Imagine, for a minute, a room full of journalists, all talking at once. Armed with notepads and pens, some gesture violently, others sit quietly looking out windows, still others stand listening to a man called Tarun Tejpal. Blackboards on a wall bear the brunt of repeated writing and erasures.
Factual or fictitious, the image prevails. There could be no ordinary discussions here. After all, isn’t this volatility exactly what you would expect as the source of hard-hitting news stories, month after month? At times these stories strip icons to reveal common crooks; at other times, they come close to toppling a government.
From this pandemonium comes the stuff hardcore journalists dream about. In a word, Tehelka.
For the few who haven’t been awake all of yesterday, the site’s latest exposé has already begun to take its toll. Setting up a non-existent company selling non-existent thermal imaging binoculars, Tehelka gave us a peek into the murky world of defence deals, rife with crooked middlemen, unscrupulous defence officials and greedy politicians.
Starting with BJP President Bangaru Laxman, the heads have just begun to roll.
Taking it all in, calmly, is the man at the centre of the storm: Tarun Tejpal, Managing Editor, Tehelka. "For me, it is just a medium. I don’t know the number of hits the site has been getting in the last two days. I don’t care!"
His nonchalance may come from experience, since this isn’t the first time Tehelka has lived up to its name. Who can forget the ‘match-fixing’ scam?
Then again, it may be a mere print hangover. Ask him about whether the site has ordinary problems like server failures or other technical hassles, and he shrugs it off, passing the query to his technical department. "It’s not the medium that is important. We have shown the tapes on television, we have the transcribed copies on the web and even excerpts in the Press. So this is just a way to reach a larger audience, which is the purpose of any medium. Sure, this medium has interesting possibilities, but it is the story that is important."
While he does have a valid point to make, one can’t help overhearing investors who call and congratulate him, all willing to fund his company. In a market where the dotcom extension is getting to be a bad word, this scoop has enhanced his chances of getting more moolah. "We have survived the dotcom bust. We had to tighten our belts. We have just closed our second round of funding." With a laugh, he adds, "In fact, we were worried about whether the funding would go down the tube because of the story."
Asked whether the decision to break this story was taken because public interest in Tehelka was on the wane after the match-fixing story, Tejpal declares, "It was a story whose time had come. It had to be told. The timing or medium it was told through is not important. It was just pure news instincts to break it when we did."
What now, is the question on everybody’s mind. Where does Tehelka go from here? "We are a media company. We break 25 stories a day, which focus on every aspect of news. And investigative journalism is a part of that. We have the onus to do good journalism in the next few years."
Yes, it is living up to its name. First a 92-minute investigation on tape in May 2000 that brought them into the limelight, and now, this. Other sections at the site include current affairs, sports, entertainment, ecology, and services like chat, email, discussion forums and newsletters.
The Internet, Tejpal agrees, has brought him feedback from all over the world. "The goodwill and faith that people have expressed is phenomenal. Whether it is filmmaker Suresh Jindal who writes in to say that he believes there is still hope, to the common Indian living in the country and abroad who wants to pat our back for blowing the lid off on this scam! There are mails thanking us for trying to cleanse the corruption in India, as our sting operations continue to expose and bring out such stories. The cricket story was a 4/10 but this one, I think, is a 10/10."
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