India Today’s desperation to see itself on the top of the Television Rating Point (TRP) list has compelled it to resort to cheap stunts. Left red-faced after its treachery of leading the TRP race was caught, India Today has resorted to other tawdry tactics to preserve itself from oblivion. The media giant has now claimed that if one searches for Afghan cricketer ‘Rashid Khan’s wife’ on Google, actress Anushka Sharma’s name will appear first in the results page.
In its article dated October 12, India Today has claimed that if one types ‘Rashid Khan’s wife’ in the google search bar then actress Anushka Sharma’s name and pictures will pop up.
Other networks also picked up India Today’s story and reported about the same.
However, the fact is that Anushka Sharma’s name comes up because in an old interview of his, Rashid Khan had said how Anushka is his favourite actress. Somehow, Google algorithm has picked it up as same interview of his included a question on his wife.
Khan, however, is unmarried. Soon after India Today’s article was published, Google algorithm again picked up the article and it now appears in the first search result.
Netizens mock India Today
Netizens soon took to Twitter to mock India Today for its flimsy ‘journalism’.
https://twitter.com/Tonyy_Babu/status/1315511700699799552?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Some even pointed out how the headline was misleading. https://twitter.com/I_m_samy/status/1315527146861785088?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwAnd there were a few burns too.
https://twitter.com/GabbbarSingh/status/1315498877110218753?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwSo basically, after its lie about the viewership ratings fell flat, India Today is trying to keep itself afloat, by just writing click-baits on Google and its SEO algorithms.