The presentation of the Union Budget is as predictable an event as is possible that the press get to cover. The basic contours remain the same, significant data are now increasingly available in the public domain, the change in timings from evening to morning makes it easy for newspapers to analyze, gather quotes, design, and above all the overriding fact remains that the entire event, down to sections in the speech, follows a pattern that is known. If one wants to measure the health of journalism, at least of the business variety, reading the next day’s newspapers is a good test. Here are some thoughts on the business newspapers’ reporting of the budget.
For beginners, try explaining the following nugget. “Forty-four years of crippling caution, and then one blinding leap. Today, the free-market hounds that India unleashed upon an unsuspecting world in 1991 have come with their pounds – dollars and euros – of flesh. For a civilization that never dared to marshal forces beyond its ancient borders, let alone muster the courage to envision a borderless dream, 2006 was the beginning of a sweet revenge. Nariman Point & Co sent out its emissaries armed with sacks of cash and attitude to take over the Benedict Arnolds of the world. And they returned with a clutch of megabrands – British Steel a.k.a Corus, Betapharma and Novelis, among the cream – after shaking the Western press out of its sub-continental prejudice. At ET, for this Budget Blockbuster, we chose to call this phenomenon the Quick India Movement” (When headlines become realET, 1 March, 2007). These sentences do not betray any caution, crippling or otherwise. They are a blinding leap, more like a blind leap. Blind to history, blind to geography, blind to language, and blind to economics. Swell performance from the newspaper that calls itself “The Economic Times”. Crippling caution, blinding leap, free-market hounds, unsuspecting world, civilization that never dared to marshal forces beyond its ancient borders, lack of courage to envision a borderless dream, and Benedict Arnolds. This is a blockbuster. Any block that had any delusions about information, knowledge, or shame would be knocked out for good.
Ranking a very distant second would be the use of unrelated pictures with stories including making the finance minister into James Bond, ostensibly since it was a 2007 budget presentation and the last three digits are the same as Bond’s signature. Such allusions littered across the pages are such hops, skips, and jumps that more than a wilful suspension of imagination is needed to appreciate the desk and design job. And the series of photographs marked “The Global Indian Takeover” draws top honours. Interspersed in the same paper, The Economic Times, were the usual fare of the budget’s impact on different sections of the economy and population that the newspaper decided merited dedicated segments.
What presumably for the reader was supposed to be different was the “Global Brains Trust” writing for the paper “By Invitation” that was supposed to set it apart from other newspapers. The last time one checked, by invitation did not imply sending the same stuff to all newspapers and letting them run it as something special and touting it as a paper-grabber. But Mr K V Kamath’s piece in The Economic Times was the same as that in The Financial Express, which claimed him as one of “Our Experts.” Now, it is indeed too much to expect from Mr Kamath that he would get two versions of his views written and have it sent to two newspapers. Send them a press release, and let them use it as they deem fit. That one assumes must have been the case with Mr M S Swaminathan and The Mint and Business Line, both of which carried the same piece. Now, this newly minted The Mint, with the transferred conscience and ethics of The Wall Street Journal called it “mint Exclusive Columns.” Poor reader should have known that it was an unfinished header. It was meant to be read as exclusive columns to this, that, and the other newspaper. Be that as it may.
One read Swaminthan exclusive in Mint that turned up in Business Line. Mr Kumar Mangalam Birla was a busy man. He was by invitation saying largely the same thing in Economic Times as what he was espousing as a BS (Business Standard) Jury member and as an exclusive columnist for Mint. In fact, those on jury duty at Business Standard were also available as either commentators or by invitation or as dedicated experts in other places. With the attention of this jury so divided it is not difficult to see why Business Standard gave a 7/10 verdict without explaining which jury member voted which way. May be they forgot to initial their thumbs up or down section in the form. Or may be, since jury proceedings are always kept confidential one cannot hope to get individual verdicts. But journalism is not a law court and if Business Standard could not have told its readers how these people voted, it should also have spared the readers from putting their recycled views as some special BS jury verdict. All in all there were no exclusives and no invitations. The same set was indulging in similar sententiousness. One hopes that one of these newspapers will stop this silly practice of taking industry and industrialists’ reactions because those favourably affected always welcome it in the name of better utilization, lower inflation, even playing field, rationalization, and those adversely affected suggest that there will be poorer utilization, higher inflation, and an uneven playing field.
Towards that end, at least the Business Standard got a clutch of economists to read the budget. But not to be left behind with the times, it also had the likes of Bhaichung Bhutia, the Bangash brothers, Priya Paul, Sheetal Mafatlal, and others answer some questions about the budget. The feature had all the marks of a filler with large photographs, choice of people, and the design to provide relief with white spaces. The utility of the paper was not enhanced by it and the space could have been suitably replaced with possibly charts/graphs that could have provided a synoptic view. If you want to be serious, please do not serve the occasional palliatives.
The formula for putting the pages was the same in all the papers. Budget and its impact on different sections or sectors were gathered in a page or two that were labelled with heads like Budget and you, Budget and economy, Budget and business, among others. Financial Express and Business Standard stood out in dedicating a page to the implications of the budget for the states. The sectoral analysis in Mint was a space- and paper-waster because the previous day’s close, and price movement of different companies taking up more than half of the pages was a triumph of style over substance. The same information, and it can be argued how important is the budget-day price movement, could have been provided in a different format. May be it was a case of not having adequate resources for a start-up paper.
The almost compulsory part was giving the entire speech and the text of the Finance Bill. One wishes one could request a Right to Information on this one. It must be a substantial sum these newspapers must be making to print the entire text in the next day’s papers. The text of the speech and the finance bill are available on the Internet and those so disposed can download the same. Also, if they want the reader to peruse the text, it might be a good idea to provide it in a font that is at least readable. Business Standard, at least, provided the speech in a readable font size. Business Line did not carry the memorandum and the bill, but presented the speech cut up into its own sections so that one did not know how it started, what the transitions were and where it ended. Mint, thankfully, dispensed with the clutter. Just in case someone thinks that the reproduction of the speech is important, as is the bill, the headline that The Economic Times gave to the speech should shed light on it. “For The Aam Admi And His Dog,” was the headline above the minister’s speech. It might be a good idea to just drop this silly exercise of printing the speech. Newspapers should not be government gazettes and there is that thing called the Internet.
Here are three humble suggestions for the next budget. Please do not print press releases from industry leaders and call it anything but that. Please do not ask industry leaders to comment on the budget. Ask them to pay for it. They do not have anything insightful to offer, and if they want the publicity as thought-leaders, make them pay to print their views. Or may be some are still doing that. Please dispense with bill and memorandum. Use those pages to do some stories on the most crucial aspect of the budget, the utilization of money. Think of what a difference it would have made if one could have looked at the utilization of funds from the last budgets. Good journalism is not about following where government money is coming from, it about chasing where it is going.
All the newspapers read for this piece were the Mumbai editions.
