Aaj Tak, the Hindi channel of the India Today group, has been asked by the NBSA (News Broadcasting Standard Authority) to air a public apology on their channel on the 23rd of April for spreading fake news about Sushant Singh Rajput. Aaj Tak has also been asked to pay a fine of Rs 1 lac for the same. This decision comes after the NBSA rejected the review petition that had been filed by Aaj Tak in the case.
Earlier, on October 6th 2020, NBSA had held that AakTak had violated broadcast norms by airing fake news about late actor Sushant Singh Rajput. It was this order that Aaj Tak had appealed, however, that appeal was rejected today.
Following the rejection of appeal, NBSA has asked Aaj Tak to air an apology on the 23rd of April at 8:00 PM.
The apology that they have to air live, translated in Hindi, is as follows:
Aaj Tak apologises that while reporting on the incidents relating to the suicide of Sushant Singh Rajput, we had run certain tweets on the Aaj Tak channel and wrongly reported the screenshots calling them real and attributing them as the actor’s last tweets. By doing so, we have violated Clause 1 of the “SpeciZc Guidelines Covering Reportage” relating to “Accuracy” which states that information should be gathered first-hand from more than one source, if possible; reports received from news agencies should be attributed and where possible be verified; allegations should be reported accurately as made and errors of fact should be corrected at the earliest, giving su[cient prominence to the broadcast of the correct version of fact(s)
Order by NBSA against Aaj Tak and the fake news against Sushant Singh Rajput
The News Broadcasting Standard Authority (NBSA) has slapped a fine of Rs 1 lakh on Aaj Tak, the Hindi-language news channel of the India Today group for telecasting fake tweets relating to actor late Sushant Singh Rajput. It has also asked the broadcaster to air an apology admitting on national television that it did not conduct the due diligence required prior to telecasting the tweets and attributing them to the late actor.
Aaj Tak had published an elaborate piece on late actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s “last tweets” on June 16, two days after the actor was found dead in his house in Mumbai. Aaj Tak had also tweeted the article from its official Twitter account. The Tweet where the news channel shared the link of the emotionally charged report on these “tweets” where the late actor allegedly hinted taking his own life were subsequently deleted. Aaj Tak later took down its report without clarification. An archived link of the tweet can be viewed here.
