In times when Chief Ministers, politicians and journalists are seen sharing and promoting fake videos, how can media personalities be left behind. Today the Managing Editor of ABP News Network, Milind Khandekar took to twitter to clarify his channel’s position on a video circulating on social media.
https://twitter.com/milindkhandekar/status/711085690956570625
The video was first tweeted by one Akash Banerjee, who says he is an Associate VP in Radio Mirchi (as per his Twitter bio). This was further re-shared by many including Sanjay Jha, National Spokesperson, Indian National Congress. In the said video, 2 separate ABP News clippings were joined and the audio of the first clipping was over-layed over the second video, giving the impression that the entire video was a single clipping. Akash Bannerjee captioned this video like this:
When Milind Khandekar objected to this video and clarified that no such video was ever broadcast on ABP News, Akash Bannerjee said that “This was done in humor”. As can be seen from the caption used by Akash Bannerjee, there was no mention of any humor intended and on the other hand, it was projected in a completely different manner. The video too had no watermarks to show the name of the creator nor any hint that this was a creative work of humor.
ABP News Managing Editor re-iterated this and asked Akash Bannerjee to mention the fact that such videos are meant for humorous purposes. In response, Bannerjee agreed that he should have been more specific.
Milind Khandekar and ABP News have earlier too taken to social media to respond to people who fall for such fake propaganda, which has targeted the channel:
https://twitter.com/milindkhandekar/status/674078226075947008
https://twitter.com/abpnewshindi/status/674228559326547969
It obviously poses a risk to media channels that some miscreants morph their content and circulate it, because not only it falsely damages the channel, but also exposes them to the risk of being sued by someone who gets aggrieved by such fake content. In times of social media where whatsapp forwards are taken as gospel truth, it is of utmost importance that people act responsibly and make it clear that videos have been created by them for the purpose of humor alone.
A very easy option to aspiring humorists would be to clearly mention that the video has been edited, is meant for humor, and for extra precaution, use a distinguishable watermark in the video to highlight the fact that this my not have been recorded directly from a news channel.