If you’re gonna do it, do it right. If you’re gonna hype it, hype it with the facts. I don’t mind what you did. I mind the way you did it. – Bob Woodward to Carl Bernstein in “All The President’s Men”

This dialogue pretty much sums up the essence of investigative journalism. Nothing wrong in hyping anything as long as you can back it up with facts. But how does an investigative reporter get his or her hands on those impeccable facts, that secret file, that tell-all phone conversation? Not that we don’t know where the answer lies – at least in the Indian context.

When, last month, Tehelka published a scoop on the CBI chargesheet in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case, it created ripples across political parties and in the studios of news channels. Is there a rift between the Intelligence Bureau and Central Bureau of Investigation? Was the Ishrat Jahan encounter fake or real? Did a certain IB officer refer to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as “safed daadhi” and his aide Amit Shah as “kaali daadhi”? Primetime debates have been buzzing with these questions.

Questions were also raised on why only a certain media house got the scoop? Given its “caged parrot” image, isn’t CBI notorious for selectively leaking reports to journalists to suit the interests of its political masters? The question of who gets a story (not just this one, but any story) and why, is a legitimate one that also needs to be explored, although it shouldn’t become the central obsession. This is a fact that journalism must acknowledge as well.

Speaking to Newslaundry on investigative journalism, Chitra Subramaniam Duella – who was instrumental in investigating the Bofors story – said, “Without casting any aspersions on the story or the reporter, I can say this much. I know for a fact that CBI plants stories. I know for a fact that it buries evidence depending on who is in power. I know it leaks documents selectively to journalists to slander other journalists. The CBI has been destroyed by its masters – I don’t take the CBI seriously and I believe I am not alone. This is unfortunate because there are very good officers in that organisation. In this scenario, scoops from the CBI have to be taken with a pinch of salt. The media and the CBI tend to chase each other, instead of the story. I also find it odd that it’s called the Ishrat Jahan case considering there were four people who were killed. How the reporter proceeds on the story will be worth a watch. When a reporter becomes bigger than the story, journalism suffers”.

However, Aaj Tak’s Deepak Sharma, the journalist who spearheaded Operation Dhritarashtra says that even if a leak is a plant a journalist should not refrain from bringing the story to light. He says, “One needs to see if the plant exposes someone in power or is it in the larger interest of the public. If yes, the reporter must go ahead with the story irrespective of it being a plant”. No doubt a reporter is being true to the profession as long as he or she uncovers facts and presents them to the public. Why or how the reporter got them isn’t always of primary importance.

Rana Ayyub, who was in the Newslaundry studio a few weeks back for an interview said that she got the scoop not because of any political affiliation or her anti-Modi stance but because she has been working on the Ishrat story since the shooting. She says that any reporter could have got the scoop with a bit of effort. Now that brings us to the next set of questions – Can leaks and scoops be termed as investigative journalism? And have leaks and scoops become the major chunk of “investigations”?

One example of a major investigative story in India- the unraveling of the Bofors scandal was possible because of a massive leak of 350 documents.  Sten Lindstrom, the former head of Swedish police who led the investigations into the Bofors arms deal leaked the documents to Subramaniam Duella. The documents gave details about the kickbacks received by Indian authorities from Bofors AB for winning a bid to supply over 400 155mm Howitzer. The documents included payment instructions to banks, open and secret contracts, handwritten notes, minutes of meetings and an explosive diary of the Managing Director of Bofors, Martin Ardbo.  However, the fact that vital information was leaked didn’t make the reporter’s life any easier. Since some of the documents were in Swedish, they had to be first translated. And as Subramaniam Duella said in an interview to Newslaundry, the documents didn’t give away the kickback pattern very easily and it required a certain understanding on the part of the reporter to detangle the contract and the payments. Highlighting the importance of leaks, she says, “Leaks have a place in a democracy. Historically, good whistleblowers have been people who have exposed wrong doing without seeking any personal gain”.

As we move towards the Nineties when India entered a liberal economic regime, some massive financial irregularities were unearthed by investigative journalists. The investigations into the Hawala and the Harshad Mehta scandals showed how a new breed of well-connected middlemen was increasingly becoming instrumental in designing financial bungling.

The Hawala scam of the late Eighties-early Nineties not only made headlines but also caused political tremors. It also led to the now famous “Vineet Narain case” in which the journalist who broke the story filed a PIL. Vineet Narain broke the Hawala scam after getting hold of the explosive Jain Diaries from a source who later turned out to be a relative of the main accused in the scam, S K Jain. The Diaries contained names of several recipients (in abbreviated code) of hawala money between 1988 to 1991. Among the names listed were some prominent political leaders such as LK Advani and Madan Lal Khurana of Bharatiya Janata Party and VC Shukla of Congress.  Was the story just a leak made public through a journalist or the result of a journalistic investigation? Narain says, “Leaks provide leads to a story. And my source provided me the entire document on which I based my investigation. So, technically I can’t say it’s a leak, he gave me the story. I have spent weeks and months investigating just one aspect of the story. I made my own phone calls and corroborated facts.”

Narain warns journalists against the temptation of rushing a story once they stumble upon secret and damaging information. The emphasis should be on verifying the credibility of the source – why is someone giving you information? According to him, “The person leaking the information is one among the disgruntled lot. An honest investigative journalist would always hear the accused party’s version. He or she would not write a one-sided story”.

