Baseless accusations

IN Media Watch Briefs | 11/07/2016

This Scroll.in story  shows how TV channels  including Times Now, Zee News and  NDTV 24x7 took off on an accusatory binge linking preacher Zakir Naik to the July 1 Dhaka attacks, claiming   that they were inspired by him. All extrapolated from a report in Dhaka’s Daily Star which said that one of the Dhaka attackers had shared a video of Naik on his Facebook wall last year. The Daily Star has issued a clarification  denying that its story reported that Naik was linked to the attack. Naik himself also objected to this inference last week and complained about it to the Star.

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The new term for self censorship is voluntary censorship, as proposed by companies like Netflix and Hotstar. ET reports that streaming video service Amazon Prime is opposing a move by its peers to adopt a voluntary censorship code in anticipation of the Indian government coming up with its own rules. Amazon is resisting because it fears that it may alienate paying subscribers.                   

Clearly, the run to the 2019 elections is on. A journalist received a call from someone saying they were from Aajtak channel and were conducting a survey, asking whom she was going to vote for in 2019. On being told that her vote was secret, the caller assumed she wasn't going to vote for 'Modiji'. The caller, a woman, also didn't identify herself. A month or two earlier the same journalist received a call, this time from a man, asking if she was going to vote for the BSP.                 

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