I've been meaning to write on this for a while. This whole balderdash about slapping defamation notices on media outlets that write a story which don't toe any company's given line. The latest to join the bandwagon is the "venerable" Infosys co-founded by the "man who can do no wrong" NR Narayana Murthy. Two odd weeks ago, Infosys issued legal notices to BCCL and Indian Express for "defaming the company". For the life of me, I couldn't quite figure out what was "defamatory". If anything, Infosys ought to have been hauled over coal for how the company has been run last couple of years. That it needed a new management is obvious and employee morale is at an all time low. 

But that aside, after having spent twenty odd years in journalism, most editors I know of quake each time a legal notice lands on their tables. Loaded with jargon, insinuations, and casting aspersions on an editor's character, it is inevitably the kind of stuff that ought to be shoved into the rubbish can. It can rot there for all you care and nothing is going to come of it.

But the way things are, most editors, bite the bait. They hurriedly call the "aggrieved party", a reconciliatory meeting is organized, much backslapping takes place, and at the next award function organized by the media entity, a trophy is handed to them for "Outstanding contribution to (put your choice of award here)". The next day, the publication puts out pictures of how their annual award function or whatever else is it, is the biggest and brightest corporate India has seen; and how everybody who matters was in attendance to applaud the "winners". Everybody goes home to live happily ever after.

The problem on hand is most corporate houses in India have figured this is a ruse that works.

What most editors in India haven't figured is when somebody indulges in chest thumping, give it back as good as it gets. I can count on the fingers of one hand in India who have the gumption to stick it up and tell the "aggrieved party" to go take a walk. If they did that often enough, I have seen from close quarters, the chest thumping subsides and people toe the line. 

Not just that. Contrary to popular perception among timid editors and their hare brained counterparts in marketing, whether or not a legal notice is in place, each time an "award function" is organized, all of these parties make it to the event. They go out of their way as well to figure out in surreptitious ways if their name figures on the list of winners. If their name is not on the list, they try to bully their way to tables on the front to prove how higher up they are on the hierarchy. That way, they stand a better chance of figuring in post event pictures the title will put out. If they don't, the poor public relations functionary handling the job gets the wrong end of the stick.

From a publication's perspective, what you're left with is a demoralized edit team that has the bark, but lacks the bite, because their editors don't have the balls. I suspect that is pretty much why a lot of young kids I know who get into the business with starry eyes and idealism get out of it or hit the bottle.