However, with the entry of Tehelka in 2000, investigative journalism took a new turn. No anonymous sources, no tapped phone calls or leaked documents. With a series of high-profile sting operations Tehelka unleashed the power of the hidden camera, the third eye. Be it the murky world of match-fixing or the impunity with which shady arms deals are struck, Tehelka stings gave viewers a first-hand and visual account of corruption in the system. The stings had immediate impact.  Mohammad Azharuddin, Ajay Jadeja and Ajay Sharma were banned from cricket. BJP President Bangaru Laxman who was caught on camera accepting a bribe (Operation West End) and facilitating a fictitious defence deal had to resign from his post and was later jailed.

Tehelka has also been criticised for using money, liquor and women as honey traps for its stings. Also, critics of covert operations say that there are political motives behind stings. Subramaniam Duella says, “I find it wrong to enter private space with illicit and irregular means, however bad the issue and however wrong the person maybe. Stings are like street justice – they have no basis in democracy. In India, prostitutes are used by journalists to conduct sting operations. Politicians and their henchmen use media houses for sting operations.”

Even Mathew Samuel who conducted Operation West End isn’t as upbeat about the impact of covert operations. In an interview to Newslaundry in June 2012 he said, “I have my apprehensions. Why would only Bangaru Laxman’s case come forward when there were so many others who were caught on camera? In my mind there is some kind of a political drama. The government is facing a lot of heat on 2G and other scams. So it thought it’s time to come up with something against the BJP”. When asked how he reacts to allegations that Tehelka was acting on the behest of the Congress, he said that a reporter is only given assignments, he doesn’t know what goes on at the management level.

Editor of Cobrapost and one of the two reporters who conducted Operation West End, Aniruddha Bahal, however, justifies stings as a means of investigative journalism, “Undercover reportage is a powerful way of doing stories which for their very nature are not accessible with our usual way of approaching investigations. I don’t call undercover stories unique. They are just another template. Hidden cameras can unearth facts and dig in places where it would not be possible to shine any light. Of course they are investigations”.

Shalini Singh, Deputy Editor – The Hindu, who investigated the DLF-Robert Vadra land deal too says that stings definitely qualify as investigative journalism given that they pass the integrity and morality test.

Of late, investigations have been gradually overtaken by Comptroller and Auditor General report leaks and Right To Information activists.  Be it 2G, CWG, the coal block allocation scam – it was because of CAG report leaks that media got their fodder. The reports were lapped up by the media and the astronomical figures of losses made headlines. RTI activists too have been giving the government a tough time. Citizen journalist, Simpreet Singh unearthed the Adarsh housing society scam involving bureaucrats and politicians in Mumbai using RTI.

In 2011, an RTI query busted a PDS scam in Maharashtra. 42 lakh bogus ration cards were issued in the state leading to large scale theft of food grain. Has the constant supply of explosive and anti-government reports, made the media lazy on the investigative front?

Ramnath Goenka awardee, Ramesh Menon – who had uncovered a controversial land acquisition scam in Madhya Pradesh involving a former Chief Justice of India says, “Both RTI and CAG reports are being palmed off by reporters as their investigation while they have nothing to do with the information as someone else dug it out for them. There is always place for good investigations. Despite all the pressure, good reporters will always sniff a story that can be investigated”. Bahal, too, feels that journalists these days simply wait for others to dish out good stories to them. “We are so starved of good media that any institution doing what it is supposed to be doing is now being seen as a rival. RTI is a splendid tool. But I don’t see many journalists making use of it on a consistent basis. They wait for others to file RTIs and give the results to them on a platter.”

So, why despite having a vibrant and free media, do we face this acute dearth of good journalistic investigations? What is stopping us from raising the bar in the investigative field? Most veteran journalists we spoke to say that whatever little investigative journalism is happening doesn’t reach its logical end because of lack of follow ups. They also say that the nature of investigative journalism has changed over a period of time.

Now investigations have become all about breaking it first and splashing “exclusive documents in possession” on television, followed by shouting matches in TV studios.  Very recently, the reportage on the Augusta Westland chopper deal saw television channels going bonkers on claiming exclusives and “breaking first” simultaneously, while it was Indian Express’ Manu Pubby who had been reporting on the story for the past one year.  And after the initial race for we-broke-it-first, the issue died a silent death. Menon says, “It is a sign of our times where journalism has lost its seriousness. No one cares to follow up. There are scores of stories that have been left in the lurch after the initial ho-ha-ha. Once the din dies down, the reporter or the media outlet moves to another one when they can generate some sensation”. Deepak Sharma, however, counters this argument. “Ideally a reporter should follow up on his stories, but it is one luxury that we can’t afford. After a point of time people lose interest in the story and we have to move on to the next story.”

On the future of investigative journalism Ramesh Menon says there is hope. “Organisations like Cobrapost, who recently did an excellent sting operation on various banks indulging in malpractices, keep hope alive.” Also, there are journalists like Shalini Singh, who have taken on real estate giants like DLF and powerful personalities like Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law, Robert Vadra with her meticulously researched investigative pieces in The Hindu. Singh has bagged the prestigious Prem Bhatia Award for Political Reporting in 2013. In an article, The Hindu says that the key to her success “was a careful accumulation of evidence, analysis of documents, connecting the dots and a willingness to challenge government claims, big business and vested interests”.  Singh is also upbeat about the future of investigative journalism in India. She says, “The new-found courage across select media to expose large government scams and corruption – in the hope that large-scale siphoning of public funds will become increasingly difficult, has been impressive”.

As we ponder how far investigative journalism can prosper with several political and corporate compulsions, we leave you with an episode from the Daily Show.  The episode investigates how CNN shut its investigative unit, not because of political pressure but because they didn’t want to spend money on investigative reporting any longer. Here’s hoping that India will not go down that path.