Reporting wrongs

I know it is not the done thing to be uncharitable about your own kind, but there is such a thing as fair play. Every columnist who writes about "society" obviously earns his pay "" and kicks "" by taking pot shots at party people.

Sometimes it is their very state of innocence (Karisma Kapoor apparently thinking a Labrador was a car), sometimes their vanity (Aamir Khan saying he is the ikka, if Shahrukh is Bollywood's Badshah, just when all the audience wanted was to snip off his Mangal Pandey moosh...), sometimes their hypocrisy ("don't call me a socialite, darling, I am now a socialist!"), and most of the time the very ridiculousness of being and non-being (a Delhi "designer" shedding copious Page Three tears because someone at one of her parties party sat on her pet pooch and squashed it to death) that invites such comment.

In recent times, this gamut of people has been extended by scornful journos such as my own colleagues at the Business Standard to include the hapless PR brigade. And no doubt the temptation is very great because here are people who will keep smiling at you even if you sock them in the jaw. But what I take umbrage to is the fact that the media will not really look at its own self. There may be a private joke here and there. But not much else.

Everyone rubbishes Page Three and the "so-and-so-came-and-went and a good time was had by all" style of reporting that goes therein. But one look at most of the hacks, and I use the word deliberately, called upon to cover the "party beat" and you know why we are where we are.

Only yesterday I was at a restaurant opening where I met this TV reporter who, after canning what I thought was substantial footage, turned my way, brightly: "Hi! What is this restaurant called?" But then I suppose she had the good sense not to ask the host!

On the other hand, many Page Three reporters I come across never bother to meet the host... or other guests, for that matter, spending a perfectly social evening in the company of PR sidekicks, snacks and worse.

One lady I encountered was more interested in garnering every little freebie from the Athena washroom (they have "" or had then "" a tray full of mint, make-up and, well, protection) than in any other entertainment the nightclub had to offer.

Lest you think this is just a womanly thing, the men are worse. But we are not going to go into all the serious vices, are we? Because, after all, being wicked is one thing, being ignorant quite another.

For every little "mew" on the society people, the celebs have their own take. Anoushka Shankar, for instance, recently talked about how she had someone interview her on everything from accessories to boyfriends, only to have the reporter bat her lashes after 10 minutes and ask, "...and what do you do?" Was our friend being sarcastic? To spare ourselves the blushes, I'll assume she was.

At other times, there are no assumptions to be made but the obvious. Former Prime Minister V P Singh is currently holding an art exhibition in the capital "" a minor "item" no doubt for city supplements. A petulant just-out-of-college society reporter turns to a photographer friend and says, "some guy called Weepy or something is doing something... editor wants it covered. Do you know what he is doing?" Not politics for sure, my child. Maybe cats.