From:

Subject: RE:
Date: 9 October 2016 at 6:57:45 PM IST
To: Sonia Singh <SONIA@ndtv.com>
Cc: Suparna Singh <suparna@ndtv.com> , Manika Raikwar Ahirwal <MANIKA@ndtv.com> , Chetan
Bhattacharji <Chetan@ndtv.com> , Nidhi Razdan <NIDHIR@NDTV.COM>

Wow Sonia, there has to be some limit to how much you can dishonestly

From: Sonia Singh

Sent: Sunday, October 09, 2016 5:51 PM
To: Barkha Dutt
Cc: Suparna Singh; Manika Raikwar Ahirwal; Chetan Bhattacharji; Nidhi Razdan
Subject: Re: RE:

Huh ? You AGREED in front of me to do a fresh show of your stories and asked
Radhika in front of me if you could do the Anupam Kher interview or not ? You then
went and recorded the links and did the whole show ? Why didn't you just refuse
then or drop the show. The discussion with Radhika didn't even last 5 minutes What
else is that if not ' went with it ' ? In fact, I am the one who reasoned with Radhika
about carrying the politics beyond the strikes which is why Amit Shah and Kapil
Sibal were cleared. I am not saying you and I are on the same side of this debate at
all, however it is completely dishonest to now try and do damage control & given the
leaks of internal mails, I doubt any of this is meant for private consumption either.
It's even more dishonest to keep mailing me on this, when you know that I wasn't
even part of the original decision, in fact Shailender, Manika and you were the ones
told . I have not misrepresented anything and I refuse to accept these bizarre
accusations. I am not engaging in this any further

Sent from my iPhone

On 09-Oct-2016, at 5:35 PM, Barkha Dutt <Barkha@ndtv.com> wrote:

Hi Sonia,

What do you mean "I went with it"- I CERTAINLY did no such thing. I fought and
fought and protested and protested and I did so to Radhika. So please do NOT
include me in the group that "went with it." Below I copy and paste a mail I sent
directly to Radhika, copied to you, committing myself to fighting as fiercely as I
could even as a consultant with the owner ( radhika) and the Editor ( you) as I
could if I were to be honest to myself. Neither she nor you replied to this mail.
Neither she nor you have answered these glaring contradictions in our editorial
policy. How can you even suggest I have gone along with it, when i have copies
of my protests, disagreements and arguments- on SMS as well as half a dozen
emails with you and her. Kindly do not include me on your side of the debate. I
have NOT gone with it and I do not accept it and I will not defend it in public. I
also have the absolute right to bring this up directly with you in this instance
because it is YOU who is putting things out on Twitter misrepresenting the
reasons for pulling off an interview I did. Thanks. .

Dear Radhika,

I must confess to being extremely disturbed at the events of the last 24 hours. No
matter which way I look at it, the blanking out of news and interviews to me feels
like self censorship. Having done million shows on this issue I feel like a
hypocrite at this time for not arguing this more fiercly with you and Sonia -though
I have argued some. I also fail to understand how we drop Chidambaram, blank
out Rahul Gandhi on his most controversial remarks and then cut live to Amit
Shah. Why is it OK to interview and play up Arun Jaitley on the strikes but not
Chidambaram or Kejriwal or Nitish Kumar or whoever? That seems absolutely
contradictory to the position the channel stated yesterday . For the record the
interview with CHIDS did not at any point question the army but questioned
Parrikar for milking them politically - which yes is EXACTLY what the Congress is
trying to do as well -which is why Rahul Gandhis comments were so significant in
terms of being a political inflection point with disastrous consequences for the
Congress. What IS our final policy? If it's blanking out the politics then how come
the press conferences are on ? If it's blanking out interviews on the strikes and
only carrying news, why is Jaitley interview valid ? I understand that the final
word is yours and as a consultant I hardly have the locus stand to question it. But
I do have to put on record how confused and disturbed and upset I feel. Also I
have a message from Chidambaram asking me why his interview was dropped
when other interviews of politicians are on. What would be the best thing for me
to say ? I had said nothing so far hoping it wouldn't be noticed. So please
advise. I will separately write you a much longer mail as I have just landed in new
York. Thanks Barkha

