Recently a left leaning website named “The Wire” carried a story which alleged irregular growth in businesses of Amit Shah’s son, after Modi became the Prime Minister. We had soon exposed how the article did more innuendo peddling than point out hard facts. We had also detailed how the author had also made basic mathematical mistakes in the article.
Even though the article lacked substance, it didn’t stop journalists of other media houses from riding on its coattails and enthusiastically report the story. One such journalist was NDTV’s Sreenivasan Jain whose report on Jay Amit Shah co-authored with Manas Pratap Singh, was taken down from NDTV’s website for some “legal vetting”:
An earlier NDTV report on Jay Shah’s loans is being legally vetted.
— NDTV (@ndtv) October 12, 2017
As a response to that, Jain claimed that it was merely a temporary take-down:
Its a temporary takedown, while certain legal issues are being examined. Lets not get ahead of ourselves. https://t.co/wXX0vVH6WI
— Sreenivasan Jain (@SreenivasanJain) October 12, 2017
But it turns out that even after a week the story wasn’t republished by NDTV and this led Jain to issue a statement on Facebook:
Clearly as per his statement, he was distressed about the story not being restored by his employers and as a result many felt he was playing the victim card:
Take a stand. Resign. That, and not playing victim card on Facebook looking for tea and sympathy, would be a real statement. https://t.co/VwzceT1z53
— কাঞ্চন গুপ্ত (@KanchanGupta) October 17, 2017
One of those who was critical of this stance by Jain was none other than former NDTV journalist Barkha Dutt:
I can certainly talk of my own stories that were axed @ndtv– perhaps happens in all newsrooms but never with this much self righteous humbug https://t.co/Dmx1h09Rmo
— barkha dutt (@BDUTT) October 18, 2017
She claimed that axing stories wasn’t anything new in NDTV and that her stores were also meted the same treatment:
My PC intvw axed:a story I led on a Congress bigwig was a big row: @nitingokhale intvw of ex Navy Chief axed.None of these folks spoke then https://t.co/lkHWNBerkB
— barkha dutt (@BDUTT) October 18, 2017
She also alleged that the channel had punished her and Nitin Gokhale for speaking against this censorship:
Can share @nitingokhale & I were punished for speaking on censorship of our work:@ndtv was hostile to us: we parted. We stuck to our stand https://t.co/nCDsrpKy6G
— barkha dutt (@BDUTT) October 18, 2017
Such revelations by Barkha Dutt predictably intrigued various twitter users, who reacted aplenty:
Boom!! A very, very significant revelation from @BDUTT …#NDTV has a lot to explain for sure (whether they will or not is another matter). https://t.co/797ZTiLzyA
— GhoseSpot (@SandipGhose) October 18, 2017
Barkha dutt is the Shatrughan sinha of NDTV.
— अंकित जैन (@indiantweeter) October 18, 2017
Trashing & Trolling NDTV used to be fun once.. then Barkha ji quit, and started Trolling & abusing NDTV.. Fun ended.
— Paresh Rawal Fan (@Babu_Bhaiyaa) October 18, 2017
A few were sceptical about Barkha Dutt’s ”outburst”:
Dear RW. Don’t hand over victimhood to Barkha in your enthusiasm to get dirt on NDTV. Kargil. 26/11. Hafiz Saeed. Burhan. Lest we forget
— Nupur (@UnSubtleDesi) October 18, 2017
Another fine example of pot calling kettle black… https://t.co/TKdB3dfdZD
— Seeker (@stilisforalways) October 18, 2017
This isn’t the only time Barkha has crossed swords with her former employers. We had reported in the past how things were not well between her and the channel. We had also reported she had even got into a twitter fight with her former colleague and NDTV employee Nidhi Razdan.
While it is certainly commendable that Barkha Dutt had chosen to speak out about the freedom of expression for journalists, but she too can’t take any moral high ground on this subject. We had reported in the past how the professional career of an Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) student was almost ruined, simply because he shouted slogans against Barkha Dutt.
While this episode is playing out, speculations are rife about why exactly NDTV chose to pull down and vet that piece.
