Cease and Desist

IN Media Watch Briefs | 09/02/2016

While reporting on February 7 on the murder of the 23-year-old from Delhi University many news channels, prominent among them India Today, kept repeating that the victim was found in the home of her ‘boyfriend’ even as her distraught mother was shown weeping inconsolably. The network even suggested that it was her pregnancy — at best unfounded speculation, as no source was mentioned—which lead to her murder. Next morning the online edition of The Indian Express headlined with ‘Man Strangles Ex-Girl Friend’ while the Hindustan Times clarified that the college student was not pregnant and was killed in a fit of rage. But can print undo the damage TV does?