The claim that corporate organisations are extremely conscious of their image is a truism, which is why managing the media is a crucial part of their operations. The emails that a whistleblower from Essar leaked to Prashant Bhushan, a lawyer and member of the Aam Aadmi Party, are telling in this respect. The content of the email explicitly lays out the manner in which the company attempted to leverage its position with the media by either directly getting in touch with journalists to plant stories, or cultivating a relationship with journalists over a long period of time through petty favours.
Journalists meet various people in the course of reporting for a story, it is an intrinsic part of their job. A journalist whose assigned beat deals with corporate houses would be in regular touch with them. Meeting a representative of the company does not necessarily suggest any wrongdoing on the journalist’s part. Moreover, simply because an employee of the company is eager to take credit for every story that projects the company in a positive or sympathetic mood, does not imply that the reporting was compromised. But when stories by a journalist who was in constant touch with a representative from such a company appear to be single-sourced, based on weak reporting and adamant on promoting a particular perspective that could be advantageous to a corporate entity, there is reason to doubt their veracity.
Here we reproduce correspondence that displays how Essar sought to manipulate its interaction with journalists and media houses to its advantage. The emails suggest that Essar’s knowledge of what was happening inside media organizations was not restricted to its dealings with reporters; its executives even seemed to have access to the desk and were being informed of the nature of the headlines that would go with the stories dealing with Essar’s interests.
In the first set of emails, Rajamani Krishnamurti, senior vice president at Essar Services India Limited (ESIL), briefs Ashish Rajgarhia, the executive assistant to the chairman at Essar Steel India Limited (EStIL), on a discussion with the Indian Express regarding the National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) in which he “made them agree to publish a feature on NMDC’s unilateral pricing mechanism”. He goes on to state that “an early action will keep the pressure on NMDC, as the Questions [sic] planted in the Parliament will be heard on 27th August 2012.”
In the second mail, Krishnamurti informs Dilip Oommen, CEO EStIL, that the Ministry of Mines has directed the Finance Ministry to lower the export duty by 15 percent, a move that Krishnamurti is convinced would be disastrous for the steel sector. Krishnamurti claims that he is “planning to get a story done by Indian Express favouring Steel Sector” and proceeds to present a proposed quote for the story to Oommen.
On being contacted regarding references to Indian Express in the emails, P Vaidyanathan Iyer, the national affairs editor of the Indian Express, told us that, “The Indian Express was the first to report on the Essar leaks PIL (Essar leaks: French cruise for Gadkari, favours for politicians and journalists, February 27). That report mentioned that the newspaper had neither sought for nor published any piece from Essar.”
The third set of emails from Anil Agarwal, senior vice president and head, raw materials, EStIL, to Oommen describes Agarwal’s meeting with CS Verma, the former chairman of NMDC, and the latter’s concerns that “Essar was planting stories thru [sic] media on NMDC pricing which was not in good taste.” The email mentions that Verma also stated that he had been given names of senior officials from Essar who had been planting stories by reporters at the Press Trust of India (PTI).
In the fourth set of mails, in which they seem to be trying to ascertain the source of this leak to the NMDC chairman, Rakesh Pathak, the vice president of ESIL, vouches that a correspondent from PTI who appears to be suspect is “trustworthy and known to me for years.” Krishnamurti responds by raising his doubts and concluding by saying that “we need to be more careful in future in planting stories.”
In the final mail, the subject of which reads, “FW: Worth finding out who will carry what tomorrow if possible?” Parikshit Kaul, general manager, corporate relations group, at ESIL addresses Saurabh Saxena from Adfactors—a public relations consultancy—and directs Saxena to “catch hold of desk guys” from various publications to ensure that headlines on the action taken by the government in Gujarat against Essar are written in “our favour or at least neutral.” Displaying an intricate knowledge of the desk’s activities in the newsroom, he goes on to state that Mint might be carrying a negative headline and that they should try and make it “mild.”