Hindustan Times does crass journalsim by masking facts.

The story first came in Indian Express IE  which had detailed account of the incident.Hindustan times HT version had less facts and deliberate attempts to present the man who died as a  poor helpless victim.

IE version states the truck was stopped by Villagers after seeing it drive rashly with cattle as against HT which calls them angry mob.

IE version also notes that few of the villagers informed police and chased the truck. This and the following is not present in HT version

But before police could intercept the vehicle on Sarahan-Nahan road, the truck crashed as the driver failed to negotiate a sharp turn. Police said villagers then secured the cattle, caught four people travelling in the truck and beat them up.
Police said the victim, Noman, was traveling in a different vehicle that was allegedly escorting the truck. According to police, villagers also caught Noman and beat him.
The five men eventually escaped by rolling down a mountainside, but villagers caught four of them again and handed them over to the police. Police found a critically-injured Noman by the mountainside the next day. He was taken to a local hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries Thursday.

HT summed up the above as

An angry mob bludgeoned to death 22-year-old Noman after stopping a truck with more than a dozen cows and oxen on board while four of his associates were also beaten up before being taken into police custody, sources said.

 From the IE version it's clear that all 5 had escaped the beating handed out to them by the mob by rolling down a mountainside and the deceased Noman was found critically injured only the next day. His fatal injuries could have been result of beating or from any injuries he may have sustained from rolling down mountainside. This is still unclear and it is best not to say anything conclusively without proof. However the wording in HT using words 'angry mob' and 'lynched' as well as a mention of Dari case seem to suggest they are too eager to link this to Dadri. While this may not seem to be anything illegal , the ethical aspects of such a reporting do need to be looked into. Further more Ht version makes it seem as if the mob as they call it was waiting in turn to attack the smugglers.

Surprisingly while the url of HT says " Suspected Bajrang Dal members " there is not a single mention of them in HT article as of now. Again it is only in IE article is Bajrang Dal members are mentioned by the father of the deceased  person as being suspected to be involved.

“He was innocent and perhaps not aware of the cattle smuggling,” said his father, Sayeed Akhtar, who  alleged Bajrang Dal activists could have been involved in the attack.

What is more shocking with HT and IE which reported on this incident did not even have a single mention of Moodbidri murder of a Bajrang Dal activist , who was active in preventing illegal cow slaughter and theft.  Did I mention the murder occurred on 10 th Oct 2015 and on 16 th Oct 2015 the eye-witness in the murder was found dead?

Cached version of IE page on 17 Oct 2015 08:41:41 GMT
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/saharanpur-youth-allegedly-involved-in-cattle-smuggling-lynched-in-himachal/%3Futm_source%3Dvuukle&strip=1&vwsrc=0

Cached version of HT page on 17 Oct 2015 15:33:28 GMT.

The Greatest Indian Mystery: Rahul Gandhi in abroad..

For someone who is always thrust upon us by the media whenever he is at home Rahul Gandhi has the irony of being the most untraceable person when abroad by the Indian media. Mind you this is the same media that managed to get Lalit Modi onto their UK newsroom when he was wanted at least on paper by Indian officials. Oh let's not forget how media also managed to get in touch with Dawood's wife which even our Intelligence officials didn't think of.

Unlike last time when Mr. Gandhi went AWOL for 56 or so days and media ran a circus on where he could relying on gossips, Social media photos, and basically whatever they heard through the grapevine, this time Rahul's location was put to rest courtesy a tweet from Rahul's office and Milind Deora who was accompanying him. All news channels ran with tweets and that was the end of that.

Except that it was not. In fact we are not even sure what conference or seminar or private event was it that Rahul Gandhi attended.  Though we can confirm the photographs of Rahul Gandhi with Iceland president and David Miliband are real the verification of whether they all attended the conference is unclear.

But First onto the Conference attended by Rahul Gandhi

Congress had been insisting that Rahul Gandhi was going to Aspen ,Colorado  to attend "Weekend with Charlie Rose" conference. However this conference seems to shrouded in much mystery even to Aspen residents themselves. Two local Aspen News stories do mention a conference of the same name and  it being a private event. An Indian American news organization however claims that the 'Aspen Ideas Festival' which is the official name of the conference  had long been over.

