Celebs are more trustworthy than journalists: Survey

The magazine Readers Digest has conducted a survey for 2008-09 of the 100 most trustworthy persons in India, which says that journalists are not trust worthy and are at the bottom of the list.

Times of India Cartoonist leads the list of mediapersons at nine, while NDTV Founder Prannoy Roy is at 28. CNN-IBN'S Rajdeep Sardesai is at 61 while Roy's colleague Barkha Dutt is at 65. Two other television personalities who figure are satirist Jaspal Bhatti at 43 and soap opera queen Ekta Kapoor at 95.

The list has as many as 12 film personalities with maestro A R Rahman leading at number 5, followed by megastar at 14, and nine other persons from the print media.

There are nine sports personalities and two from the world of music and art ' table wizard Zakir Hussain at 16 and artist M F Hussain at 91.

The other film personalities are: actor Aamir Khan (18); filmmaker Shyam Benegal (32); lyricist Javed Akhtar (46); actor Shah Rukh Khan (53); former Miss Universe Sushmita Sen (64); actor Rajnikanth (67); actor-filmmaker Kamal Haasan (71), director Anurag Kashyap (78); actor Mohan Lal (80); and former Miss World Aishwarya Rai Bachchan (82).

In sports, chess master Vishwanathan Anand is at the top at number six; followed by cricketer ace Sachin Tendulkar (8); Abhinav Bindra (25); Formula One driver Narain Karthikeyan (37); cricket captain M S Dhoni (42); tennis champions Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes (48 and 57 respectively); young tennis star Sania Mirza (81); and sports promoter Lalit Modi (93).

The other names in journalism are: Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar (columnist The Times of India) at 37; N Ram of Hindu at 43; Jaideep Bose (editorial director, The Times of India) at 46; India Today's Prabhu Chawla (54); "Sanctuary' editor Bittu Sehgal; rural reporter P Sainath (59); journalist-turned politician Arun Shourie (79); and Tehelka's Tarun Tejpal (85).

The list also features several persons from the field of information technology: Infosys co-founder Narayan Murthy (4); Wipro's Aziz Premji (10); and Hotmail co-founder Sabeer Bhatia (36).

The list also has some authors like Khushwant Singh (51), Arundhati Roy (66), and Vikram Seth (67).Led by former President A P J Abdul Kalam, the list features Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at number 7, Planning Commission's Montek Singh Ahluwalia at 41, Home Minister P Chidambaram at 50, Sonia Gandhi (72), Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee (73), Arun Jaitley (86), Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi )87), Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omer Abdullah (89), L K Advani (94), Mamata Banerjee at 96, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar (97), Marxist Prakash Karat (98), Lalu Prasad Yadav (99), and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati at the bottom at 100.

Journalism as a profession falls at number 30 while politics is at the bottom at 40.