Down, But Not Out

Down, But Not Out

The Hoot interviewed Tarun Tejpal, Chief Executive Officer of Tehelka.com on August 28, 2001.
On Tehelka¿s investigations

The Hoot : Earlier your plan was you would do one major investigation a year.

TT : I think over the next one year everyone will realise the complete cleanness of our credentials, the sweep of our investigations, the fact that we are here to stay, you know.

The Hoot : You will keep using spycams?

TT : Absolutely. I thing sting journalism is completely legitimate in a country like India
where brazenness has touched completely new heights, ya. Look at your public figure.
Look how brazen he is. And I don¿t think chatting with politicians in drawing rooms
constitutes journalism any more. I think journalism has to go back to being adversarial. Our
democracy-this country-a democracy like ours, I think is in deep trouble---all of us know that. Journalism has to be adversarial. You have to keep asking questions.

The Hoot : Christopher Kremmer said on a Star News programme, there is enough
corruption in this country without your having to invent it.

TT : There will be actual scams and we will unearth it. And we will use spycams, and all
the initiative at our means to nail down corruption. And not just on politics. It could be on
environment, could be on sports, anything.

On using women

The Hoot :You know, on using women you¿ve changed your line, from Wednesday
evening to Saturday. (22Augst to 25 August)

TT : On Wednesday evening I said we did not exploit the tapes, and we did not suppress
the tapes. I said we made a call, and in its entire perspective may be the call was OK. And
now I am saying, may be the call was not OK, but keep the perspective still.
I¿ll tell you what I think the real mistake here is. The real mistake here is that there is a third
party involved, you know. And I would not have sanctioned something like that. But I am
saying I will take the moral rap for it because I run the organisation.

The Hoot : You are saying they did not take your sanction.

TT : I got to know about it later. You know when the story is going---its is so easy now in
hindsight for everybody to say that. You know its not as if you are running a sting day after
day after day. Something happens, you do it, you¿re doing it. It¿s not like---you know in
hindsight you can isolate one bit and say why was this happening there. You did not know
where the story was going. You were hoping the story was picking up---one good day, one
bad day, one good day. It was going for six months, you know. Six months for the field
investigation, two months, transcribing and editing. What people forget is that it was an
incredible tense situation that we lived in for those six seven months. Those eight weeks
when the tapes were being edited every single day we thought some body would be raided.
Some how the information would get out and they would come and raid us. And look at the
explosive nature of the material. There are any number of people I know who would have