What happens when the mainstream media outlets and some online portals start behaving as the opposition? What happens when behind the veil of being “anti-establishment” they silently march towards a behavioural pattern that makes them oppose any pro-India decision?
Some eminent Indian Journalists, editors and online news portals have taken up the role of resisting this government as the opposition space is shrinking. Now one should have no problem with that as long as they get their facts and ground reports are right. Media has every right to criticize the government in power.
Problem arises when the stories are driven by the sole motive of proving a point and are baseless. Problem arises when they pre-decide the narrative and change stories accordingly, to propagate their set narrative. Problem arises when the stories are driven by bias and the content is based on twisted liberal prejudices. A bias which overrides facts and focuses more on vilification. It can be very difficult for people to differentiate between fact and media fiction. Throw in incessant repetition, uniform agreement among the pundits, and completely deranged interpretations become historical facts.
Let us analyse some of the biased news reporting in recent times and the pattern behind it –
1. The Hindustan Times’ ‘hate tracker’–
The so-called ‘hate tracker’ was introduced by HT in July to keep a track of hate crimes occurring in India. But if you observe the very first paragraph you will see the biased motive behind it. It was not a tracker of hate crimes but more of a tracker for one particular community and caste. Who is the real bigot and casteist in this case?
Unfortunately for Hindustan Times, the readers in the modern era is not a passive consumer of news and opinions. Very soon, it was noticed that not even one hate crime was tracked and reported by the tracker if the crimes were committed by a certain section of a community:
It did not take long to figure out their malicious propaganda. HT Hate Tracker shrewdly ignored the attacks on Dalits by Muslim fundamentalists (as the above list shows). It ignored crimes like Muslim mobs attacking Hindu pilgrims (such as this, this, this, and many more) or the ruckus created during JE vaccination. It did not track the killings of BJP karyakartas in Kerala or West Bengal. It played the religion & caste card when it suited their narrative and tried to hide an incident as soon as they felt it did not satisfy their ‘secular’ hate tracker criteria. After widespread criticism, it was taken off.
2. The Hindu’s innovative & imaginative reporting :
The Hindu’s reporting in recent times have certainly made us wonder about their motives. No one knows from where do they get their ground reports or is it a figment of imagination arising from a sick biased mind. Take for example the recent Elphinstone Stampede fiasco.
The Hindu News paper online portal carried out an article written by Vedika Chaubey which said that a dying women was molested by some bystanders during Elphinstone stampede. The writer of the Hindu news portal made disgraceful comments against bystanders who were trying to help the women caught in the stampede and misinterpreted the incident as molestation. She blamed the government and police for the incident and tried to malign the Railway department.
It was an attempt to not just malign the BJP Maharastra Government, the police or Indian Railways but an attempt to defame humanity and make us feel ashamed as Indians. But if one sees the video closely it says a different story altogether.
It shows a woman trapped under bodies reaches out for help before breathing her last. And it is clearly seen the man in white shirt is trying to help the woman. Even the police trashed their report and got a show cause notice from Press Council. They even withdrew their story after OpIndia exposed their nefarious story.
Another fake reporting – Dadri accused getting jobs at NTPC
They are clearly and systematically trying to malign each and every institution. The Hindu report stated that the 15 accused men in lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq have landed contractual jobs with state-run NTPC.
The Hindu story completely eliminated the fact that an NTPC worker named Neeraj had killed himself and this entire “job offer” was triggered by that tragic incident.
Seems like these so-called news agencies have developed a certain passion of spreading fake news over dead bodies. This was a complete lie which was countered by NTPC. The news agencies have developed a certain passion of spreading fake news over dead bodies.
3. The Wire, the liar :
After the Uttar Pradesh election results, the founding editor of The Wire, Siddarth Varadarajan declared that media should play the role of opposition and boy is he fulfilling his promise by publishing fake news one after the other.
First the innuendos regarding the Jay Shah story, where the author showcased her financial illiteracay and the malafide intents rather than facts. Then came another weakly researched story on Shaurya Doval, and in between it they managed to discredit Dr. Hedgewar by spreading misinformation. They also tried building up a false case that a comedian was not allowed to crack jokes on Narendra Modi & immitate him and even went on to publish dubious report on ‘Dalit atrocities‘ in Gujarat.
Such is the standard of articles that each time their lies have been nailed within hours. But that will not stop them from peddling some more fake news in future. They are shameless & are quite brazen & proud about it. It seems The Wire has taken up the challenge of publishing fake articles at highest strike rate and they are winning it hands down.
4. The Scroll’s role :
Another online portal that promotes and cherishes false news, intellectual bigotry and seems to hero-worship traitors is Scroll. The appointment of Yogi Adityanath as UP CM surely made the editor activists lose their thinking and reasoning power. Even kebabs were not spared.
Lies were spread about the decision and impact of crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses by the Uttar Pradesh government.
In one of the articles it said : “Lucknow’s legendary Tunday Kababi downs its shutters as meat crackdown intensifies” The truth was that it was closed for an hour due to shortage of meat.
From present back to the past where Scroll tried to paint Swami Vivekananda a Hindutva agent and how he laid foundation to ‘sectarianism’. They try to bring down and discredit our national heroes and make them seem as bigots. And then they have their own champion historian who believes Aurangzeb was the one who looked after the Hindus and preserved Hindu temples.
I have left out NDTV keeping in mind that their ‘rich history’ of spreading lies is too vast to be covered in this one article. The leftist news agencies and portals have started a movement. A movement of misinformation to satisfy their inner demons. Journalists, activists are creating an alternative media landscape where news is secondary.
There is zero effort to do professional, non-partisan journalism any more. It is pure propaganda. Even the comedians are now sour, hostile, hateful and partisans. They are not funny any more. It appears even they have been tasked with a role of opposition. India is ‘Lynchistan’ for them and superficial campaigns like #NotInMyName are organised to create a bleak picture of India.
Though, this movement is not new. Its origin can be traced before Delhi elections in 2015. After 2014 general elections and subsequent state elections in Maharashtra and Haryana where BJP was winning, these activists cum journalists decided to up the ante. Remember the stories created around Church attacks and how fear was instilled in ordinary Indian’s mind. How a short-circuit or group of kids playing outside, which resulted in a stone landing inside the church was given a communal color.
The Award Wapsi brigade seems to be a part of that campaign and it would be foolish to look at it in isolation and not in context.
Journalism was meant to inform the people on what the government was doing for the people, to protect the citizenry. Instead they have taken sides and have adopted a Leftist ideology. Leftists have taken media jobs in order to promote the own personal Leftist ideology and to destroy political opponents.
The media is often called the “mainstream media”. There is nothing mainstream about them. They are lying, radical Leftists spewing propaganda and hate. They lie, distort, and deceive. The media is no longer a pillar of democracy. It would seem they are the termites that are eating into the pillars of democracy to make the country weak and hollow from within.