The Shakti Scandal -- Sanket ‘wont sting you' Kambli

Not being a journalism student, I have no particular interest in journalism ideologies. But this scandal pertaining to existence of casting couch in our film industry has really made me give a thought to such things. Lets us see how, the television channel, India TV has caught Hindi film actor, Shakti Kapoor, on camera asking for sexual favors from a woman aspiring to be a movie star. In this operation the channel, used an undercover journalist to pose as a film aspirant. This operation has put before us a variety of issues to deal with, sexual harassment at workplace to defamation to journalism ethics. Inarguably we can never consider the actor to be innocent, but here; we cannot leave out the channel, and can consider it to be guilty for a different issue. Here the channel may have diluted the definitions of ‘journalism of challenge’ and ‘journalism of sensationalism’. It may have tried to make public the existence of a casting couch, but the means used have raised many questions, for some, this sting operation thing is the right way to go, they say the truth can be caught on hidden cameras only if bait is placed, for them this is the best way to clean up the system, but did this operation lead to eradication of this malady from the industry, you can answer this. For some these operations are not conclusive, they say, the target is heavily lured into doing the thing they are exposing, and this is done, making sure there is absolutely no choice given for the target to get out of it. And not only that we cannot be sure, whether the clips shown to us are the core part of the whole recording. So what is right, let us leave the decision making to the national dailies, and let us just sit on the fence and think for a while before making any hasty decisions. Let us understand that, this scandal has asked us to clearly define the ethics to be kept in mind while going about any sting operations. It has also shown how much obsessed is our media with celebrities. And lastly has shown the need for means to remove sexual harassment at workplace. So did this operation help, depends on actions taken. Was this operation justified, yes, but the means used were not, and in the absence of laws, is it fair enough?