Of glass houses, stones and other discomforts- part 1

Once the media got tired of Srini, they were quick to latch on to Dhoni- why did he not speak? Why did he not say something against the match fixers? Why did he not admonish the betting community? The real question that everyone was asking without putting it in so many words was - why did Dhoni not renounce his captaincy of the Chennai Super Kings? Well, i'm no mind reader, so i don't presume to know what is going on inside the mind of Captain cool.. but as a cricket fan and a fervent supporter of the men in blue, i hope to God that he is focusing on the Champions Trophy. God knows Indian cricket needs a win now, more than ever before.

But what is curious, is that the media who is screaming the loudest about Dhoni's supposed conflict of interest are those that most need to set their own houses in order.

Let us first explore the self appointed inquisitor for the nation. Mr. Arnab and his company, the Times of India and the Economic Times. The media house that "outed" the story in the first place. The group is no stranger to conflict of interest, and one might argue that owing to their 'expertise' in the matter, they were in a better position to judge this in the first place and share their anguish that Dhoni is not only a Vice President of India Cements but also a part stake holder in Rhiti Sports- the company that manages not just him, but <insert several shocked gasps here> Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja and Saina Nehwal- the last, inconveniently is not a part of the Suepr Kings, thereby messing up the media's story by virtue of her very presence. But i digress... let us get back to why the Times Group is best poised to comment on the conflict of interest in the first place.

Much to the Time's group's surprise, some years ago they found that people want at least a few lines of news per page of advertising and they weren't willing to fork out money only to buy papers filled with colourful ads and sexy models. (there is no accounting for public taste, but that's a sad reality). Once they came to terms with this, they innovated with advertising formats (if this kind of innovation was applied in the fields of particle physics or something, the course of human civilization would have taken a completely different turn, but the Times Group stuck to what they knew best- publishing). The Times Group launched something known as Private Treaties, which was later renamed Brand Capital. Now what it meant was that if you were a company that had something to sell to the public, but couldn't immediately fork out the crores of rupees that it took to run a nation-wide campaign, then you could approach the Times Group and become a Treaty client, whereby, for a stake in your company, not only will the group allow you to run ads across their publications for a heavily discounted rate, they would also support you with positive news stories and good PR ensuring that your brand gets built in the minds of the gullible public who really believe there is a difference between honest journalism and marketing. The client makes a lot of money and so does the Times Group, by virtue of their stake, and what's more, they end up saving a lot of money, because now, instead of having two departments (journalism and marketing), they could now fire all the journos and have the marketing guys write the articles- or simpler yet, just print whatever the client asks them to.
Read more about Private Treaties here:
The Hoot- How private treaties influence reporting

Despite the negative publicity, this master-stroke makes them pioneers in the field of conflict of interest- so they have every reason to comment on MSD's supposed awkward position.

But i have some kutty doubts here

If this is the Times Group approach to journalism, it begs the most obvious question- which client of the Group has vested interests in ensuring that the CSK brand along with the players, owners, team principals etc get tarnished in public opinion? In the previous instances when they have waged an all bets off battle against some, there was always an agenda. Read more here
 TOI and the Commonwealth Games

The second is in terms of Dhoni's stake in Rhiti sports. Now tell me, if you make 26.5 Million USD a year (according to Forbes), why on earth will you jeopardize all that for a few lakhs that you may potentially earn if a Suresh Raina or Jadeja get selected to the national team and then by virtue of their outstanding performance get several brand endorsements when then results in earnings for Rhiti- which then comes to you as a piddly 15%? For a man who is not even discerning about the brands he chooses to endorse (Orient PSPO, Maxx Mobiles etc- really MSD, that's the best you could do) it seems like a super complicated income plan that is unlikely to be his first investment choice. Also lets not forget that both Raina and Jadeja are impressive players who aren't really in need of this kind of a leg up in the first place.

Thirdly, lets get back to Dhoni's Vice Presidency at our old punching bag- India Cements. Now India Cements has had cricketeers on their roles since 1965 (or that's what's been reported in the press). S, Venkatraghavan, Rahul Dravid, V.B Chandrashekar, Dinesh Karthik, several state players, Ranji players etc have been on their roles since long before the IPL was even a figment of anyone's wild imagination. Now, no matter how much i wrack my brain, i'm not able to see what "benefit" the company gets out of any of their players being on their roles except as a gesture of good will. Now again, do you honestly believe that for a man who earns over USD 26 Million, this vice presidency in the company is going to signify anything other than that? Dhoni also has an honorary position in the Indian Army- does that mean he is going to support players from the Army in terms of team selection? Or is he going to run out and fight the next Chinese incursion at our borders? No. As someone that the entire nation looks up to, he has just been given an honorary position in both the Indian Army and in India Cements. This is not going to make the army stronger or help sell more cement (As the owners of team CSK, they anyway use the Super Kings players in their ads- they didn't need to make Dhoni a VP for that).

Next up: Who owns the media?

Also here's that has documented TOI's fight against N Srinivasan is here:
How-the-times-of-india-went-after-n-srinivasan