When people started unveiling the lies spread by Indian media (Top lies spread by Mainstream Media – January 2015, Top lies spread by Mainstream Media – February 2015, Top Lies spread by the Indian Media in March 2015), media changed their modus operandi from twisting facts to hiding and deleting facts. The same media which rushes to proclaim any attack near churches as a grave threat to the existence of minorities in India neglected the blast at Bellur Mutt as a minor firecracker burst.
In a more interesting case, NDTV, which portrays itself as a messiah of ethical journalism and a campaigner against communal politics, has shrewdly edited the “Open Letter to Arvind Kejriwal by Prashant Bhushan”. There was a section in the letter in which Prashant Bhushan talked about the communal tactics used by AAP to sensationalize difference in the treatments of Hindu and Mulsim. Prashant Bhushan wrote:
Then came the issue of communal posters. A poster accusing the Muslim MLAs of the Congress as being traitors to their religion was got published by Dilip Pandey under your instructions, for which the police arrested Dilip Pandey. At that stage, the party got Amanatullah Khan to send a letter to the police saying that he had got this poster printed, and it was not the party. At the time you yourself tweeted that why is the police arresting Dilip Pandey when they should be arresting Amanatullah Khan. Yet within a week, he was made in charge of the Okhla constituency by the party, promised a ticket and eventually given one! Are such means not unethical?
NDTV conveniently deleted this section from the letter and published it on its site.
This raises many questions which need to be answered. Why did NDTV, which boasts about its ethical journalism, delete a plain form of direct information which needed no editing? Why did NDTV choose to delete only that part of the section in which AAP is accused of running sleazy communal tactics?
NDTV has often gone overboard to prove how minorities are in danger due to communal politics followed by BJP, but they felt no shame or guilt in deleting communal references to AAP. This forces us to believe that the communal threat picture drawn by channels like NDTV are less of ideological stands and it has more to do with their propaganda. This indirectly also indicates a nexus between journalists in NDTV and AAP.
I feel sad for Prashant Bhushan whose letter was photoshopped by NDTV to hide a big shabby truth. I feel worse for journalism which is degrading day-by-day. From now, NDTV should start looking into mirrors when they write about ethics in journalism or Censor and Bans.