Self-censorship again

IN Media Watch Briefs | 02/06/2016

A story on this website run by a bunch of professionals suggests that in the Vadra London property case a large number of calls (478) to the arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari were made by HT’s executive editor Shishir Gupta. If it was for a story, no story was broken by him. The site has published a section of the call records detailing a phone number which it says is his. The interesting part is why the media reporting on this story skirts around this fact.  Neither NDTV nor Outlook which have been reporting the Vadra story name him though Outlook does state the fact and the number of phone calls made by this Delhi journalist. Nor do the newspapers which have picked up this story name him.

 

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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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