The black market that wasn't
There is an unwritten code of ethics that governs newspapers and news organisations the world over. As consumers of the news, we expect that these organisations be dedicated to reporting the news factually, accurately and without bias. The larger the audience a newspaper has, the greater the expectation that it strictly adhere to journalistic integrity. The number one rule of journalistic integrity is that one should report the news, not manufacture it or conjure it up out of thin air.
The Times of India, India's largest selling English daily, ran a story yesterday entitled Jet strike saw online agents hijack fares. Now, it is one thing for a newspaper to print sensationalist headlines, but to completely manufacture a story and falsify news crosses the line. The story alleges that online travel agents took advantage of the Jet Airways' pilots' strike to gouge customers and raise prices:
Online travel portals have reportedly been found to have raised fares to astronomical levels by means of "black marketing and hoarding," according to a top aviation ministry official. "We have found that some portals and airlines devised ways of going to fare levels of a nearly full flight to sell tickets at a premium," the official said.
This journalist is clearly from another planet; a planet where editors allow stories to be published even when they don't contain a single fact. The journalist has several quotes in the story from 'aviation ministry officials", but each quote is anonymous. The journalist also alleges that online travel companies pre-purchase tickets from airlines, something none of the online travel companies actually do.
The journalist does not interview or name even a single customer that was offered or purchased these 'astronomical' fares. Neither does the journalist present any research or evidence that shows price comparisons on online sites, nor is any particular online site named in the article.
The journalist goes on to state that tickets have "been sold for up to Rs 20,000." And that statement is what leads us to believe that this journalist actually writes for The Times of Mars and his story was mistakenly filed with The Times of India.
This graph shows the average price for one-way tickets sold by Cleartrip over the last two weeks:
The average price for the time period is Rs. 2,829; with a high of Rs. 2,952 and a low of Rs. 2,747. The actual numbers are a far cry from the journalist's imaginary Rs. 20,000 levels.
If this story was actually written to report the news on this planet, we have a tip for The Times of India's reporters--a news article is referred to as a 'story,' but that doesn't mean you get to make it up. Sloppy, lazy and sensationalist reporting is something we expect from tabloids, not from newspapers.
Hrush
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Reader Comments (19)
The prices DID shoot up during the strike, but it was teh airlines, not the online agents, who raised their prices. The excuse given was that it was based on passenger load and based on a formula used by the industry (which may or may not be true), but I personally checked Kingfisher's site and saw them offering a one way ticket from Mumbai to Bangalore at 16K INR. I eventually bought it from Cleartrip at that price, but I was very clear that Cleartrip was reflecting the price offered by Kingfisher. For the record, the previous day I paid less than 6K INR for the Bangalore-Mumbai sector.
Reminds me of the recent Facebook-Techcrunch fax fiasco -- publishing "stories" without getting a clarification from the people in question.
A mature response includes the data provided by Hrush and facts to counter the anonymous quotes.
But slander and name calling makes you no better than them. Its time the internet industry shows a maturity level sorely lacking to date.
To clarify whether the charges were bloated, I booked two Mumbai-Bangalore tickets on Jet Aiways[after it announced it's 50% off scheme] from ClearTrip and the charges were exactly what was on the Jet site.
IMHO, I have never found any discrepancy in ClearTrip's charges wrt that appearing on individual airline's site.
R.I.P [GONE] Times of India
-Himanshu Sheth.
@Hari, totally disagree with you.If they can publish crap and get their readership to half-believe it, we also have a right to be heard. Even a student-journalist knows that they should have also carried a quote (rubbish as it may be) from the online agents and carriers themselves also.
In general, I don't think an online agent can arbitrarily fix the price of a ticket - if they do spike prices this much and that too in unison as it was reportd, it will harm ticket sales and then carriers will have something to say about that.
You work for TOI...don't you ?
My point was simply - make solid arguments and stick to facts. No need to get shrill in the criticism (ie. use abusive language, colourful adjectives etc). My opinion is that it will make the argument more powerful, and not undermined by seeming defensiveness.
@Piyush - I dont work for TOI. Just want our industry to be heard by others too. Get abusive and you and I and Hrush will be left to drink our own cool-aid and believe that anyone outside the internet industry gives a $hit about what we say.
http://bit.ly/2YHQB post this I take all news reported with a pinch of salt...
TOI is a proper tabloid
Once they ran a story under the Entertainment Section under the title - " Aamir Khan's Wife Kiran Rao gets aborted ". Apparently it's entertainment for them
Try these
1. http://www.flickr.com/photos/snandy_81/3278245833/
2. http://blog.twilightfairy.in/2008/09/01/toi-believes-flickr-is-for-flicking/
3. http://blog.shantanugoel.com/2008/09/03/plagiarism-and-times-of-india-are-they-synonyms.html
or better Google "times of india flickr plagiarism"