Public interest vs privacy

A television channel's sting operations raise ethical and legal issues.

V. VENKATESAN in New Delhi

WHEN reporters of tehelka.com masqueraded as arms dealers and secretly filmed their `transactions' on the sale of a fictitious product to the Defence Ministry in 2001, their act was defended widely as one that was in the larger public interest as it exposed corruption in a key organ of the government entrusted with the country's security.

The contours of sting journalism have since expanded with mediapersons using spy cameras to expose wrongs in all walks of life, not just in polity. All along, however, an unwritten code of reasonable restraints on the invasion of an individual's privacy seemed to guide journalists pursuing a story with a public interest goal.

In its expose tehelka.com used commercial sex workers as the price for "fixing" its fictitious deal with Army officials and claimed that it had to do so in order to win the officials' confidence. The website argued that the sex workers were "arranged" by a politician who acted as a middleman between the undercover reporters and the Army officials. Yet, the issue led to a profound dilemma within the media about the ethics of sting journalism and the violation of morally acceptable standards of the profession.

The debate on sting journalism has returned to haunt the nation with India TV, a private television channel, telecasting a series of stories involving sex and sleaze among public personalities, all shot using the spy camera.

The first was telecast on February 20 when sadhus of the Swaminarayan sect in Gujarat were shown to be exploiting married but childless women devotees. The telecast led to the arrest of the sadhus. The channel obviously got the story using the spycam, as neither the sadhus nor the women would admit to such relationships. Was it a violation of privacy? Yes. But there was a genuine public purpose that seemed to justify it.

The second story was telecast on February 27, when the nation was awaiting the results of the Assembly elections in Bihar, Jharkhand and Haryana. The television channel showed three Bihar politicians in a hotel room with sex workers allegedly supplied by a contractor-mafia in return for favours. The channel named the politicians shown in the film, but blanked out the unsuitable portions. The channel announced to the viewers that these were the politicians who sought votes promising empowerment of women but used public money the way they did.

The Information and Broadcasting Ministry described the film as obscene and offensive and sought an explanation from the channel for airing it. Acting under the Cable Regulation Act and the Uplinking Guidelines for news channels, the Ministry threatened to revoke the channel's licence if it failed to give a convincing answer to its notice.

Rule 6 of The Cable Television Network Rules, 1994, prohibits carrying of any programme in the cable service which offends against good taste or decency; contains anything obscene, defamatory, false and suggestive innuendos and half-truths; and is not suitable for unrestricted public exhibition.

India TV denied that the programme was vulgar or indecent and claimed that it took absolute care to ensure that it did not hurt public sentiment: not only were objectionable pictures covered, but the event, which was shown for less than one and a half minutes, was muted.

India TV's editor-in-chief Rajat Sharma also denied that the channel encroached on the privacy of politicians. Rather, the objective, he said, was to bring to light their hypocrisy and misuse of public money through the contractor-mafia, which are relevant issues for an electorate. Underlying Sharma's view is the belief that public figures cannot use privacy as a cloak for activities that are either illegal or blameworthy, which the media have a justifiable interest in reporting.

The channel's third story, telecast on March 13 and 17, was the most controversial as it exposed the "casting couch" (a euphemism for aspiring actors finding roles in film or television in return for sexual favours) in Hindi cinema. It featured its reporter, Ruchi, who approached Hindi film villain Shakti Kapoor and television host Aman Verma as an aspiring actor and sought their help to secure suitable roles.

Ruchi invited Kapoor to a hotel room, where a spycam caught him seeking sexual favours in return for his help in arranging meetings with some producers. In the programme, Kapoor also cast aspersions on some popular stars of Mumbai films. After the expose came to light, Kapoor apologised to those stars and alleged that the reporter kept inviting him to the hotel room persistently and that the channel had edited out her overtures to him.

In Verma's case, too, Ruchi sought a meeting with him, and Verma invited her to his home in Mumbai. The channel aired the relevant parts of their conversation, caught on the spycam, which it claimed revealed the existence of the casting couch in the industry. Verma, like Kapoor, protested against the clandestine filming and filed a criminal complaint against the television channel alleging that it wanted to "blackmail and extort money" from him.

In both these cases, was the channel guilty of violating privacy? Suhaib Illiyasi, the anchor of the programme, said it was absolutely fair. "Had Shakti been with his girlfriend we would not have filmed him, but he was not," he said. Asked whether it was justified in inviting him to a hotel room and then exposing him the way it did, Rajat Sharma said: "Shakti would not make such overtures to a stranger-girl if invited to Shivaji Park (in Mumbai). It was obvious that it could be done only in a closed room. We did not claim absolute freedom: we did not enter someone's bedroom uninvited, and we did not talk about the extra-marital relations of the person being exposed. The focus was clearly on certain favours being done in lieu of sex."

Making it clear that the programme was not aimed at consensual sex between two adults, Rajat Sharma asked whether the "casting couch" could mean consensual sex. As the film and television industry remains largely unregulated, the "casting couch" points to sexual exploitation at the workplace. During the telecast of the programme, the channel made repeated references to the need to regulate the industry by introducing a manual of dos and don'ts for would-be aspirants, similar to the one that exists in Hollywood. Said Rajat Sharma: "Our target is not the film industry, but young girls and their parents in small towns who seek roles in Bollywood. As the film industry thrives on such new faces, we have sent a very strong warning to them to take due precautions against the casting couch."

Rajat Sharma said the channel would use sting operations only as a last resort, after exploring other options to get a story. "We are not going overboard; we would use the sting with utmost caution, and without hurting sensibilities," he said. In the recent past, the channel had used the hidden camera to expose the recycling of hospital waste by a mafia at Mundka village bordering Delhi and the artificial colouring of vegetables at the Azadpur Mandi (wholesale market) in Delhi. These are without doubt stories with a strong emphasis on the public interest.

The Supreme Court has said as early as 1964, in Kharak Singh and others v. State of Uttar Pradesh, that nothing is more deleterious to a man's physical happiness and health than a calculated interference with his privacy. In 1975, in Govind v. State of Madhya Pradesh, the Supreme Court expounded the law on this subject thus: "Privacy-dignity claims deserve to be examined with care and to be denied only when an important countervailing interest is shown to be superior."

In the United Kingdom, the Calcutt Committee on Privacy and Related Matters (1990) opined that the revelations about the private life of a public figure are justified only to protect the health or safety of the public; or to expose crime or seriously anti-social conduct; or if his private life adversely affects his public duties or is so hypocritical that the public is likely to be seriously misled.

It is debatable whether India TV's controversial stories exposing sex and sleaze among those in public life would pass these tests to justify their telecast.