Further adding to the mystery potboiler was the miscommunication or supposedly lack of communication between Congress workers in India and Overseas. According to Indian National Overseas Congress (INOC) President Juned Qazi (INOC) President Juned Qazi “Yes it can be said that Rahul Gandhi didn’t attend any such programme, though he was in Aspen. Weekend with Charlie Rose conference is over & I have no information that Rahul attended it. His name also wasn't mentioned in the speakers' list”. This apparent miscommunication can also be corroborated with version given by one  George Abraham, chairman of a faction of the Indian National Overseas Congress, and based in New York, in an interview to The American Bazaar who said that he had “not been notified” of any visit by Rahul Gandhi to the United States.

From the tweets today by Rahul Gandhi's office and Milind Deora it seemed as the conference was not the one with Charlie Rose but from the “New Media & International Affairs Conference in CO, USA”. In fact Mr. Deora's tweet carried pictures of Iceland President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson and former UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband. Now since this conference was an international one and attended by the President of a country as well as former diplomat of another country there was bound to have been some news about this conference. But surprise surprise there no mention of any conference even in any of the local newspapers despite it being an international one. In fact there are no such media conferences on time of tweet of Rahul Gandhi or on the day even accounting for time difference between India and US. Even one related with media tech is only scheduled to take place on 30/9/2015 as part of an expo which begins only on noon of the day of Mr. Gandhi's attended conference.

So it seems that Rahul Gandhi may have attended an unknown conference in an unknown place since whatever has been provided as proof don't seem to add up. But  there are other variables that are out of place and these are the persons in the photograph with Rahul Gandhi at this "conference"

First is David Miliband. He was present at UN Sustainable Goals Summit 2015 held between 25-27 September 2015 in New York as the president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee which runs relief operations in many countries. He spoke at UNICEF and  at UN Summit  in between 24 to 27 th and as per his own tweet he is to speak at the Social Good Summit which is held between 27-28 September in New York and he will also be testifying before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 29 September. Just to be the Flight time between Aspen and New York is atleast 6 hrs and between Denver and New York is atleast 4 hrs. Both these places are in Colorado or CO. So factoring in the distance between New York and 2 place in Colorado and the fact that David Miliband's schedule is packed with important summits and hearings it seems a bit strange that he had gone for a supposedly international conference without even tweeting about it.

Same is the case with  Iceland President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson. Last year when the President traveled to the US it was reported in an Icelandic news magazine about his attending various debates and conferences including one organized by Charlie Rose in Aspen.

Even other true international conferences where the President attended had atleast a website or some other media tool to announce the event. Yet somehow an "international" conference attended by President of a country , a diplomat of another country and by a former Minister and a Vice-President of a party of a 3rd country had no information that could be found to  prove it had taken place.

The photographs are be real but given that Miliband could not have been Colorado it may have been in New york. But since Iceland's Prime Minister also spoke at the UN summit , it is highly unlikely that the Icelandic President would also be there for a conference in the same city in which case he would have been the one to speak at UN summit, but cannot be ruled out. But if it was indeed in New York then Rahul Gandhi would have been spotted by  one of the many India media covering the summit. So Mr. Deora's proof of Rahul Gandhi's attendance at a Colorado conference during Mr. Gandhi's trip to US doesn't hold water.

So Rahul Gandhi may have attended an event that the Congress in India or in US are not sure of. What the conference was about also differs in tweets between Mr. Gandhi and Mr. Deora . Mr. Deora's tweet raises more questions in particular about David Miliband having attended same conference. And we have a media that seems to have the 2 tweets as court judgement and doesn't seem to pursue further.


Oh and for people asking "What has Modi's recent trip done for the farmers, poor people etc?" let me ask a counter question. " Of what use will this trip by Rahul Gandhi ,who is not even  a member of govt, be to farmers and poor people? Especially for those farmers in Congress ruled Karnataka"

Liberals nearly outrage against abuse of woman on twitter, stop when sees she's a Right Winger.

Satire: 

Days after Shruti Seth got abused and trolled by Modi supporters, Bhakts Sexually Frustrated Hindu Males, another woman, Rupa Subramanya, was subjected to abuse  and all the liberals nearly outraged till it was found that the woman in question was a right winger. Since the writer couldn't meet up with them directly owing to tyranny of  distance,  the following is based on twitter chats.

When asked how this near faux pas occurred, Self -Proclaimed Protection Officer Of Feminism (SPOOF) Sagarikka Ghose had this to say " A new 'secular' intern had just joined us a few days back and after reading Chetan Bhagat's brilliant intellectual piece assumed that women was getting abused by those dastardly Internet Hindoos. Luckily I stopped him before he tweeted from TOI's handle supporting Rupa whose such a prize ass. Imagine the damage it would have done to TOI's reputation"( ED Note : ROFL :D).

