2013.
Our main digital cinema news brand BusinessofCinema (BOC) was performing superb.
Clocking in over a million page-views per day, it was second most visited cinema news website, after Bollywood Hungama.
BOC was famous for the most accurate BO figures. (2/18)
I wanted to create another property, a glossy gossipy ‘uncensored’ online news brand, which would have a whole new kind of news reporting style.
Hence, a short lived property ‘BollywoodQ’ (BQ) was born.
It became a HIT instantly, because of the EXCLUSIVE blinds. (3/18)
I named the section ‘The JUICE’. It would feature extreme blind stories like these—
PRs started sending targeted blinds, but I would never feature them.
I would only go with my sources. The blinds were on all, unlike “paid” targeted blinds on Sushant. (4/18)
There was pressure and indirect requests to go slow on this blind section, sometimes specific requests to even remove some articles.
Same kind of requests I used to get on BOC by producers at times to release a wrong ‘fudged’ BO figure.
But I never gave it to them. (5/18)
Everything changed with the Jiah Khan case.
There was something that made me feel deep for her, she made not just me, but my entire team feel for her.
I went on an overdrive covering all aspects of her death.
Exactly how Arnab went into depth of the SSR case. (6/18)
From leaking her ‘letter’ (which was labelled as suicide note by others), to finding clues in it, to decoding many things from public interviews given by her mother Rabbiya Khan, to even questioning the ‘no mention of date on the letter’. (7/18)
So far there was no pressure to take down any story. After my coverage lots of media houses too took the bold approach and ventured into forbidden territories.
All hell broke loose, when I published this story— (8/18)
It was during the time Sooraj was in Jail, and this story only tells about how protein bars were smuggled in for him.
Somebody’s ego was hurt very badly. I still don’t understand why only this story. My other stories were far more bold. (9/18)
During the same time I was also working on launching India’s first Box Office based Film Award.
We were in a very early round of discussion with a leading TV channel about the Award event.
A major superstar had a close association with this entertainment channel. (10/18)
Few days after the ‘protein bar’ story was published I kept getting messages from ‘so called’ friends who would attend the parties at night.
Very subtly they wanted me to remove that story. Few wanted me to completely stop covering the Jiah case.
I didn’t budge. (11/18)
Those subtle messages turned into warnings. Their biggest weapon to control media always is “you won’t get exclusives anymore” and so on.
I still didn’t budge. People loved the content, & if they don’t give interviews to me, it’s their loss—I would think. (12/18)
Suddenly the TV channel backed off and completely stopped talking.
A friend from the channel told me, “You’ve broken an ego badly, by not even bothering to remove that story.”
Pressure from all side mounted now. Brand associations with BOC too started affecting. (13/18)
Few exclusive advertising deals were about to stop. The pressure kept on piling.
To run such a digital property with such massive views, the tech costs, the staff costs, bills are always high.
I had to take a call, as there was no other option left. (14/18)
I decided to slow down on the coverage, on Jiah and Sooraj.
The ‘superstar’ or so his ‘messengers’ would say was still not happy.
“Just fire your team and shut this goddamn thing Eray” — a clear message from everywhere. (15/18)
Once the finances started affecting badly, I thought that it’s better to save the established brand first and think about this experimental project later.
BQ was shut. Team dismantled.
The ego.
I’ve written earlier about ‘how ego is amplified by coke addiction’. (16/18)
That amplified ego can’t take NO for an answer. They can go to any lengths to satisfy this ‘coke ego’.
I’ve never forgotten about Jiah tho. She still is waiting for justice.
While covering her story, least I knew a similar thing would happen to me too. (17/18)
I still strongly believe, that if the source of this ‘ego’ is followed, both the cases can be solved.
I raised my voice for Jiah with what I had then. But I was stopped.
Now, I’ve no fear.
This fight is for Jiah.
For Disha.
For Sushant.
June connects them all. (18/18)
