Check facts please

IN Media Watch Briefs | 27/07/2013

Whatever has happened to basic fact checking? TOI report on Arun Nehru's cremation quotes agency reports as saying that his pyre was lit by Sonia Gandhi's grandson Rehan as Nehru is survived by a wife and two daughters. Just before that I had read Indian Express which said his grandson Ankit lit the pyre. And just two pages before the TOI report is an ad put out by the family, which shows Nehru had three grandsons. Ok, so subs/reporters don't check obit ads, but didn't it strike anyone why a second or third cousin's grandson should perform the last rites? Does quoting agency reports absolve a newspaper's journalists of factual inaccuracy?

Subscribe To The Newsletter
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.                 

View More