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The Top Media Lies of the year 2015

Author:
Publication: Opindia.com
Date: January 11, 2016
URL:   http://www.opindia.com/2016/01/the-top-media-lies-of-the-year-2015/

1. Christians/Churches under attack narrative:

 Without a doubt, this was the biggest lie which was spread by Indian MSM in 2015. This major narrative was backed by smaller lies which helped buttress their argument.

a. In February, even though the principal of the Holy Child Auxilium School came out in the open ad said “This is not a case of vandalism, no religious articles have been touched”, Indian media outlets like Times of India and eminent journalists like Barkha Dutt were busy branding it as vandalism and a “church attack”. Eventually in July, the culprit, a school boy, was caught by the police.

b. Then we had the unfortunate robbery and rape in a church in West Bengal. Again Indian Express was busy communalizing the incident and commentators  like Rana Ayyub had even pinned the blame on Mohan Bhagwat. Later it was revealed some Bangladeshis were behind this crime.

c. We also had a case where India Today reported that a “Right Wing group” was arrested for vandalizing a church in Mumbai, whereas the truth was that some gamblers had been arrested for the same.

These are just 3 such cases which turned  out to be false eventually, More such incidents were summarized here, which had no communal angle to them.

2. The Meat Ban narrative

One of the most hotly debated topics of the year, the meat ban narrative was framed by the media in such a way that BJP Governments in every state were somehow held responsible for various meat bans.

When a few civic bodies in Maharashtra decided to ban meat during a Jain festival, media played it up as a ban endorsed by the state Government. What they did not report is that not a single new order went from the Maharashtra government to any local body. Meat bans were in vogue in Maharashtra since 1964, followed by a resolution in 1994 by Congress which re-iterated the bans and again a resolution in 2002 which extended the ban to 9 days. Secondly, 2 of the 3 civic bodies which declared the bans were not even ruled by BJP, in one case having a NCP-Congress combine in power. And all of them had a history of banning meat.

In another round of propaganda, Media showed that other BJP ruled states like Gujarat, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh had joined the Meat Ban bandwagon. In Gujarat , meat ban was first enforced in 1960 by CM Jivraj Mehta (Congress) as per Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporation Act (1949). In Rajasthan under Gehlot’s rule, meat ban lasted for 5 days which was reduced now by Vasundhara Raje to 3 days. In Madhya Pradesh meat bans existed on 17 days during the whole year, and had been carried out by successive Governments, both BJP and Congress alike.

There are various instances in the past when even regional parties enforced  Meat-Ban during Paryushan like Mayawati who in 2009, used an SC Order to enforce meat-ban in Uttar Pradesh for 9 days. MNS who is currently opposing Meat-ban also requested such a ban in 2013 during Ekadashi in Pune. But such details never made it to the front page and the narrative was always that BJP had banned meat.

3. Lalit Modi used Sushma Swaraj’s help to go globe trotting.

The Lalit Modi – Sushma Swaraj link was one of the reasons for a large number of days being washed in the Parliament thanks to protests from Congress. One of the underlying points being made was Swaraj’s intervention led to Lalit Modi travelling freely across the world. NDTV’s Sreenivasan Jain, in his much hyped show titled “Truth vs Hype”, said this –

“Why did she not sanction only limited travel to Portugal? Lalit Modi used these 2 year travel papers with no conditions, to go globe trotting”

Later, in his hastily drafted letter, which was part of damage control after Lalit Modi exposed him on twitter, Jain once again takes a sly jibe:

“Modi was recently in Cuba, part of his ‘humanitarian’ world tour which also included Madrid, Ibiza and Venice”

Both the times, he deliberately chooses to hide 2 important facts:

1. As per her own public admission on twitter, Susma Swaraj clearly said she only told the British High Commissioner to “examine Lalit Modi’s request as per British rules” and that if “they choose to give travel documents, it wont affect Indo-UK relations”. From this it is clear, unlike what Jain claimed, Swaraj did not “sanction non-Portugal travel” nor did she give him “unconditional travel papers for 2 years”. She only told UK to do as they deem fit. If at all Lalit Modi got such documents for 2 years, it was due to the UK Government

2. Jain also forgot to mention that within a month of such “help” from Swaraj, the Delhi High Court too offered greater “help” to Lalit Modi, by giving him his passport back. So all of his trips post August 2014, could very well have been based on this passport irrespective of Susma Swaraj’s “help”. Why would he need travel papers when he has got his passport back?

By deliberately hiding these two facts, Sreenivasan Jain in effect lied on his show “Truth vs Hype” that Sushma Swaraj allowed Modi to go globetrotting.

4. AAP govt bought onions at Rs 18/kg and sold to Delhiites at Rs 30/kg

We had a separate report on this where we had discussed threadbare how AAP was subjected to this hit-job. In what seems to be a gross misinterpretation of facts , India Today reported that AAP Govt bought onions at Rs 18/kg and sold to Delhiites at Rs 30/kg. This claim was made based on RTI replies. Firstly they did not release the so called RTI replies they saw. Secondly, from what was available in public domain from various sources, it was clear that in fact AAP had bought onions at Rs 32.86/Kg from SFAC and the Rs 18/kg was what SFAC had paid to buy the onions from Mandis. In the hurry to brand the anti-corruption party as corrupt, the media went overboard.

5. Government clears Indo-Pak cricket series

Indian media might get a lot of things wrong, but when it wants to, it gets things like timing perfectly right. Bang on 26/11, the anniversary of the Mumbai Terror attacks, Indian media leaked a source based news that Indian Government had given the go ahead for an Indo-Pak series.

---------------------------------

TIMES NOW   @TimesNow
#BREAKING Government clears Indo-Pak series which is to be played in Sri Lanka,
Sources say #2611Irony
3.08 PM - 26 Nov 2015

---------------------------------

This news was met with widespread anger, especially since it had come on the Terror attacks anniversary. So did the Government actually do this? We go back to 24th November when one of the first versions of this news came up. It was reported that the Pakistani Government had given the green signal for such a series. 2 days later, exactly on 26/11, Indian media broke this news that even the Indian Government had given the go ahead. This was blared by almost every media house and there was tremendous uproar on social media.

Just before midnight, on 26/11 itself, the Official Spokesperson of Ministry of External Affairs tweeted that no decision had been taken on the cricket series. Till today i.e. the 6th of January 2015 there has been no movement on this aspect. In fact on 28th November itself, news came that Government was unlikely to give the nod. On 3th November MoS Home Ministry Kiren Rijiju said no such discussion had taken place. So how did this happen? