After a long absence

I was catching up with a kannada serial "Muktha Muktha" and there was an interesting sequence going on. The chief minister of a state owns a TV channel. His son is the "head" of the channel as they repeatedly call him. The son is a very righteous person. Upright, honest but meek. Cannot go against his father. The father like all typical politicians is a very manipulative person. There are two girls. One is a lecturer (also a close friend of the chief minister's son) and the other is a budding journalist working as an intern in a leading city news paper.
This is the background.
Now in the particular sequence that's going on in the serial, the two girls produce a documentary on the hardships of farmers of a particular region. This documentary has the reference to the chiefminister, who as a industries minister at some point of time, would have given away lands to corporate houses.
This documentary is all set to be telecast on the TV. Yes, in the channel belonging to the chiefminister. The chiefminister's son is naive enuf to over look the fact that the reference to the former industries minister is infact a reference to his own father. But the chiefminister, who happens to preview the documentary, stops its telecast at the last moment.
The girls are shattered. They whine and cry about how the effort spent by them went as a waste. The chiefminister's son, being very honest also confesses to the lecturer that his father stopped the telecast and he was helpless.
Armed with this information, the girls write up an article in the newspaper where one of them is working as an intern. The article suggests the link between the TV channel, reference to the industries minister and the fact that the channel is owned by the chiefminister and concludes that there is a good possibility that the chiefminister is responsible for the sudden cancellation of the telecast. Also, to avoid direct confrontation, the article is signed off as "by our journalist".
The chiefminister using his contacts easily finds out who has written the article. He decides to teach them a lesson.

I'm not trying to find out any loopholes till now. Maybe the story till now has been less than convincing. But that's probably not my interest. Its the way the chiefminister tries to take revenge. He has offered a lot of favors to the owner of the news paper. So he gets this intern sacked from her job. He gets the lecturer transferred to another location. The journalist in no time guesses that the chiefminister is responsible for the sudden sacking. I'm yet to watch what happened with the lecturer.

Now, if I were to direct this episode or if I were the chief minister, what would I do?
I think for a person of the chiefminister's capability, isn't it too obvious that the girls would guess who it is? Not that they can do anything by themselves to the chiefminister. But there is every chance that they can gather sympathy and support and the whole issue can snow ball very soon.

Instead, how about this:
The lecturer is the one who is actually more of the fire-brand type. She is the one who has actually done the research on which the documentary was based. She is the one who gets the information about who stalled the telecast of the program.
The budding journalist only supports her with the resources during the filming of the documentary and also in publishing the article in the newspaper.
Bring in jealousy. Award the journalist with a lot of recognitions (rigged ofcourse). Give her some recognition for "investigative journalism" of hers. Bring her accolades. Arrange for a "best article" competition, get her the award. Get her a permanent job with the news paper in the investigative reporting section. Send her for 4months with a team of say 5 ppl to North India to prepare a investigative report on the Naxals and their real problems. Tell her through her editor, that its an oppurtunity of a life time to be a part of that team. Include a young, dynamic chap in that team of 5. 4Months, away from home, dynamic chap, films -- chances are that by the time they come back, they are in love. Love can distract the best of the "investigative minds" :P. Secondly being away from her friend and with a lot of distractions, the strenght of their fight is diminished.
On the other hand, totally ignore the lecturer. Give her no recognition. Dont sack her. But get a couple of people to create jealousy in her mind about how the journalist got all the recognition for her work. Make her feel wretched and neglected.
In short, distract, divide and rule :)