The Satyam fiasco points to the failure of several watchdogs: the audit system (both internal and external-ICAI), the regulatory mechanism (SEBI) and the media. While much concern has been voiced over the first two, media, understandably, doesn't want to accuse itself for the failure on its part.

There is a strong reason: the increasing dependence of media on advertising not just for growth but even survival. In the 1960s and 1970s, print media had a large share of its revenues flowing from sale of copies. With the boom in advertising, the situation has undergone a structural change. In their anxiety to build numbers, print media resorts to hefty cross-subsidisation of cover prices through usurious ad rates.

Samir Jain of The Times of India pioneered this trend by resorting to massive price wars. When adapted by other dailies like The Hindustan Times, Asian Age and The Hindu, there were no-holds-barred, bottomless price wars. One witnessed, what could be thought as unbelievable a couple of decades ago, of these biggies offering their bulky papers for just a rupee. This has further degenerated to stacking thousands of copies free at airports and liberally distributing these free in conventions and conferences. This trend is slowly moving towards the free distribution pattern of neighbourhood papers.

The experience of the television medium is no less bizarre. In parties and important conferences, one witnesses young, bright reporters cornering business leaders from public and private sectors, secretaries to the government and, of course, ministers and other decision-makers, spending all their persuasive skills to tie-up sponsorships. A day with Sharmaji, leader of a prosperous corporate, starts from singing suprabhatam to wake him up, extends through the day to cover his every single activity till late in the night to put him to sleep. With the proliferation of business, news and other 24x7 channels, one witnesses high-power selling of ad time, with rates also reaching dizzy heights for programmes with large potential viewership.
The competition is comparable for space selling by the print medium. With more than 90 per cent of the newspapers' revenues today coming from advertisements (from the governments, Central and states and large corporates), there is understandable reluctance to probe deep into the shenanigans of business leaders.

Delhi-based large newspapers – Hindustan Times, Times of India, Economic Times and The Indian Express – also vie with one another and with the television medium to select the 'Business Leader of the Year' apart from the 'Indian of the Year' and scores of the other worthies. Satyam's Ramalinga Raju was adorned with such decorations not long ago. When CII presented the legendary leader of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, a few years ago in New Delhi, the latter thought it fit to quote Raju who was projected as an icon of Andhra Pradesh. Much favoured by the then AP state chief minister Chandrababu Naidu and the large, prosperous Andhra NRI community in the US, Raju was part of the inner circle during the visits of US President Bill Clinton and Microsoft's Bill Gates.

Media, as pointed out above, with its heavy dependence on governments and business for ad support, is today content to work on well-prepared handouts of corporates. Its critical function as a watchdog appears massively eroded. When was the last time you saw a critical analysis of Hindustan Unilever, Bharti Airtel, the Tatas, Reliance or MRF by Economic Times, Hindustan Times or The Hindu? Remember the continuing crusade by Ramnath Goenka /S. Gurumurthi against the powerful Dhirubhai Ambani in the 1980s that led to lot of welcome regulation and transparency? Today it is no big deal for the editor of Hindustan Times Vir Singhvi to depict Narendra Modi as a mass murderer (for the nth time); nor for the 'secular' chief editor N Ram of The Hindu to be hyper critical of the BJP or even the Congress (over the nuclear deal); but these would not often touch corporate honchos.

When smaller independent publications attempt this, the retribution is quick and fast. IE was once threatened with a law suit for a crore of rupees for a critical article which described the shoddy work done by a design and engineering firm that caused continuous and huge losses to a once-prosperous fertilizer company. Another short piece on a unit of a large engineering conglomerate of the south invited a million rupee law suit, which is currently on its ninth year!

It's no wonder then that media, described as the fourth estate, understandably looks for better avenues in estates that are more real.