For tracking Malegaon blast plot,Express gets IPI Excellence award

The award was given to The Indian Express and Bidisha Ghosal of The Week. The Indian Express won for its sustained investigation into the Malegaon and Modasa blasts of 2008 and the alleged role of Hindu extremists and organisations. Ghosal was awarded for her reports on the exploitation of widows of debt-burdened farmers in Maharashtra.

Union Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal,who presented the awards to the winners,pointed out that freedom of expression is at its most powerful when those without a voice can express themselves through the media. Both stories that were rewarded today fulfilled that role.

On October 22,2008,The Indian Express’s Mumbai-based reporter Smita Nair broke the story that police investigations had found that Hindu militant groups were behind the blasts in Modasa and Malegaon. In the following months,a team of Express reporters — Nair,Chandan Haygunde,Kamal Saiyed,Manu Pubby,Milind Ghatwai,Vikram Rautela and Sagnik Chowdhury — stayed resolutely on the story,joining the dots of the terror plot.

Receiving the award on behalf of the Express team,Nair said,“While building the facts of the conspiracy and the profiles of the accused,as a team we tried our best to steer away from any biases and challenge the stereotype to raise the larger question that terrorism is not the subject of any particular religion or group anymore. This story in many ways has also changed the way in which terror reporting is done in the mainstream media.”

Ghosal of The Week said,“The widows of Vidarbha were conspicuous by their absence. My story,Silent Sufferers,sought to give a voice to these women.”

This year’s IPI Award was the third for The Indian Express. It won first in 2003,the year the Award was instituted,for its “fearless and comprehensive” reporting of the Gujarat riots and their aftermath. In 2006,it was honoured for its expose of the Bihar flood relief scandal where crores meant for flood victims were siphoned off by politicians,contractors and bureaucrats,and for its series on the vanishing tigers of India.

Said Shekhar Gupta,The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief,“These are not file-snatching jobs or stings. Journalism is not about sticking a camera into someone’s bedroom. These are investigative stories where facts were collected and checked and where the other side’s version was sought.”

Justice Anand took the media debate further by saying that while the media has an important role in safeguarding human rights,the trend of paid content in news needs to be checked. “It is a reprehensible system where during elections,political parties and candidates are offered packages by media houses… It is a matter of concern that ‘paid news’ is not confined to election time alone…”

The entries for the 2009 Award were judged by a distinguished jury of editors and publishers headed by Justice Anand. Other members of the jury included N Ravi,Chairman,IPI-India and Editor,The Hindu; Philip Mathew,Fellow,International Press Institute,Vienna,and Managing Editor,Malayala Manorama; M K Razdan,Editor-in-Chief,Press Trust of India,and T N Ninan,Editorial Director,Business Standard Ltd.

The Award carries a trophy,a citation and Rs 1 lakh. The Indian Chapter of the IPI is an active forum of editors,publishers and senior executives of newspapers,magazines and news agencies,all of whom are members of the International Press Institute that was founded 60 years ago in New York.