When Govindraj Ethiraj and I finally chat, it is after much matching of schedules. He had recently returned from the U.S., where he was one of four laureates of the 11th John P. McNulty Prize. The citation says it is for “using a data-driven approach to improve public discourse and transparency in India” by debunking misinformation and fake news, promoting fact checking, and advancing public-interest journalism through the three media ventures he co-founded: IndiaSpend, FactChecker, and Boom.
A veteran journalist, with many years spent at The Economic Times , CNBC, Business Standard, and Bloomberg TV India (of which he was founding editor), Ethiraj also did a stint volunteering with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) at Nandan Nilekani’s behest.
He wanted to start his own enterprise, and he knew it was going to be journalistic, and work that drove change. The Anna Hazare agitation was a catalyst: “Transformational, mobilised youth, centre-staged corruption, brought people out on the streets. Of course, it fell apart because people leading it moved in different directions, but it became clear to me that we had hope as citizens fighting for better governance and accountability.”
The question was what he would focus on, and the answer, he says, was data. “If you have data in your discussion, your debate, the quality of your ask will be far superior.” He explains with an example. “You’re irked at the state of education. Sacking the minister wouldn’t solve the problem. Can I start by asking what the problem really is. The number of children who get into school? Turns out that is not the problem: 99% of children go to school today. Is it what we anecdotally hear about education infrastructure? Of course, but that’s still not it; that problem does get resolved. Is it the problem of teachers’ attendance? Yes, but that’s still not the only thing. The key problem is outcome, the fact that a Class IV student cannot do Class I math. Ask why outcomes are so low, then work backwards. Ask how many Class IV students can do Class I math, then ask why. The teaching? Ask why teacher quality is so bad. Are they not paid enough? Will paying better solve the problem? Not trained enough? Will better training solve the problem? If so, how? That’s how you get specific on an issue, whether it’s education, health, gender, or environment.”
Business of facts
So, in 2011, to focus on these issues, he and some friends put together some money, rented space in a former factory complex, and started IndiaSpend, the country’s first data journalism initiative. It runs under a trust he co-founded, the Spending & Policy Research Foundation, and its funding is philanthropic; patrons include Rohini Nilekani (whose contribution is now via the Independent and Public-Spirited Media Foundation, which she co-founded), Vikram Lal, and the Pirojsha Godrej Foundation.
The decision to be a trust was idealistic, and has dictated that IndiaSpend doesn’t spend much (even now it has just 12 employees, two of who work from home). In 2014, they launched an extension, FactChecker.in. Ethiraj also co-founded Ping Digital, a for-profit, which owns Boom, also in the business of fact-checking. What’s the difference? “Boom is aggressive,” he says, “hardcore, calling out people, going after other media, responding to stuff flying around WhatsApp and Facebook, morphed images, doctored videos, which may have nothing to do with politics, and even if they are, may not have any institutional stamp on it. FactChecker is serious, more institutional, involving government, people in public life.”
Calling out corruption, even just making people look incompetent: is this dangerous in an atmosphere increasingly hostile to inconvenient truths? Ethiraj laughs. “That’s why we go with data and evidence. Some of the data points in that direction, but the evidence doesn’t.” What about alleged pressure on the media from the ruling party? “I’ve met people in government upset with some of what we do. I point out we believe in data and evidence; we don’t have an agenda. We do a lot of anti-establishment stories; you’re the establishment now, but when we started, the establishment was the UPA. At Boom, we call out BJP politicians, and Congress politicians too. At IndiaSpend and FactChecker, while not everything we do hits out at the establishment — because we’re focussed on fundamental issues — we’ve put out detailed reports attacking different arms of the government, but I’ve never been told to stay off or lay off.”
The media must take some blame, he says, citing the example of the recent ICICI controversy. “I was quite disappointed with how the media covered early developments. There was clearly a corporate governance failure — I don’t know if Chanda Kochhar is guilty; let the investigation find out — a clear failure on the company’s part to respond to questions. And I was shocked that the questions were not asked for a long time. The entire business media was, not entirely but largely, silent. What are they scared of? The fear was worse than the fear they portray about writing on Modi and Amit Shah. It’s a slight apples-to-oranges comparison here, but not too much. What prevents people from doing this? Clearly there are partisan needs, revenue, advertising, access. Anyone can hold those levers, not necessarily, or only, the BJP.” Also, he says, journalists jump to conclusions too fast when something meets their confirmation biases. The NDA government is more concerned about its image than the previous ones, “but ask any seasoned journalist in Delhi: it’s not like previous governments have been much less. All governments are vindictive when it comes to journalists who hit them continuously.”
Big Media
Why is ‘fake news’ a growing problem? “It’s the distrust of media that has led, in some ways, to its proliferation. Because you don’t believe traditional media outlets, you start trusting everyone else. Of course, the categorisation ‘all media is fake news’ perpetuates the narrative, like it’s happening in the U.S., and other parts of the world. But the source is the fundamental distrust of Big Media.”
Where did that originate from? “Ask most young people; they will tell you they don’t watch TV, read newspapers. They feel the media does not respond to real issues. Look at TV — it may not be the only thing you consume, but you believe TV news represents media — it is struggling with a broken business model, and fighting to save itself by going all out for TRPs, which means going all out on the most entertaining, most popular content… or news that is entertaining, depending on how you want to look at it. For news junkies, seeing something on loop for four hours, shouting matches, it’s all theatre, and it works. But it’s putting off a lot of people who feel it is not catering to their real needs. All this is because advertising is paying for it. Advertisers want eyeballs.”
It’s unfair to target one government for everything, Ethiraj says. Many of the deep problems India faces could have been tackled decades ago. “I can’t get up in the morning and say, I hate Modi and I’m going to find something that will make him look like an idiot. Then I’m not a journalist, and the whole objective of what I’m doing gets defeated. If the government is guilty of oversight or perpetuating something, do investigative journalism that brings that out.”
Ethiraj plans to continue looking deeply at issues, finding data, and building evidence. “This means we are solutions-focussed. We won’t say that these guys 20 years ago screwed up, but we will say, for instance, here is the problem with fighting drug-resistant TB, here are the issues we need to take care of for diagnosis, for cure, for support of patients who can’t afford nutrition without which they can’t take the strong medicines.”
He will have to find ways to fund it. The subset of people who will support ventures like this is small, he says, but it’s worth doing. “The idealistic hope is that as people start using data points, the questions they ask about what’s wrong with things around us also becomes specific. And you thus enforce higher accountability from those you elect or who are supposed to serve you.”
peter.griffin@thehindu.co.in
