Crisis strikes Businessworld
Management interference is making journalists leave.
PRANATI B. MEHRA takes a peep inside.
Businessworld, currently India’s second oldest business magazine, is in the throes of major internal change, not all of it desirable. Editor Rajeev Dubey has quit after a mail was sent out to journalists earlier this month saying that Anurag Batra, chairman of GBN Media Ltd, which owns BW, would be meeting them every week to review work. Another senior journalist, Chitra Narayanan, has also resigned.
The mail caused disquiet in the editorial team, with more journalists now planning to put in their papers. They spoke on condition of anonymity to The Hoot, saying this was their 'The New Republic' moment. (Over 30 senior journalists at The New Republic, a 100-year-old magazine in the US, quit earlier this month when the management announced changes that may turn the magazine into a new media vehicle. The journalists said the magazine’s legacy was being trashed and asked the owner Chris Hughes and new CEO Guy Vidra not to use the articles they had already submitted. Resignations followed immediately after top editors Franklin Foer and Leon Wieseltier quit).
Many at BW also consider their magazine to be a legacy institution. It was started in 1981 and was part of the Anand Bazar Patrika group until 2013.
Dubey did not, however, talk to The Hoot. Nor did Narayanan. But sources tell us that Dubey had been having problems with Batra’s style of functioning for some time. Batra is also chairman and editor-in-chief of the Exchange4media group which, besides running a website of the same name, brings out B2B and consumer magazines like PITCH, IMPACT, Realty Plus and Franchise Plus.
The problems between Batra and Dubey had worsened over the last few weeks with Batra allegedly undermining the editor’s position and increasingly asking journalists for details of the business personalities they were covering. The magazine has been looking for new investors and Batra allegedly wanted journalists to do their bit. This caused a lot of resentment in the newsroom.
A month ago, when journalists had started to leave and Dubey sought to hire new ones, Batra apparently told him, "I can run the magazine with just four journalists." "That", said one journalist, "is okay when you bring out a B2B magazine. But it cannot work for a serious business magazine of BW’s reputation."
The mail asking editorial teams to meet with Batra every week was "the last straw" for Dubey according to one journalist who did not want to be named. Dubey had taken over from Prosenjit Datta, another editor who is widely respected among peers and juniors and who had quit in July after putting in 15 years with the group.
It seems Batra allegedly lacks the seriousness required for mainstream business journalism and over-rates his deal-making skills. As one journalist said, Batra knew "the advertising crowd well" but could not pull off the kind of role where respected industry leaders would come if invited by the magazine for either magazine sponsored events/awards or as columnists.
Another journalist, however, said management control on content was growing in all publications and even Aveek Sarkar (former Chief Editor of the ABP group) would tell editors what to put in the pages, especially the features pages.
With the salaries of journalists at BW being delayed every month for the last six months and the editorial staff down by almost half, morale is low. Reports that journalists’ provident fund amounts had not been deposited could not be confirmed since Batra did not reply to phone calls nor to an email with detailed questions from The Hoot.
BW was sold by the ABP Group’s Ananda Publishers in September 2013 to Batra and Vikram Jhunjhunwala, an investment banker, who runs Shrine India Advisors, besides other investors. The magazine was making losses then. In July 2014, Radha Kapoor, daughter of Yes Bank’s managing director and CEO, Rana Kapoor, invested Rs 12.5 crore for a 40 percent stake in BW. Radha and her sister, Rakhee, were soon taken onto the board of the magazine.
Observers of the BW situation say that the Kapoors have offered to raise their stake in the magazine but do not agree with Batra’s valuations. Another source said Rana Kapoor was likely to buy Batra out but with several payments from his side pending, Batra may get nothing for himself.
The search for an editor is on too, apparently. Meanwhile, the journalists still with the magazine continue to face an uncertain future.
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