 Luckily for the liberal camp ace detective Rana Ayyub was on the case and within 18 seconds of sifting through the tweets she found.the reason for the outrage. "This Hindu right winger had mocked Sania Mirza 3 yrs ago so was it any surprise that anyone who is secular felt anger towards her for such a thing? Every women can have an opinion as long as it's against RSS and Hindutva forces" 

Surprisingly Shruti Seth joined in on the admonishing saying " How could she question the  aspirations of a sports-woman like this? Even if she couldn't praise her couldn't she refrain from making crass comments? How did she concur that the dream won't happen? " However when pointed out that Shruti herself had done a similar thing for which she got trolled on twitter, her fellow celebrity AAP spokies started trolling the writer with expletives which cannot be reproduced here. 

Meanwhile Chetan Bhagat has already started another write up this time on the female "bhakts" on how not having English speaking males is making them sexually frustrated and  venting their anger on other successful females.

Disclaimer: This is a satire and any quotes attributed to real person are coincidental but are not unintentional. :P

In Source We Trust?

Source. The word in its simplest terms is anything that gives something. However just like how Indian movies and rip-off from the West and add a touch of the desi masala twist, Indian media is not too far behind. In the context of Indian Media the word source that was used to protect the anonymity of persons who provided them with solid evidences (documents, video and audio tapes) has now become associated as something akin to an imaginary friend of media whom they conjure up from time to time when they require that jump start for their story to gain momentum

The latest use of this fad in media was in the example of a prominent Editor (Barkha Dutt) of an English News channel (NDTV 24/7) tweeting with regards to a news about a supposedly “compulsory” Yoga classes being conducted in IIT Rourkee. The “source” of this piece of news was from a picture of a document sent via e-mail by a “student” of the Institute. However as many users pointed out the document contained no seal of the university or any other authenticity despite according to the document it was from the Dean for students welfare. She did post later a picture of an authentic circular contradicting the one she had gotten previously, but the storm had already started. In the midst of this cross-questioning she broke one of the codes of journalism: Naming the source. Yes, she actually gave out the name of the “student” who sent allegedly sent her the e-mail. While the student may or may not exist the act of naming the source that too by an editor is just crass journalism to try and deflect the blame from herself even though the authenticity of the document she got was clear to be false to many common people on twitter and as such should have been dismissed by her and thus this whole news controversy and twitter noise could have been avoided.

But therein lies the beauty of Source wherein even an unverified document could cause a rumble in the twitter jungle. Journalists have realized that in this day and age of Twitter trends dictating terms of what information is to be consumed, the trends will translate into viewership or TRP’s which is what dictate the terms of the ads on their channels because if they weren’t Main Stream Media (MSM) won’t bother with announcing weekly TRP’s or using hashtags for every sentence they use.  The quality of News has come down so much that it is no longer about which is the best news but which can be more easily shoved down the throat of the viewer. This is like people buying fast / instant food since they are too busy to make something themselves.

The question we need to ask is how can this be tackled?  There is something we can do and something that MSM should do. What we can do is to gather news from different media houses. Since most of them are posted online in real time we only have to spend more time and no extra money. Using Social media is also another good way to get a near 360⁰ view of the news that get reported. Now what the MSM should do is that they have to set a few guidelines regarding usage of anonymous sources.

1.  Unless some sort of document/proof that is relevant to the story is available the term “source” should not be used even if the source is a reliable one so as to avoid unnecessary speculation. But once some proof of allegation is provided anonymity of source must be maintained 
2. Even if the document/proof is provided its authenticity must be verified before airing the views provided by said document.  
3. If the information is found to be false/misleading/incomplete after airing then due apologies must be issued in a prominently visible space and this must be done in the space or time-slot of the ads. Also to be noted is that even at this time naming the source should not be done since the responsibility of verification rests with the media house.

 If the above points are followed they will help reduce the number of nonsensical debates and news stories that are extrapolation of gossips and more stories will get featured on air as and when they occur instead of when the pot boils over like the distress of farmers or sanitation problems. Now whether the media will take note of this and try to better itself only time will tell.

Note: Point 1 was based on a suggestion by team at Newslaundry during their NL Hafta Ep 20