I read with great amusement today and watched frothing debates on television of how a BJD Member of Parliament tried to bribe journalists in the temple town of Puri. Ostensibly, with cash in the region of Rs 200-300 tucked away. 

The reason I say amusement is because much of the outrage is misplaced. My mind goes back to 1993 when I was still wet behind the ears and had just stepped into business journalism. Those were the boom days for Initial Public Offerings (IPOs). So much so, that there used to be an IPO beat and it was a coveted one. Why it was so coveted soon became obvious to me.

Every single day, on average, there would be at least four to five press conferences that were nothing short of a sham. Promoters of all kinds wanted an IPO to raise funds and conferences would be held at either the Taj Mahal or The Oberoi (now The Trident) in Mumbai. The tardier ones would settle for The President. All within a stones throw of each other.

Reporters on the IPO beat hunted in packs. They went "conference hopping" as a group. So if they were late for a scheduled press meet, the promoters had no choice but to wait until they all of them arrived. And even when they did come in, their harried public relations folks would do their best to stall the meet until a representative from the Economic Times made it. For promoters, the press meet wasn't complete until all of these souls had congregated at one of the fancy rooms in one of these hotels.

The public relations machinery knew their drill. As the journalists trooped in, they'd hand over dockets containing the mandatory IPO prospectus'. Nobody as much as bothered to look through it. The conference would begin, the promoters would belt out some rubbish, and the floor would be opened to questions.

A senior lady journalist whom I shall not name right now would open the Q&A with a dumbass question: Gentlemen, how much of your revenues will come from exports? Answer: Blah blah blah blah.

Second question: Invariably around why the operating margins are high or low--a number you don't need a rocket scientist to figure out.  

Everybody exchanges glances, because there is another conference to go to. And before they do, there is a lavish spread to be tackled. So the lady journalist from South Mumbai in her best faux accent would say loud: Thank you gentlemen, that will be all. And everybody would scramble to the buffet table.

On their way out, the public relations folks would hand out envelopes to all of the assembled journalists. Incidentally, the firm that started the practice of handling these envelopes is now among the biggest in the country and had fine tuned it into an art form. 

It contained "gift vouchers" of various denominations from CitiBank. At the very least, Rs 500. Some in the region of Rs 1,000. And one of the largest giveaways of Rs 1,500 was made by a conglomerate that is now in the news for being close to the prime ministers office. Bounty in place, the booty hunters would head to the next conference to collect the next instalment. When placed in the context of these numbers, the Rs 200-300 being bandied in Puri sound like chicken shit 21 years ago.

These vouchers could be redeemed for practically anything at any major store or restaurant. But for the more ingenious ones, that's not where the fun was. The fun was at the Press Club where journalists and their counterparts from public relations congregated.

So, if you had a gift voucher for Rs 500, it could be exchanged for cash from your friend in the public relations community, but a marginal discount of say 10 percent or so. The journalist walked home with the cash. And the PR professional would go and pass the same voucher on to the next client on his roster at the full price. It was a win win for both sides of the profession and everybody clinked their glasses at the end of the day in appreciation of a hard days work done. The only jokers who got taken for a ride were readers who had no clue how star ratings for IPOs were arrived at by journalists who hadn't even gone through the IPO documents.

There were honorable exceptions. Can't think of too many actually. The one that came to mind, a friend from the PR business just told me only wore a holier than thou attitude. But he was worse than the others. {UPDATE} He'd walk into the press conference and leave a briefcase at the reception desk to the conference hall. Once inside, he'd make a song and dance of what a tough guy he is. The big honcho at whatever PR firm was handling the IPO, would ensure a bigger wad of gift vouchers would be placed inside this briefcase of his. Conference and mandatory silly questions done, everybody would walk, and this said gentleman would walk out after picking his briefcase up from the reception. I must add here, one of my friend from the PR firm who handled him, said the payouts given to him had to be higher than what was on offer to the others.

Then, of course, how can I forget the publisher of this rag that emanated from an office in the back lanes of the Fort area? Many people swore by it for the "tips" it offered. If any clue be needed, it's title was a rip off on the Wall Street Journal. I'll leave you to the wild guesses.  This publisher was the only man who'd walk in dressed all slick in designer suits, fancy watches that he'd keep staring at, and looked rich unlike the poor sods who inhabited the place. But make no mistakes. He wouldn't walk out without his fair share of the goodies. And what constitutes goodies?

As a friend, Sachin Joneja, pointed out on my Facebook wall, " Are you sure you are not "being polite" about the "gifts" involved? Having been on the other side, the numbers in your article make me laugh. Yes maybe the raw cash component was just this. And the fancy gifts including silver glasses etc.? And the fancy booze? And then there was the innovation of taking the whole pack for a "plant visit" perks and all if the plant was say near Pune." {UPDATE ENDS}

If there were some exceptions to the rule, our capital markets and business journalism would have been a much better and stronger today.