Another former employee of the leftist propaganda rag Newslaundry has called out alleged workplace harassment and toxicity. On 10th August, journalist Sayantan Ghosh shared his experience about working at Newslaundry in an X post. Ghosh said that Newslaundry co-founder Abhinandan Sekhri used abusive language towards employees.
“…When I got the offer from Newslaundry, the understanding, though not formally in writing, was that I would work as a trainee journalist for three or four months and, if my work was good, I would be hired. So, essentially, it was an unpaid internship. And I was completely fine with that. I was young, I had a dream, and I wanted to become a journalist. I shifted to Delhi and started working. The space, as I experienced it, was extremely toxic. The language used by Abhinandan Sekhri towards employees was deeply hurtful to me. People around me told me that this was “normal” in the media—that this was how newsrooms functioned and that one had to develop a thick skin,” Ghosh wrote.
I think it is time to speak up.
— Sayantan Ghosh (@sayantan_gh) August 9, 2026
I joined Newslaundry as a trainee journalist in 2016—I cannot recall the exact month—with a dream. I had just passed out of college and wanted to do the kind of independent journalism I believed in. At the time, I was working as a content writer… https://t.co/DPIQsiW8Lj
Ghosh said that people around him at Newslaundry told him that such use of abusive language toward employees was normal at media offices.
Citing his experience at mainstream media newsrooms, including The Telegraph and The New Indian Express, Ghosh, however, said, “I never heard any editor hurling abuses at reporters or interns in the way I experienced at Newslaundry.”
“So when I was told that such behaviour was “normal” in the media, I could not accept it. It was not normal to me. For everything, in my experience, the person in question was abused. I had never seen people speak to their own employees in that manner before. But I was repeatedly told that this was simply how things were. The trauma became so bad that one incident remains very clear in my memory,” Ghosh added.
Sayantan Ghosh further revealed that after he wrote a story on Section 66A for Newslaundry, the abuses hurled at him were so harsh that he fled the office.
“One day, after I wrote a story on Section 66A, the abuse was so harsh that I remember lying to the person I was reporting to and fleeing. I stayed in Delhi for another week, until my parents could arrange a train ticket, and then I returned to Kolkata. I have thought about writing about this many times. But I never did. I knew how people could be bullied and intimidated, and for a long time I doubted myself. I questioned whether I was being too sensitive, whether this really was “normal”, whether I simply did not understand how the media worked,” Ghosh wrote.
He further expressed preparedness to tackle the backlash from the leftist ecosystem, and said, “I know the kind of responses that are waiting for me. I know what will be said and I know that many people may question me. Maybe I am prepared today. But I think I should have spoken about this much earlier.”
Notably, Newslaundry and its co-founder Abhinandan Sekhri are receiving massive public backlash over not only their rape apologist behaviour in the Tarun Tejpal case, but also for fostering a culture of sexual harassment in the workplace.
Amidst the row, several former Newslaundry employees have come out and shared their experience of workplace harassment. The matter was first highlighted by journalist Saikiran Kannan. Sumedha Mittal, a former senior correspondent at Newslaundry, tweeted, “I also hope the day comes when they reflect just as seriously on the sexual harassment complaints within their own newsroom.“
Another former Newslaundry employee, Priyanka Ishwari wrote, “Also hope they train senior journos not to scream at women editors and threaten them saying “Kabse dekha raha hun mein tereko” over work calls. Training male reporters to behave professionally around female colleagues and not make the office a boy’s lockeroom maybe too much to ask?“
A female journalist named Lamat R Hasan had narrated how she was ‘almost’ raped by Vikram in 2005. She narrated, “He turned violent—pulled my hair, grabbed my wrists, held me against a wall and then pushed me on the bed. My attempts to break free failed. I started crying. He let me go. That’s the closest I have come to being raped.“
