Vijaita Singh, a journalist with The Hindu, tried to mock OpIndia today by saying that one can’t really expect OpIndia to read and analyse documents. Saying that the portal is a hit job factory, she accused that OpIndia can’t read. But the allegations made by her are completely wrong, and The Hindu itself had committed that same ‘crime’ she was accusing OpIndia of committing. She was responding to former IAS officer Kannan Gopinathan, who had accused that news agency IANS published a report on him without seeking his response.
You really expect Opindia types to read and analyse documents. Remember ‘reading’ and Opindia are antithesis. It’s a hit job factory. https://t.co/P9VlYIOza0
— vijaita singh (@vijaita) September 12, 2019
Kannan Gopinathan had recently resigned from his job protesting against the restrictions imposed in Jammu and Kashmir, and recently it was revealed that he was facing disciplinary action for misconduct. He was issued a show-cause notice by the government, which was reported by OpIndia on September 1, and IANS had reported the same on 12th September.
Replying to a tweet by IANS on the issue, Kannan had said that IANS didn’t seek his response like OpIndia, and therefore he was replying what he had replied to OpIndia earlier. In this particular tweet, the former IAS officer was primarily criticising IANS for publishing a story on him without talking to him, and mentioned OpIndia that also did the same earlier.
Hi.. since @ians_india has decided to do an OpIndia by not seeking my response on an article on my resignation, I have no other option than to reply here with what I replied to OpIndia I guess. But one would have expected better from a news service. Sorry! https://t.co/vBayOwiuQB
— Kannan (@naukarshah) September 11, 2019
But the Hindu journalist chose to pick only mention of OpIndia in his tweet, and totally failed to mention IANS, which was the primary target of Kannan. But the interesting fact is that, The Hindu, where Vijaita Singh is a journalist, itself had carried the story quoting news agencies, and without getting any response from Kannan Gopinathan. But later they updated the report with responses from him.
In fact the original headline of the Hindu article was “IAS officer Kannan was issued showcause for ‘misconduct’ before he quit, but after adding his responses, the headline was changed.
Although OpIndia didn’t talk to Kannan before publishing the report on him, the report did mention his responses to the show cause notice issued by the government. Apart from a summary of his replies, the entire PDF document of his response was embedded in the report. He is using the screenshots of the same document as his response to the report on Twitter. Therefore, even if OpIndia didn’t talk to him, all his responses were already included in the report. The 11-page response submitted by him contains detailed replies to each of the charges made against him.
While Vijaita Singh accuses OpIndia of being unable to read documents, the fact is that the OpIndia report on Kannan was based on two documents, the show cause notice issued to him, and his reply to the notice. Both the documents were included in the report, and the content of the documents were briefly explained in the report. The allegations made against him were listed, and his replies were also mentioned, it was not a one-sided report as alleged.
The authenticity of none of the documents used in the report has been questioned by Kannan Gopinathan or anyone else, in fact he is posting pages from his reply on Twitter, thus confirming that the documents are authentic.
Therefore, the claim that OpIndia report didn’t contain Gopinathan’s response is not correct. Although the responses were not directly obtained from him, it was obtained from his official reply to the show cause notice issued to him.
