In November 2010, OPEN magazine[8] carried a story which reported transcripts of some of the telephone conversations of Niira Radia with senior journalists, politicians, and corporate houses, many of whom have denied the allegations.
The Deccan Chronicle commented, "The 'Radia tapes' may have torn the veil off the nexus between information hungry journalists, lobbyists and industrialists, and opened everyone’s eyes to what has long been suspected — the ability of a small but powerful group to use their connections to influence policy.
The weapon in their hands is the internet, has seen frantic activism against "power brokering" by journalists in collusion with corporate groups and top government politicians..."[38] M.K.Venu had filed a criminal defamation case against Outlook magazine for mentioning him on its cover.
[27] New Delhi Television Limited posted a strong rebuttal on its website terming the insinuation that Barkha lobbied for A Raja as "unsubstantiated, baseless and defamatory" and threatened action against Open Magazine.
[43] Vinod Mehta wrote opposition leader Arun Jaitley said Barkha Dutt pleaded to him not to mention about the conversation in the parliament while attacking the government on the 2G case.
[46] Writing about the controversy in the Hindustan Times, Rajdeep Sardesai said that "The robust Indian tradition of adversarial journalism has been mortgaged at the altar of cozy networks.
[48] Sumnima Udas of the CNN wrote that the tapes revealed that Dutt served as a power brokers for a deal considered to be one of India's biggest ever scams.
[54] On 1 August 2013 Supreme court asked whether the Income Tax department had informed the authorities which had directed the tapping of Radia's telephone about the sensitive and serious nature of the conversations.
[55] Subsequently, it was revealed that while true to their word, the Niira Radia tapes themselves had been leaked to the Indian media by a lobbyist belonging to a powerful business family, connected to other politicians and private companies.