After drawing severe flak from several quarters for uploading a blatantly insensitive and allegedly propagandist video on the migrant crisis in Uttar Pradesh, NDTV has now deleted its tweet in which a reporter was heard asking an alleged migrant worker crossing the river Yamuna to enter Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh from Haryana’s Kalanaur to ‘walk again’, perhaps for better footage.
NDTV reporter asks ‘migrant worker’ to pose again
Last week, NDTV was at the receiving end of criticism when it was caught peddling a propaganda video in which a reporter was seen asking an alleged migrant worker to go back a few steps and walk again while crossing the Yamuna to enter Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh.
So @ndtv is showing this video and where the person is making the migrant worker to go back and pose again. Clear case of Lutyens media propaganda. #ArnabGoswami #SaturdayMorning pic.twitter.com/D2I9dqjTgD
— Ex-Secular Kumar (@Exsecularkumar) May 16, 2020
As can be seen in the above video, at around 2 seconds into the video the reporter shooting the video asks the man to walk back a few steps and walk again. The ‘migrant worker’ then takes a few steps back and pauses to pose. He then walks again after receiving cue from the reporter.
The fact that the ‘migrant worker’ was asked to pose and walk again was promptly discerned by the netizens which resulted in a widespread social media outrage over the authenticity of the clip posted by NDTV. Many netizens also slammed NDTV for trivialising the travails faced by the migrant workers by insensitively asking the purported migrant worker to step back and pose walk again.
Following the backlash on the Internet, NDTV defended itself saying that the video uploaded on its Twitter account was sourced from a stringer. Though it was meant to alleviate the fallout, the response only served to aggravate the barrage of criticism directed at NDTV. Twitter users started questioning as to what was the compulsion faced by the NDTV to buy such propagandist videos from stringers.
However, after defending itself for sourcing a video from a stringer, NDTV has now deleted the original tweet which carried the video of the reporter asking a ‘migrant worker’ to provide a better pose.
NDTV aired the show with edits
While NDTV uploaded the unedited version of the video on the Internet for the social media users, the same courtesy was not extended for the TV viewers who were shown a doctored video by the NDTV. A few hours after the tweet was posted, NDTV aired the video on television and shared a clipping of journalist Vishu Som’s show, but the instance where the reporter asked the ‘migrant worker’ to step back and walk-in again were edited out without any clarification.
Stirring video shows migrants crossing knee-deep Yamuna to get home https://t.co/fdsWvEkqzP#MigrantLivesMatter #CoronavirusPandemic pic.twitter.com/qFS0Feok4G
— NDTV (@ndtv) May 15, 2020
In fact, the clip played in Som’s show shows the ‘migrant worker’ walk right after the had stepped back and posed in the above video.
