On Saturday (September 9), ‘journalist’ Sohit Mishra announced his resignation from the New Delhi Television Network (NDTV) after a stint of 7 years.
“Before my experience could turn sour, I had also quit NDTV. I was not the first one to quit the news network in the past one year and certainly wont be the last,” he was heard saying.
Mishra then resorted to virtue signalling about journalistic ethics, following the footsteps of other ex-NDTV employees such as Ravish Kumar. He also insinuated that the Adani Group’s takeover of NDTV was ‘hostile’ and that there was ‘overt censorship’ on supposedly important and newsworthy stories.
Mishra heaped praise on his ex-employer Prannoy Roy, accused of stock manipulation and illicit profiteering, for supposedly allowing ‘journalism’ to thrive at NDTV. “One day, I will expose those people, who are hiding in plain sight and running their agenda via NDTV now,” he said.
“I had offers from other news channels but the creative freedom that I had in NDTV is difficult to find in other places,” the ex-NDTV scribe announced his decision to become a full-fledged Youtuber. He then sought likes and shares for his channel from his audience in the name of ‘objective journalism.’
While Sohit Mishra did not explicitly mention the reason for quitting NDTV, a report by leftist propaganda outlet Newslaundry alleged that he was asked to supposedly ‘disrupt’ a press conference by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
“But hours before the event, Mishra had been allegedly asked by none other than the channel’s editor-in-chief Sanjay Pugalia to disrupt Gandhi’s press conference, “create a ruckus” and “change the narrative”, sources at NDTV told Newslaundry,” the report claimed.
Interestingly, the leftist propaganda outlet revealed in the very next line of its report that there was nothing disruptive about the directive by NDTV’s Editor-in-Chief Sanjay Pugalia to Sohit Mishra. In reality, the ‘journalist’ was told to ask a list of questions to the Congress scion, questioning his anti-India stance and his outlandish claims about the Rafale deal.
It must be mentioned that Rahul Gandhi had infamously coined the phrase ‘Chowkidar Chor hai’ in the run-up to the 2019 elections to insinuate a scam in the Rafale defence deal. Despite no evidence of any wrongdoing on the part of the Modi government, Gandhi and the Congress ecosystem kept on repeating the same lies.
The Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which has ties with Chinese-financed NewsClick and George Soros-owned Open Society Foundations, conducted a hit job on the Adani Group on August 31, 2023.
On the same day, Rahul Gandhi held a press conference to target the Indian conglomerate and accuse the Modi government of supposedly indulging in crony capitalism. Sohit Mishra was asked to attend the said press conference and ask some tough questions to the Congress scion, a directive which prompted his resignation
It is interesting to note that journalists seldom ask ‘tough questions’ to Rahul Gandhi during his press conferences, which has helped him get away with peddling misinformation on an array of issues.
Sohit Mishra and his ideological inclinations
A quick glance at the Twitter profile of the ex-NDTV ‘journalist’ reveals that he is a fan of Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra (BJY).
“This Bharat Jodo Yatra has brought together and awakened all those people and activists who were sleeping till now…” he claimed in one tweet. Mishra also hailed the political pilgrimage of Rahul Gandhi for highlighting issues, which he claimed were missing fromthe public discourse.
“Interesting times in politics.. Now a Bharat Jodo concert in Indore.. To connect with the youth, you need to speak the language of the youth…One song that will definitely be played here is “Apna Time Aayega,” he said in one tweet.
Sohit Mishra was also seen giving the impression that Rahul Gandhi influenced a large number of people, including the youth and the elderly.
Mishra was also seen congratulating Congress party workers, who got promotion within the party.
Besides his admiration for Rahul Gandhi, Mishra was also seen berating PM Narendra Modi in multiple tweets. “How does it feel to be sitting in a press conference? Ghodse effect or Rahul Gandhi effect?” he had claimed.
“Now, when you have added ‘Chowkidar’ to your name, it is impossible to see any wrong happening in front of you,” the ‘journalist’ took potshots at the BJP.
In one of his tweets, Mishra was seen speaking the language of Congress trolls by mocking BJP supporters as ‘bhakts.’
“Itne seats aa gaye, ab bass Narendra Modi film ko oscar milna bach gaya hai.. wo bhi dilwa do,” he wrote in frustration after the landslide victory of BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
“Looking at the type of interviews given by our supreme leader, media should stop being biased. I mean how many times can we ask “aap sote q nahi ho”, “aap me ek fakeeri hai” and “if not Modi then who” type of questions…” he claimed in one tweet.
He also appeared to be in awe of propaganda artist masquerading as a ‘journalist’, Rajdeep Sardesai.
“From @sardesairajdeep How Modi won India: Rather than speaking the truth to those in power, there is a growing inclination to ‘follow the leader’ with an uncritical, unquestioning gaze, almost as if mainstream media has been co-opted into a permanent embrace with the ruling elite,” he tweeted.
When Adani Electricity slammed ex-NDTV journalist for misleading news
In May 2022, Adani Electricity Mumbai Board gave a befitting reply to Sohit Mishra, who claimed that the Board had sent electricity bills amounting to lakhs to the residents of Siddharth Colony area in Mumbai’s Chembur.
In his report, the then NDTV ‘journalist alleged that 3200 families living in the slums of Chembur were slapped with electricity bills amounting to lakhs.
“How much electricity bill do you pay? 5000? 10,000? The Bill of one family in Chembur is 35 lakhs!! Due to non-payment of bills, they are forced to live without electricity throughout the day. Administration, developer and electricity department have duped them”, he had tweeted.
Following the fraudulent report, the Adani Electricity Board on May 16 issued a statement and slammed the NDTV journalist for misleading the viewers.
“The video is highly misleading and presents a distorted view of the Truth. The fact is that these bills are of 16 years of arrears. Siddharth Colony residents stopped paying their bills on the pretext that the developers had promised to pay for their electricity”, the statement read.
The journalist however, in the series of tweets kept on arguing that the Adani Group who acquired the Mumbai electricity distribution business from Reliance Energy in 2017 had duped the consumers by issuing hefty electricity bills. He defended his video report and said that nobody from the Adani group was ready to speak on camera.