Many a media house based in Punjab has been rattled by the Election Commission’s first-time effort to curb paid news. Nevertheless, media watchers say what has been exposed is just the tip of the iceberg. “The flip side of the EC’s strictness in accounting for advertisements put out by candidates is that now there are very few candidates’ ads in newspapers or on TV channels,” says Kanwar Sandhu, managing editor of Day & Night News, a TV channel. “Instead, candidates either pay local correspondents or get paid news inserted.”

And of the 339 cases for which notices were issued by the Election Commission, a staggering 201 cases have seen the candidates acknowledging that they paid for news. They have now agreed to book these payments onto their expenditure accounts. Each candidate’s account has a cap of Rs 16 lakh.
…In many of the instances where candidates have denied the charges, the expenditure has been booked in the “shadow expenditure registers” being maintained by the EC’s accounting teams.

Together, these two developments promise many blushes for Big Media.
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Mr. Chavan’s accounts are a delight. A kind of Gandhian manual on poll austerity. Read them and you know that Bhokar, Nanded is where you want to settle post-retirement. Things are so cheap. Mr. Chavan wrapped up his newspaper advertising within a frugal Rs.5,379. His entire poll campaign cost less than Rs.7 lakh. (The limit for an assembly constituency in Maharashtra that year was Rs.10 lakh). This included two public meetings where he brought down Bollywood megastar Salman Khan as the main attraction, drawing thousands of people. The first meeting cost a piffling Rs.4,440 and the second even less, only Rs.4,300. In both cases the main cost, more than a third of the total, was on the public address system. (But even Steve Jobs could not have got the audio done in Rs.1,500). The pandal top cost just Rs.200, hired sofas cost the same and Mr. Chavan spent no more than Rs.1,000 on setting up the stage. (See: The Hindu, November 10, 2010).
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Four dailies, asked by the ECI whether what had appeared on Mr. Chavan was news or paid-for, scorned all notions of paid news.
..Their letters to the ECI are clear and edifying.
..Two Marathi papers pleaded proximity to the Congress. As the daily Pudhari argued in a five-page letter: “….every newspaper has its inclination towards a political party and Pudhari is no exception to that.”
..Lokmat candidly shared its aim in bringing out so many pages on Mr. Chavan. This was “to acquaint the people of Maharashtra about the achievements and developments of the Congress-led government in Maharashtra during its tenure under the present Chief Minister.” (Who had held that post for all of 11 months at the time). “The other factor that motivated us…is the alignment of our group’s ideology with that of the Congress Party.”
…The Times Group (for Maharashtra Times) also trashed any notion of ‘paid news.’ We are “a balanced and responsible corporate,” their letter asserted…