Indian Media bails out Murdochs...!

Rupert Murdoch is a worried man. He had to close News of the World. His plans of acquiring BSkyB had to be shelved. His aide Rebekah Brooks has been arrested. Along with his son and Rebekah he had to face the questions of Select Committee of the Parliament. Who else can he look for advice, but the Indian Media? Here is how the Indian Media helps Murdoch team. (Rebekah gets a special bail to meet Indian Media. What follows is an imaginary discussion.)

Prannoy Roy: Welcome to Delhi, Mr Murdoch. Sorry to hear about the closure of NOTW.

Rupert Murdoch: What else to do? Compelling circumstances….

Prannoy: What compelling circumstances? Are they worse than ours? Year after year we incur huge losses. Do we close? No. We find one idiot after another to invest- the first and biggest idiot was the public. We find some bank to lend.

Rupert: Prannoy…Money is not the issue….

Prannoy: Then nothing is an issue. Believe me. This is my 21 years of experience….(as if some new idea has dawned on him) ha! You’ve money…Don’t worry you had to close down 

NOTW. You can always buy a stake in NDTV. I can offer 17% @.....

Rupert(irritated): Prannoy…I have come here to solve my problem, not yours.

Vir Sanghvi: I agree with Prannoy. Whatever happens, you should not stop. That’s the mistake I did….I stopped…rather HT stopped my Counterpoint. See Barkha. Did she leave?

Rebekah Brooks : What else could I have done? They had arrested me….

Barkha Dutt : But you were close to Camerons. You could have called someone from the party…the Ghulam Nabi Azad equivalent…

Vir: Or Ahamed Patel equivalent….

Rebekah: But the problem is Guardian has been writing all kinds of stories about me….How could I have clung to my job?

Rajdeep Sardesai: That’s unprofessional of Guardian…See how I defended Barkha…I accused everyone to be jealous of her success…

Arnab Goswami : Take myself…I am fiercely independent…Still I wrote only an internal memo on the unethical behavior of a fellow journalist. Did I ever shout in the News Hour Debate “The nation wants to know tonight whether Barkha crossed the lakshman rekha”?

Prannoy(boasting): Bachhoo…that’s because both of you respect me…I am the father of Indian News media…21 years of experience….

Rupert: If you have 21 years experience, NOTW has 42 years…I acquired in 1968. But this kind of incest is not there among British Media guys…

Barkha: I have an idea on how to counter Guardian’s smear campaign. Conduct a live show in one of your channels. Call Guardian’s editor and also a handful of friendly journalists. Let them ask you questions…

Rupert: That’ll be a disaster.

Barkha: No, you call your colleague as moderator. Friendly journalists who will get adequate time will ask all soft questions. When Guradian guy asks some tough questions, you can accuse him of not knowing journalism at all…At the end of the programme, you can claim you have proved your innocence. I have a CD of a similar show conducted in India… will be very helpful to you…  

N Ram: Mr. Murdoch, I have a time tested model. The best way to handle Guardian or any other competitor is to fight among yourselves! That’s what I do! Times of India takes away my market share. I lose readership to Deccan Herald. Do I fight them back? No. Instead I fight with my brother Ravi and cousin Malini….People get so absorbed in our internal fight that they forget the real issue. Good strategy. It works. Try it. Start accusing each other…

Rajdeep: Wow…that would be a masterstroke…Guardian will be confused- whether to follow the phone hacking story or your internal accusations…I will try this with Times Now…They are taking all the TRPs….Sagarika, are you ready for a fight?

Ram: Rajdeep …remember….you owe me royalty…I have been following this strategy since eighties…initially with my uncle Kasturi, then with….

Barkha: Rebekah, can you not ask Cameron to meet editors and complain that this kind of enquiry by Select Committee would affect investor sentiments, FDIs would fall…

Rebekah: No way…we have a Prime Minister who has been elected by the public…who would like to go back to the public during the next election…Manmohan doesn’t have these compulsions…He can say all that…

James Murdoch (irritated): Oh…fo….Will someone tell me how to handle the select committee…

Barkha: Jayanti Natarajan is waiting outside. Shall I call her? She will tell you how they thwarted a JPC enquiry into Bofors in the past, PAC enquiry into 2G recently…It will a sure shot. You can defeat any parliamentary committee enquiry….

Rebekah: Is she a journalist?

Barkha: No, but we are politicians!