Placement reporting: Media should refrain from sensationalizing

Placement reporting: Media should refrain from sensationalizing
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
By CoolAvenues Editorial Team


refrain from publishing specific data as it may adversely affect the individuals concerned

The final placement process at b-schools around India kick started early last month and like any other year, this year too is no exception to rumors and speculations. The Economic Times published news ‘Deutsche Bank top recruiter at IIM-A with Rs.1.5-crore offer’ on February 26, which attracted reciprocal reaction from IIM Ahmedabad.



The IIM Ahmedabad Placement Committee published a clarification report on their official blog saying, “the Rs.1.5 crore offer as reported in the Economic Times article, ‘Deutsche Bank top recruiter at IIM-A with Rs.1.5 crore offer’ dated February 26, 2011, is misleading.” According to the clarification report published by IIM A, company named in ET’s report has not shared the complete offer details yet and the partial data available with placement committee does not support the claim made in the article.



IIM Ahmedabad has also requested media to “refrain from publishing specific data as it may adversely affect the individuals concerned.”



The event once again portrayed media’s grey image. Media, or should we say Indian Media, have been found culprit to exaggerated reporting every now and then. Quoting from the Economic Times report, “The investment banking unit will pay the equivalent of Rs.1.3-1.5 crore ($285,000-330,000) as annual salary to a student it is hiring for its London office, campus sources said.” Most of the media reports these days are based on sensationalizing and hyping, generally referred to as ‘tabloid journalism’. As per media ethics, one is not supposed to disseminate classified information and should not even deceive his/her sources. Unfortunately, such reports swindle the code of conduct.



The galoring pay packages offered by recruiters coming for campus placement have always been a matter of debate and confrontation. Generally, the salary quoted by the companies is not take home salary. It is however, the CTC ‘they’ call the highest salary. CTC is cost-to-company, a strange term often used for salary package offered by the companies. It is of course, the actual cost of resources company might be spending on its employee, but the question remains why it is being hyped so much?



One fair, good reason could be the person does ‘cost’ them that much. The other reason could be, if not only, salary is a main criterion a young b-school graduate may fancy for.


In some cases, it is often the main criteria before joining a b-school…



Being the forth pillar of democracy, it is media’s duty to communicate flawless reports and should refrain from going with the saying ‘sensationalism sells’…