... And that’s all the news for today.

His Scorpio eyes askew with cynicism, Subhas watched Kanchan scan her newspaper.

“Ferreting for news?” The sarcasm was unmistakable. “Yell when you find any.”

Kanchan, the determined Capricorn, kept reading.

Rohit, the blunt Taurean, got suspicious: “What’re you pitching at?”

“Nothing sinister,” Subhas donned a studied cool. “Just marveling we expect the paper to give us news.”

“What do you see in a paper?” the Taurean snorted.

“The Establishment’s billboard.” Subhas yawned.

“Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay, wise Solomon,” Kanchan swished a grey lock aside and mimicked Subhas’s cool. “You slogged 30 years in a newspaper: let’s have the full monty.”

Subhas ignored Kanchan’s jab: “What’s there to bare? Just track the source for each bit of news: 98 per cent of it all’s either a briefing, or a handout they call a Press Note.”

“What’s that mean?” Rohit demanded.

Subhas put on mild surprise: “Simply that all of it’s what the Establishment chose to dope the Press with.”

“Are you saying all of it’s lies?” Kanchan now laid her paper aside.

Subhas chewed each word: “I’m only saying it’s what the Establishment rammed down reporters’ gullets.”

“Huh?” Rohit sounded nettled.

“I’m talking about the nature of ‘the news’.” Subhas was cucumber-cool no longer, I noticed.

“Go on”, I prodded him.

“We want our newspapers to tell us what’s happening, and what might hit us from where, right?” Subhas expanded.

“Sure”, I said.

“D’you think that concerns the reporter?” he teased us.

Rohit wanted no riddle: “What does?”

“Only CYA”, Subhas said mystifyingly.

“Huh?” Rohit was impatient. “What does that spell?”

Subhas dragged each word: “Cover Your Ass. Saving his ass from getting kicked.”

“Who by?” Rohit was sharp.

“The chief reporter”, said Subhas. “And his by the chief of bureau, and the bureau chief’s by his editor.”

“Why?” persisted Rohit.

Subhas said it casually: “It works like this: say, a paper’s got ten reporters. The chief reporter gapes at his roster in the morning. Sees one’s got the day off and a few are on leave; figures only six’ll turn up. He’s gotta ensure they scrounge enough to fill the holes for local news. It’d be risky asking a reporter to go get a story: what if he draws a blank?”

Curiosity now softened Rohit: “So what does he do?”

“So Chieffie decides he’d better not spur them to chase ANY news; only limp to press conferences and briefings---where they’ll be stuffed with non-news. Enough to dump into the allotted space.”

Kanchan smiled: “You mean they target non-news before news gathering can even begin, eh?”

“Bull’s eye!” Subhas chuckled.

“And then what happens?” Rohit couldn’t wait.

“And then,” said Subhas, “each reporter turns steno at the press conference. Scribbles scraps of official jargon in his note pad; begs for a Press Note if one’s ready.”

“And then?” Rohit was all ears.

“Then each reporter dawdles back to his paper”, Subhas drawled, “and rehashes the stuff into ‘reports’.”

“What about murders, robberies . . . and accidents?” Kanchan expected him to backtrack.

“Ditto.” Subhas sang. “Reporters on the beat buzz the police; jot down whatever they dictate over the phone.”

“Gosh!” Rohit was indignant. “Don’t they run to an accident site?”

“Only if it’s something big, and the bureau chief feels they’d better get crumbs from the spot. Or may be a ‘sensational’ murder---that’s if someone rich or well-known’s done in. If a serial killer bumps off only a pavement-dweller, they’ll go by police dictation.”

“Hey, you’re making reporters out to be redundant!” Kanchan was pissed off.

“But that’s how it works,” Subhas shrugged. “Reporters sent to the Secretariat take dictation from government officials. Those at police headquarters take it from police officers. It just so happens the paper that employs ’em pays their salaries. Papers might as well hire stenos, or just peons who’ll fetch the handouts.”

Rohit saw the light: “Hmm . . . those officials can plant what they like, and omit what they don’t.”

“Precisely. The administration ignored starvation in Orissa villages; so we didn’t get to read of baby-selling in Kalahandi. Police ignored children vanishing in Nithari. And so we never read of kebabs being made outta those kids. Tribals are dispossessed of their forest land; we get to read nothing. The Iraqis want Yanks off their soil. But the U.S. Establishment tells reporters Iraqis are the ‘insurgents’---so we never read that the Yanks are the intruders . . . Only, if the court lets off Sanjay Dutt, we don’t get to read much else . . .”

“Are you saying there’s no investigative journalism?” Kanchan interrupted him.

“The little that began here after the Emergency,” said Subhas, “fizzled out by the ’80s. Paper owners want nothing probed.”

That to Rohit was scandalous: “Gosh! Why not?”

“The big guys that give the big ads might be peeved,” Subhas served that bland. “Might vex the mafiosi . . . or rile the owners’ bum chums, y’know.”

“You can’t be serious,” said Kanchan.

Subhas shot back: “Think, woman. News is what the Establishment does NOT want printed; what somebody somewhere’d want to STOP you from publishing.”

“What’s what they dole out, then?” Rohit was calm now.

“What they WANT you to print is propaganda. Reporters get stuffed with what the Establishment decides we oughtta read. After they’ve served that, those stenos believe they’ve done their job. And we believe we’ve got the news. And the Establishment gets down to cooking the next hunk of bullshit.”