Glenn Greenwald accepting the 2014 Polk Award. Credit Anicee Gohar/ IPS
While some decried the young reporters’ untimely death as being “in vain”, others say his legacy lives on, a reminder to even the most entrenched power structures that truth can prevail over brute force.
This legacy is maintained in part through the efforts of the Long Island University (LIU) Brooklyn, which annually honours exceptional journalists for their outstanding contributions to print, television and digital media.
This past Friday, over 30 reporters from some 15 news agencies received awards at the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan for investigating such issues as homelessness, military impunity and corporate greed.
“I think the role of a story-teller is a very necessary one in this society,” New York Times correspondent Andrea Elliot told IPS on the sidelines of the ceremony, moments before accepting a prize for her five-part series that delved into the life of one of New York City’s 22,000 homeless children.
“The power of these stories lies in a reporter’s ability to be fair and reveal circumstances… in a way that can prompt people to debate these issues and perhaps take a position on them.”
Her words were borne out by the arrival halfway through the ceremony of Glen Greenwald and Laura Poitras, both of whom became household names last June owing to their reports, in The Guardian newspaper, on the details of the U.S. government’s domestic surveillance programme leaked by Edward Snowden.
It was the first time the journalists had returned to their home country since federal prosecutors charged Snowden with violating the country’s Espionage Act by making public secret documents belonging to the National Security Agency (NSA).
The two shared the stage, along with the award for national security reporting, with their colleague Ewen MacAskill, also of the Guardian, and the Washington Post’s Barton Gellman.
Paying homage to the whistleblower who fired the on-going debate on privacy and government spying, Greenwald said, “Journalism in general is not possible without great sources, and the immense courage of those who come forward to tell their stories.”
In a nod to the lives that form the nucleus of many stories, Matthieu Aikins – whose Rolling Stone article probing the execution of 10 Afghan civilians in the Nerkh district of Afghanistan’s eastern Wardak province earned him accolades for magazine reporting – lamented the senseless deaths that have characterised the U.S.’ invasion and occupation. He called attention to the plight of the powerless, most often the rural poor, “the bearded men” whose deaths seldom register in the consciousness of the world.
While many journalists draw a firm line between their “subjects” and themselves, others are deeply moved by the urgency of the issues they write about.
In a brief interview with IPS, The Washington Post’s Eli Saslow described his process of entering the lives of six of the roughly 47 million beneficiaries of the federal food stamps programme, whose 78-billion-dollar budget is stretched almost to breaking point.
“I sometimes spent several weeks at a time with one family, just watching them go through their days – it was my favourite part of the job because it was such a huge privilege to have access to their lives and experiences,” Saslow told IPS.
At the same time, he said, developing such intimacy with those who are struggling to put food on the table makes it hard to draw the line between journalism and advocacy.
“You feel for them and you should feel for them, so a lot of the time it’s a really tough balance. I try to find other ways and other places in my life to do advocacy… because I believe the only way to do justice to people and their life stories is to write honestly – about the things that are hard, the stuff that’s embarrassing, the moments that are joyful.”
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“Operation West End“ – a sting carried out by two young journalists commissioned by the [...]]]>
“Operation West End“ – a sting carried out by two young journalists commissioned by the news site Tehelka (which literally means ‘sensation’) – changed the landscape of investigative journalism in India.
One hundred hours of footage and nearly $23,000 worth of bribes later, the public became privy to the rot at the core of the country’s political sphere: where high-level officials allowed themselves to be caught on tape accepting wads of cash in exchange for arms deals with Tehelka’s fictitious Regent Street-based weapons manufacturer ‘West End’.
Among those exposed by the sting operation were Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Bangaru Laxman, Samata Party President Jaya Jaitley, and Brajesh Mishra, who at the time was serving as the National Security to then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Those familiar with the politics of the Hindu right wing recognized that these were not men who would take criticism lightly. Death threats came thick and fast to the doorstep of founding editor Tarun Tejpal. Tehelka’s investors were put behind bars. Police officers dug through the website’s coffers in search of any anomaly that would justify silencing the outspoken crew.
