Indian Express journalists were barred from speaking to SRT following Ferrari story

[Karan114]

Interesting anecdote from Lawrence Booth. After Sachin Tendulkar's dodgy dealings in the Ferrari case were exposed, Indian Express journalists were virtually barred from speaking to Sachin.

It is more fraught in India, where it is hard for Indian cricket journalists to write negative pieces about someone like Sachin Tendulkar because they know full well that the access to him, such as it is, will be made even harder if they seem critical of him. I am told by my Indian colleagues that the most critical anti-Sachin story that had come out was about the Ferrari that he got, and there was a question of whether it was a gift and whether he should pay tax on it. This story was written by a news reporter for the Indian Express - not a cricket journalist but a news reporter. As a result of that, the cricket writers on the Indian Express got very little access to Sachin. It is like being punished in effect for the audacity of their news colleague for criticising Sachin. You can see how players or the people around the players, like Sachin, can control the media, if the media are willing to play that game.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/blogs/content/story/663415.html

[Fontaine]

How is this new or interesting? Sportsmen/women not wanting to speak with journalists/media persons who want to write something negative about them? This happens the world over. The England team went on record publicly criticising media persons/commentators who were questioning them during the current Ashes and right after it. They were specifically targetting Shane Warne who was at times, very critical of the England team. Alistair Cook, right after winning the series, gave an interview to BBC where he pretty much said those in the media/outside (Shane Warne) that were questioning this England team were clearly proved wrong. Anyone think Cook etc are giving interviews/answering questions for Shane Warne?

[saneindian]

The column writer was Sucheta Dalal, a well known business journo (among the first ones to write about the Harshad Mehta scam, now the consulting editor of Moneylife magazine). Tendulkar IIRC continued to have good relations with the IE chief editor Shekhar Gupta though. Will found out if Booth's assertion on his boycott of the IE reporters is correct.