India's feisty television news channels have tapped a seam of public disgust by using revolutionary sting operations to expose official corruption and social ills that have made some lawmakers so nervous they are trying to limit media power.
"The media is reflecting public anger," said CNN-IBN senior editor and anchor Sagarika Ghose. "There is this simmering public anger in India and it's about time. In a society like ours, which is so opaque, where it is so difficult to get information, often sting operations can blow the lid off horrific practices."
In a sting aired a year ago, Indian viewers were outraged by the sight of 11 elected lawmakers setting prices for asking questions in parliament. The ensuing outcry led to an inquriy, and the expulsion of the legislators.
In a country where nearly a quarter of the more than 540 people elected to parliament in 2004 faced criminal charges including murder and rape according to an independent watchdog, the story and its outcome were notable.
In addition to politics, news channels have turned their attention to a variety of social ills often swept under the carpet in the nation of 1.1 billion people where almost one third live on less than a dollar a day and face exploitation at almost every encounter with the government.
"You have medical practioners cutting off the limbs of beggars, you have orphanages doubling as brothels, you have children's homes selling children into trafficking," Ghose told AFP.
"The sting operations are exposing these rackets." There are now 40 Indian cable news channels, compared to one state-run broadcaster about 15 years ago that are shown nationally or across major regions. They reach more than 60 million homes.
Innovations like cellphone cameras and legal changes such as the year-old Right to Information act have made it easier to query and then visually document corruption.
Increased competition for viewers - as well as a fickle audience likely to switch to the channel playing the juiciest scandal - has played its part in what the news channels like to call "impact journalism," which they say is in the broad public interest.
Yet not everyone is lauding the hyperactive news channels. One criminal lawyer blew a fuse when he was asked on an interview program how he could defend the son of a politician in his retrial for the 1999 murder of a model in a bar filled with over 100 people.
"Who the hell is the press to decide who is indefensible?" an irate Ram Jethmalani, a former law minister, told his interviewer, CNN-IBN's Ghose. "For God's sake stop becoming judges and gods. You are overstepping the limits of your duty," he railed.
That appears to be a sentiment shared by some politicians and judges. - Stings target corrupt few to ease suffering of the many - India's Supreme Court has voiced concerns over sting operations, saying they are only carried out to make money, a Press Trust of India news report said.
And lawmakers are considering the introduction of a number of new guidelines and regulations for the broadcast media in a bill now in draft stage. "The entire spectrum of sting operations, operation of cable networks, mushrooming of cable networks ... all these are pending in the bill, which is still in the negotiating stage," Broadcasting Minister P.R. Dasmunsi told reporters last month.
But media observers say that the activism by cable news is sorely needed. "If you look at the daily life of citizens, the amount they suffer due to arbitrary acts of government personnel is much more than they suffer from the media," said political analyst Mahesh Rangarajan.
"The minute you start giving the government powers, some guy will use those to prevent the unmasking of atrocities," Rangarajan said. Although noting that much of the activism was related to urban and middle-class concerns, analyst Sevanti Ninan, who writes about the media for The Hindu newspaper, said the coverage was a positive development.
"How can you have a problem with activism? There is so much that is wrong with the way the country is governed," said Ninan. But Ninan noted that some stings dwell on matters not clearly in the public interest, including the sex lives of high-profile figures. The issue of undue influence in court trials was also a concern, she said.
Television reporters say that they are not trying to dictate the outcome of cases rather than providing a channel for public opinion. In the case of the murdered model, normally apathetic middle-class Indians held candlelight vigils when the accused was acquitted in March after several eyewitnesses recanted earlier testimony.
"It is a moral catastrophe that a young woman was shot in front of the city's elite but when it came to the ultimate test of spine to come up and testify not one person came forward," said CNN-IBN's Ghose. "I can't tell you the kind of response we've seen - people coming up to us and saying you've go to do something."
Televised protests, heated newspaper editorials and SMS text campaigns by top cable news organisations saw the case reopened. "If justice is done in one case maybe there will be a trickle-down effect," said Ghose.
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