when it was pointed how cavalier he had been with his assertions. Vinod Mehta is also the self-same liar who ran a long campaign post-Kargil claiming that there had been a coverup in the highest levels of the Army and the government of the day. The guy shut his trap when his own brother Maj.Gen. (Retd.) Ashok Mehta took the scandalous reports apart and trashed references to certain numbered files of the Army pointing out that the Army does not use any such numbering scheme. The fraud VM also ran a two year long campaign against Kapil Dev, again with skimpy evidence of match fixing, and kept quiet like a rat when Azhar’s and Jedeja’s complicity was revealed. Worst of all VM ran and continues to run a PR scheme for Agens Boiazhu aka MT aka the Calcutta Ghoul inventing a reputation for her out of thin air. VM is such a crooke unscrupulous guy that he can make a corkscrew look strainght.
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