The curious 'rip off'

RETROFIT

New lows in plagiarism

Lots of curious things go on in media. There is a new twist to an oldtale every single day. Ditto for Air India and the civil aviationministry which seems to be lurching from one crisis to another inrecent times. In this theatre of the absurd, last week saw new depthsbeing plumbed. More so, because the two got inexorbaly intertwined. ATimes of India lead story set the cat amongst the pigeons. And how.The ToI story detailed how the finance ministry had bunged in a monkeywrench in the Air India-Indian merger saying that it was a mistake.Next stop demerge the two entites to recreate Air India and Indian.The Times story went like this: "If you can't fix it, merge it. And ifyou still can't fix it, demerge it. This seems to the government'sprescription for Air India and Indian Airlines which were merged inAugust 2007 despite widespread criticism. Interestingly, the mergerhas actually not moved much beyond a common billboard and a holdingcompany. With a rehab plan for Air India proving to be a fraught task,a proposal to undo the decision to forge Air India and Indian Airlinesinto a single entity has been mooted by the finance ministry. Theministry, which has to foot the bill for any revival package, isunderstood to be increasingly nervous over the viability of bailoutplans for the floundering carrier." So far so good. Or as the oldsaying in journalism goes - great story till it is denied.
The same morning I heard that Air India officials were calling mediaand denying the story outright. The next morning ET actually carriedthe denial despite not carrying the story. Curious got curiouser. Butthe demolition derby began when Financial Chronicle front paged asigned piece by the editor fulminating against the Times of India. Itwas nothing short of a hit job. Aptly titled - AI demerger: A report,a rip off and a denial - it slammed the ToI for downright plagiarism.Now the problem is that Financial Chronicle is not a widely read paperin the capital. So, one can understand ToI's urgency in ripping offFC's story.
But wait, let me first reproduce the story in FC. It is selfexplanatory: "The civil aviation ministry on Wednesday came out with astatement that there was no demerger move afoot to undo the March 2007marriage of the two erstwhile national carriers – Indian Airlines,that used to run domestic flights, and Air India which operated onlyon international routes.
Though the statement did not say so, it was obviously in response totwo reports in the printed media that the finance ministry had moved aproposal to split the merged entity, National Aviation Company ofIndia, and revive Air India and Indian Airlines as separate carriers.The combined company retained, for its brand, the Air India name.
The news was scooped by Financial Chronicle and carried as the day’slead story on page one on Monday (January 25, 2009). It was laterripped off, point by point, by Times of India (TOI) and carried astheir own bylined story two days later – on Wednesday.
Based on a proposal by expenditure secretary Sushma Nath, theFinancial Chronicle report also quoted another finance ministryofficial who explained the rationale of a demerger.
Here we reproduce the quote as it was published in our paper:“Domestic and international aviation markets behave differently. Theirproblems are specific and have to be different.” Oddly -- or perhapsnot – the TOI report too quoted “financial ministry officials” assaying: “International and domestic aviation markets behavedifferently. Their problems are specific and different.”
Sounds familiar? Exactly, except the transposition of a few words. Wedid not name the official in our report as he wanted to remainanonymous but he did say a lot more to us. However, after distillinghis comments taken on the phone, we retained only two sentences thatsuccinctly summed up his views.
Two days later, TOI extracted much the same two sentences from“officials”! Coincidence? It is for you, dear reader, to judge. Wegave details of a meeting of the empowered group of ministers lastweek where several other decisions were taken. Is it any surprise thatTOI gave the same details – full two days later?
Oh, yes, there was an original point in the TOI report. They managedto reach civil aviation minister Praful Patel, who told them, “Aisakuch nahin hain,” essentially implying that the news of a demergermove was bunkum.
We admit that we did try to reach him but failed, and this wasmentioned in our report. Despite his ministry’s statement denying thedemerger proposal, Financial Chronicle stands by its report."
Curious just got bizarre. Did the writer of the ToI story - MahendraKumar Singh filch the story? Or did the authors of the two disparateyet identical stories - Singh in ToI and K A Badarinath & ParulChhaparia in FC get their dictation from the same source? Did the ToIjourno in his arrogance of being part of the largest newspaper in theland sneer down upon the almost invisible smaller paper and think -what the hell, who reads FC, let me go right ahead and write the storyand for good measure rip off the FC story? Or did he honestly thinkthat only he had the story, so it should be played up, not realisingthat the same story was also given to FC. Maybe not. Perhaps, thestory was leaked to one and in all probability both journos by thesame source. What is remarkable is that shockingly the same quoteappeared in both stories. Which makes you sit up and take notice ofthe plagiarism charge seriously. No wonder the editor of FC lost hisshirt. But what makes curious turn completely absurd is the strongdenial put forth by the civil aviation ministry.
Now it is well known in Delhi's political underbelly that the PMO isunhappy with civil aviation ministry's handling of the AirIndia-Indian merger. And that there is pressure on the civil aviationministry given that the merged entity Air India's losses are mounting.All attempts to downsize have failed, pilot strikes have shown theairline management in poor light, the losses cannot be curtailed, thecrisis simply depens; but if expenditure secretary Sushma Nath hasfloated a written proposal to demerge Air India, then how can one denythat eventuality? The firmness with which the editor of FC has stoodby his paper's story makes it even more strange.
So, curious just got ridiculous or is it incongruity... More like laughable.