It took the Indian media industry about two weeks to emerge from the deep embarrassment of its many skeletons tumbling out of its dark and deep closets. As before, the industry's response to damaging revelations was, for the most part, to pretend that they did not exist. Damage control may seem to have worked for the time being and the awkward questions suppressed, but that all too vital attribute of trust has taken another blow. Recovery does not seem even a remote possibility, as the industry has yet to take the first step towards recognising that a problem exists.
It took a "sting operation", an ethically questionable procedure, to bring this particular lot of the industry's shady secrets to light. Cobrapost, a native of the digital media universe, promoted by an individual long invested in sting journalism, has always pushed the envelope and, with dogged persistence, ventured into contested ethical territory. Its ultimate reward, perhaps, comes from the growing recognition that its transgressions, though troubling, are orders of magnitude less than the dodgy practices they lay bare.
The May 2018 revelations from Cobrapost portrayed, in vivid and disturbing detail, how some of India's biggest media corporations were eager to take up the advocacy of a political agenda for assured financial rewards. Launched in 2017, Cobrapost's Operation 136 took its title from the global rank India was awarded that year on the press freedom index compiled by the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF).
If that was a deeply mortifying moment, more bad news followed as Cobrapost went about its operation. The reasons given by RSF for downgrading India another two places in April 2018 merit some attention. The hyper-nationalistic cohorts gathered in Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's orbit, RSF suggested, had been assuming the authority to shape the contours of the national dialogue and determine who deserved the credentials to participate in it. Unquestioning faith in the political leadership was often the touchstone used to distinguish the true nationalist from the "anti-national".