“The Corporate shall not interfere in editorial…” head of CBS, William S Paley to journalist Craig Murray in the Hollywood production “Goodnight and Good luck”.

The classical divide between the editorial and the Corporate is an entrenched one. The editorial is the realm of news and “truth” while the latter is an evil necessity. But were we ever so naïve as to believe that the Corporate does not influence the editorial or did we choose to believe in the heroic agency of reporters, silly romantic notions made popular by Hollywood? Well if we indeed believed in such heroism, its time to get a life or forever bury our heads in the sand.
As I started the task of writing my thesis on journalistic practices, I decided to start right at the heart of it all, that is, the newsroom. After two weeks of mulling and false starts, I realized that the place to start with is the corporate floor where the real decisions get taken. But my dilemma remained. In my interview with Star News CEO Uday Shankar, I posed the question. Should he as a journalist head Star News? Should journalists become corporate heads. His reply is interesting and noteworthy:
“I do not think my becoming the CEO along with being the Editor has compromised the journalistic standards at all. We are a content company and if content is your core, who else should be heading the company. This whole disqualification of journalist from heading a company because he doesn’t understand business is complete bunkum. Who understands the business better than a journalist? He might not understand an excel sheet, maybe. What’s so great about an excel sheet. You could get a commerce graduate to do that. But I understand the core product. And don’t forget in Rupert Murdoch’s companies all over the world…look at the man who head’s Fox News, he is a content person, Samir Nair, the CEO of Star India is a content person, News Corps CEO is a content person,” (Uday Shankar , July 5^th, 2006)
Uday’s reply brings up some points worthy of consideration. First, if a journalist heads a company would s/he not be more sympathetic towards news gathering? Uday claims that Star News spends more money on newsgathering than any other Indian channel. Why do we disqualify journalists when it comes to business or are lofty minds not to be bothered by the mundane economics of running a channel? Do we really want a Raveena Raj Kohli to head a news channel? And then again, should news be commodified? Will not the public sphere be compromised? Whichever side of the divide you are on, one thing is for sure, the divide is no longer sacrosanct, the lines have been crossed.
I have put this up for you guys to think and comment on and suggestions and advice are more than welcome as I trudge on writing the thesis. I will put up several examples in the next few weeks of specific ways the Corporate influences news determination in Star News. Till then…