Not easily bullied

IN Media Watch Briefs | 08/08/2016

Zee Punjabi channel’s daily news show called ' Mudde ki baat' had to be cancelled on Sunday when the Aam Aadmi Party’s Sukhpal Khaira, who was to be a panelist for a discussion on drugs, was suddenly told that he could not participate. The channel wanted a milder panelist for  the discussion which included  Harcharan Singh Bains, political advisor to the Punjab CM. The AAP insisted that Zee could not dictate who the party should send, and the aggressive Khaira, who was already in the studio when a diktat came, refused to budge. He used the time inside to make a video which also captured the two other panelists! The video has since gone viral in Punjab, and the AAP says it will boycott the channel until it apologizes.

         

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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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