A parting shot by yours seditiously
SIX years is a long time. I spent six years editing this iconic newspaper, the longest stint I have ever had. And it is time to move on. Fake narratives have become the bane of journalists who make career shifts. They either suffer them or create them to shower scorn on their former employers and colleagues as if all the good work — the idealistic, anti-establishment crusade — was a personal, private act of higher consciousness, and that the publication where it was all done has suddenly sunk into an irredeemable moral morass with their departure. This trend of scorched-earth exits is disgustingly opportunistic.
As the pandemic eased, the paper made a remarkable recovery. There was a 125 per cent growth from the pandemic’s nadir.
All the good work in a newspaper is a team effort. None of those god’s gifts to journalism can get a decent day’s work done without his or her colleagues. And then, no great journalism is possible without an enlightened ownership. Without it, one or two good news reports may slip through rarely, but a sustained attempt at quality journalism calls for public-spirited owners who are committed to the organisation and the reader.
When I was a reporter, a legendary editor once killed one of my investigative reports, which could have hurt a former Prime Minister, simply because he got a phone call from the proprietor. At The Tribune, I never got such phone calls. In fact, when I look back at the hundreds of columns and editorials I have written, one instance stands out as a shining exemplar of The Tribune’s traditions. At the height of the farmers’ protest, a sports utility vehicle in the convoy of Union Minister of State for Home, Ajay Mishra, had mowed down four farmers — Lovepreet Singh, Nachhatar Singh, Daljeet Singh and Gurvinder Singh — and a journalist, Raman Kashyap.
The video clips that began circulating from Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri on October 5, 2021, made me numb with rage and repulsion. Something more than the usual had to be done. A newspaper’s editorial is not its editor’s personal opinion, but the organisation’s point of view. Yet, I have never asked permission from the Tribune Trust to write an editorial, nor has it ever prescribed a political line.
But that day, for the only one time, I sought the Trust President Shri NN Vohra’s advice because I was going to write a front-page editorial. All he said was, “make it strong”. And strong it was. The Tribune sought the minister’s resignation, called him a goon in a minister’s guise and said he deserved to be (locked up) in the police station. The only regret, in hindsight, is that I now think it should have been headlined “Yours seditiously”, which was how I signed off.
So, when I proudly proclaim the paper’s stand on burning political issues, it is illogical to suggest that the strong position that the group took on the farmers’ agitation was mine alone and not that of my employers or colleagues. Every editor adds value to a newspaper, no doubt, but individual effort and integrity get burnished only against the backdrop of organisational action.
It was indeed a team effort that bore fruit after the crash that the newspaper suffered during that Black Swan event — the Covid pandemic. Almost 70 per cent of The Tribune’s circulation was wiped off. It was the only mainstream newspaper that was being produced from the newsroom and not from homes. The first-ever woman Chief News Editor of the paper, Nanki Hans, and her team toiled to bring out the paper. And as the pandemic eased, the paper made a remarkable recovery. There was a 125 per cent growth from the pandemic’s nadir.
That reminds me of R Madhavan Nair, whom many old-timers like Tarlochan Singh consider to be The Tribune’s second-greatest editor after Kalinath Ray. During Nair’s tenure, the paper grew by 300 per cent and became what it is today. It is indeed amusing to recall the strange coincidence that Nair and I belong to the same district in Kerala, where we did our schooling, moving on to Thiruvananthapuram for university and then to New Delhi for work.
Coming back to the post-pandemic recovery, its credit goes entirely to the Tribune Trust, our team of journalists and non-journalists and, most importantly, the north Indian reader, who will not let this newspaper fail. After five years in deep financial woods, the organisation is in a recovery mode — again, only because of the Trust sagaciously running a tight ship. After nearly two decades, the paper launched new daily products in February this year — Delhi Tribune, Haryana Tribune and Himachal Tribune. Beyond sagacity is compassion; I witnessed the employers’ generosity in its real sense when a terminally ill colleague, who could not attend office, was given a fresh contract.
The last five-six years saw this century-and-a-half-old institution make a digital mark with 2.2 million YouTube subscribers from nearly nothing and embrace change, bringing women into leadership roles in the newsroom and bureaus in Delhi, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. Punjabi Tribune has turned the corner under the new woman Officiating Editor, Arvinder Pal Kaur. And now, The Tribune is getting its first ever woman Editor-in-Chief, the redoubtable veteran Jyoti Malhotra (I have heard that Vladimir Putin was impressed by her fluent Russian).
I cannot forget my colleagues Sanjeev Bariana and Jupinderjit Singh, who restrengthened the brand, lifting it up from the depths of the ignominy of the front-page apology to the journalistic high of pursuing druglords and politicians. Every time an expose is planned or a column is written, I have a reader in my mind’s eye. It could be a kinnow farmer who explains the misery of farming, an insider who sends across sensitive documents, or someone who reveals how the exquisite single-malt whiskey that Punjabis drink is actually ‘made’ in Ludhiana. I have given this ideal reader a real-life identity: Surinderjit Singh Sandhu of Amritsar, a retired bureaucrat. He praises me to the heavens one day but can also drop me into the water buffalo pond the day after.
Dear Sandhu Sahib, I tried my best. Goodbye and thank you.