From: Sonia Singh

Sent: Sunday, October 09, 2016 5:25 PM
To: Barkha Dutt
Cc: Suparna Singh; Manika Raikwar Ahirwal; Chetan Bhattacharji; Nidhi Razdan;
Vikram Chandra
Subject: Re: RE:

Hi Barkha,
As you know this was a decision taken by Radhika, whatever
differences you had or Manika or Suparna or I, we went with it and you
did as well. Am not sure why we are having this back and forth now on
this entire group, many of them who were not even part of this
conversation. I think it would be more honest and productive for you to
communicate directly with Radhika. I really have nothing more to add
or share on this now. Just to say though I don't agree with the version as
projected in your mail below but again that's my view vs yours, both of
us are entitled to them. Thanks
Sent from my iPhone

On 09-Oct-2016, at 5:18 PM, Barkha Dutt <Barkha@ndtv.com> wrote:

Hi, not its quite misleading and hides what actually happened-
even the Editorial Policy Statement on the website does the same
subterfuge- the whole projection is that NDTV's management was
OK with carrying that excerpt and dropped the interview in prime
time ONLY for reasons of relevance ! This is not what happened at
all. The interview excerpt was DROPPED instantly- even though its
contents were purely political and said not one word about the
Army. and yet here we are pretending to the world that actually
this interview excerpt ran its normal course and then other stuff
happened and then we just moved on. Further, I will soon be
sharing the full transcript of the interview on this mail group. I
would like to know - which part of it was wild, irresponsible or
questioning the Army. Having taken this bizarre decision we should
not at least pretend that the excerpt was a non issue.

From: Sonia Singh

Sent: Saturday, October 08, 2016 11:07 PM
To: Barkha Dutt
Cc: Suparna Singh; Manika Raikwar Ahirwal; Chetan Bhattacharji;
Nidhi Razdan; Vikram Chandra
Subject: Re: RE:

And no I have NOT tweeted that NDTV ok carrying pol

parts of xxx...that is simply not true either. Do read my
tweet again, it is a simple statement of fact

Sent from my iPhone

On 08-Oct-2016, at 10:55 PM, Barkha Dutt

<Barkha@ndtv.com> wrote:

That the excerpts aired are a misrepresentation of

the censorship that pulled them. You have tweeted
saying that NDTV was ok carrying the political
excerpts of the interview- this is simply not true.
Those politcial excerpts were pulled off TV and web.
That IS where the censorship occured so how can
we offer that as an example of the interview airing in
bits. As someone who did the interview I find this a
complete misrepresentation. The entire censorship IS
around that two minute political excerpt Sonia.

From: Sonia Singh

Sent: Saturday, October 08, 2016 10:48 PM
To: Barkha Dutt
Cc: Suparna Singh; Manika Raikwar Ahirwal; Chetan
Bhattacharji; Nidhi Razdan; Vikram Chandra
Subject: Re:

Hi,
Oh, didn't the excerpts air though before 5pm ?
That's what my tweet says , that the excerpts
aired
Thanks

On 08-Oct-2016, at 10:30 PM, Barkha Dutt

<Barkha@ndtv.com> wrote:

Dear Sonia,
I obviously cannot and wont contradict
you in public but this tweet is
inaccurate. The excerpts on politics
were pulled OFF too. From the news
and from the website. I did send
Pratap Mehta the link of the excerpt as
well after Prannoy told him the same-
and he asked me for the excerpt-
however he wrote back saying that the
content was pulled off the web. In
other words- we did censor him on
politics... both on TV and online. We
didnt even let it remain online.
Suparna says this is because Roys
insisted that this be the case- to not
carry anything minus context etc.
Thanks.

sonia singh @soniandtv now

.@yehlog We also carried Kapil

Sibal live BUT reduced both to
short excerpts.We
aired Mr Chidambaram
excerpts too on politics btw