An office of 104 was reduced to just four in a matter of months.
But the ramparts of India’s free press held strong. The website re-launched as a magazine and became one of the loudest voices in the shrinking space of liberal, left-of-center debate.
Though the politicians were eventually forced to suspend their attack on Tehelka, the magazine’s insistence on exposing corruption and criminality within the ranks of the BJP kept the old grudge alive.
Today, 13 years after Operation West End – with Tejpal incarcerated in a Goa prison and the magazine whittled down to about 1/8 its former size – India’s media world is seeing just how deep the vendetta goes.
If your questions lies in the realm of “how and why” this happened, the answers can only be found in the worrying currents that are lapping at the foundation of the country’s fourth estate: the power and influence of the Hindu right.
Tejpal today stands accused of sexually assaulting a colleague at an event hosted annually by the magazine in the Western state of Goa. The case is based on several emails leaked to the press by the alleged victim, and Tejpal’s own decision (also leaked to the press) to step down from his position as editor-in-chief following the accusation.
The facts surrounding the case are heavily disputed. Tejpal has denied the allegation, while his former colleague stands firm that the incident amounted to rape under India’s revised penal code. CCTV footage from the night in question has yet to be released to the public.
Activists of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), linked to India’s main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), shout slogans during a protest against Tarun Tejpal, editor-in-chief of India’s leading investigative magazine, Tehelka, in New Delhi, Nov. 22, 2013. Credit: Adnan Abidi/Reuters
What cannot be disputed is the Indian government’s swift reaction to this case, with the police breaking rest until Tejpal was behind bars.
But in the hubbub of the high-profile sex scandal, few have asked how a country usually so slow to respond to violations of women’s health and safety (let us never forget Jyoti Singh Pandey, who lay naked and battered on the side of a Delhi highway for several hours before anyone came to her aid) has been roused from its stupor to tackle this particular incident
Those who do ask are finding, as “Operation West End” found, the rot.
Arun Jaitley was the first person to name the incident a rape – not the alleged victim, not a judge nor medical officer, but a prominent politician with the BJP.
The first public address calling for Tejpal’s arrest was arranged by Meenakshi Lekhi – not a women’s rights activist, nor a police representative, but the spokesperson for the BJP.
Who first gloated, before Indian national media, that this incident would spell the end of Tehelka? Not media analysts or experts, but Bangaru Laxman, former BJP president, and the very same man who was caught on tape during Operation West End.
Meanwhile, Jaya Jaitley, whose name you will recall from the beginning of this piece, has used the media scandal as a platform from which to denounce the validity of Operation West End and its findings.
Few newsrooms have stitched these details together in a coherent narrative. Most are either reporting from outside the courtroom or from the lofty platform of women’s rights, where Tejpal has been branded guilty until proven innocent.
If the BJP’s crusade against Tehelka has been lost in the headlines about the entire episode, the Goa police have had an even better deal. Save for a lone article in the Times of India, no mention has been made of the hundreds of unsolved crimes simmering in the very state that hastened to open the gates of its Vasco jail to Tejpal.
Ironically, it was here, in Vasco, where a schoolgirl was raped in early 2013. The perpetrator, though identified, got away scot-free, joining the ranks of scores of thieves, rapists and gangsters who have evaded the local police force all year. Even the murders of local tourists and foreign nationals did not elicit the prompt police action that followed the case against Tejpal.
Goa’s Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, otherwise known as the man holding the state’s purse strings and prison keys, also heppens to be a proud member of the BJP.
Pundits have painted what is now dubbed the ‘Tejpal/Tehelka Scandal’ as a victory for Indian women. A young journalist makes a stand for her rights, and presto – the accused is clapped in a cell. The world is safe once more.
But when politicians are able to seize upon and manipulate an incident of this nature to fulfill forgotten ends, the world is not safe. A magazine that was once a beacon is singing a swan song, and no one is asking about the hooded figures dancing on the freshly dug earth of its grave.
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