Twitter victims: First Indian minister, now Editor
By Bala Shah

Union Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor is among the best and brightest in India.  Educated and erudite, Shashi was caught in controversy when he lightheartedly tweeted about flying ‘cattle class’. Congress power brokers disciplined Shashi Tharoor.  Now an Indian American newspaper Editor has fallen victim to his tweets at as well.

Twitter is a micro blogging platform which has more than 50 million members. 
 
Like Shashi Tharoor, Overseas Citizen of India Raju Narisetti, is one of the brightest Indians stars on the global media stage.  Raju Narisetti was the founding Editor of respected Indian business newspaper Mint.  Raju left Mint in Dec, 2008 to become joint Managing Editor of the powerful Washington Post in USA.

Raju was a great Editor at Mint; popular among his juniors for backing them in every story.  Raju Narisetti also had the courage of convictions when he told Forbes India about the quality of Indian business journalists: “Good journalists by instinct but poor journalism because of practices, weak institutions, zero standards and ethics enforcement--voluntary or otherwise. Many business journalists want to be part of the business establishment or be close to it. That results in journalism that isn't about readers. Even the best--and there are just one or two such institutions--journalism schools are not graduating grounded journalists. That will be the soft spot of India journalism for some time to come.”

But it seems that even Editors of international newspapers like Washington Post cannot Tweet their real thoughts and feelings.  When Raju twittered his personal thoughts about health care reform and fixed terms for American politicians, the Washington Post management stepped in and formally issued guidelines to all employees to avoid giving such personal views.  The logic being that the newspapers impartiality may be compromised by such personal views (Yes, it does not make sense to me as well.  Other journalists on the same paper are free to give differing viewpoints.  In fact, the readers are more aware on where the Managing Editor stands).  Incidentally, Raju was Twittering about a Senator who at 91 years insists on staying in power.

Raju Narisetti has told his own newspaper that while “they were personal observations, he also realized that... seeing that the managing editor of The Post is weighing in on this, that there is a clear perception problem.”

Raju has now closed his Twitter account.

While the Indian media breathlessly reported every detail of Shashi Tharoor’s Twitter problems, you will not see the same done for Raju.  You see, there is an unwritten code in the Indian media about avoiding writing about fellow journalists.