With many former female employees of the digital news platform, Newslaundry, coming out with their harrowing experiences of working with the organisation, another ex-employee has opened up about the harassment she faced at the organisation. According to the ex-employee, who wrote under the name Bhadra Mahapatra on X, the organisation neglected the safety of its female employees.
Bhadra, who joined the online news platform as a producer, said that she was made to stay in the office till late at night. In the first month of her employment, she was asked to accompany another producer and a reporter to cover JNU presidential elections. She went to cover the elections and stayed there till 11 pm, after which she left after informing her colleagues, since she had to travel to Noida.
According to Bhadra, the next day her manager shouted at her for leaving without permission. “He shouted at me, said, ‘Who gave me permission to leave?’ and next time I can’t leave a place until and unless he allows me to,” Bhadra wrote. Without naming the manager, she said that instead of asking her whether she reached home safely, he reprimanded and intimidated her for prioritising her safety.
1. I joined Newslaundry as a producer. This was not my first job, I have had worked in couple of newsrooms prior to this. They have had their share of toxicity but this was by far the most toxic place I have ever worked with. Especially when it came to safety.
— bhadramahapatra (@bhadra_04) August 13, 2026
She further said that from then on she stayed alone in the office many times, editing stories. She had to take private cabs to reach home after midnight, for which she was reimbursed. However, the organisation did not care for her safety. She describes how several times she felt very unsafe while travelling back home after midnight in private cabs, but she was given no choice.
When Newslaundry failed to prioritise her safety, she stood up for herself and decided not to stay in the office after 10 pm. However, she paid the price for standing up for herself and was isolated and cornered. She faced comments and taunts from her colleagues for leaving ‘early’. “The organisation made me feel so isolated and cornered. It always felt like an all-boys club, and women existed only for tokenism,” she said
9. The organisation made me feel so isolated, and cornered. It always felt like an all boys club, and women existed only for tokenism.
— bhadramahapatra (@bhadra_04) August 13, 2026
Bhadra is not the only employee who faced safety concerns while working at Newslaundry. Another woman, who goes by the name Priya on X, shared a similar ordeal. Priya, who worked at the organisation, said that it did not feel like a safe place to her.
She said that her complaint to the Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) was not heard properly. She added that she was not informed about who all were part of her hearing in the ICC, or the action taken on her complaint.
The guy in the ICC hearing didn’t even bother to look at me, or engage with me. It didn’t feel like a safe space.
— Priya (@phoenix_wing16) August 12, 2026
Priya said that while her experience with the ICC was already “traumatic”, Newslaundry further made it worse by asking her not to approach the ICC. Notably, an ICC is constituted in compliance with the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (POSH Act), to address complaints of sexual harassment at the workplace.
Following allegations by its former employees, Newslaundry’s workplace culture, Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) and compliance with the POSH Act have come under scrutiny. The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) took cognisance of the allegations levelled by the organisation’s former employees regarding the news platform’s handling of workplace sexual harassment complaints and the functioning of its Prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH) mechanism.
Facing heat due to the allegations, Newslaundry released a statement claiming that it acted on four complaints of sexual harassment since 2017. The claim was refuted by a former employee of the organisation, who cited their records to show that Newslaundry had received zero sexual harassment complaints since 2017.
