The Chinese ambassador to Nepal often invites editors from the Nepali media for interaction in a house in Baluwatar. A similar interaction was taking place Friday evening when a senior diplomat from a neighbouring country called. He wanted to know if news about a telephone tape could be published.

When asked what the tape was about, Kathmandu Post Editor Akhilesh Upadhyay was told that he would know once he listened to the tape. All three editors of Kantipur, Kathmandu Post and Kantipur Television were present at the time.

News started coming in from other sources as well. The tape was allegedly of Maoist leader Krishna Bahadur Mahara asking for a sum of Rs 500 million from a person claimed to be Chinese. It was not clear who the 'Chinese' person was, what the numbers used for the conversation were, or how it was recorded in the first place. The diplomat's only concern was whether it could be published that day or not.

How can we readily believe unverified news about a neighbouring country coming from another neighbor? We decided to publish the news only after listening to the tape and ascertaining its authenticity. But the informer did not want to wait for all of that; he wanted to publicise it immediately, and so, started looking for alternatives.

The phones of other invitees at the dinner started ringing as well. After some time, the news was broadcast on television and on Saturday, two publishing houses gave front page coverage to it.

The news given out by an embassy in Kathmandu could have been true, or not. Now that we the media have publicised it without investigation, and elicited responses from all quarters, it will be very difficult to find out the truth.
News about monetary dealings during the prime ministerial election is not new. The Chief Secretary of ML, CP Mainali, recently revealed that the Maoists offered the party Rs 50 million to support them. The Maoists haven't satisfactorily clarified this allegation so far, so it is not unnatural for the media to believe this tape involves the Maoists.

But how sensible is it for the media to implicate China just because a foreign embassy leaked the tape claiming the conversation was carried out with a 'Chinese' person? If tomorrow some other country gives us a tape involving an Indian national, should we drag the entire Indian nation into it? What would become of our duty to seek truth if we started publishing sensitive but unverified information without proper investigation? If we become an easy platform for one country to provoke another, where will the complex geopolitics of India and Nepal take this 'boulder between two yams'? The tape scandal offers lessons to those concerned with these questions.

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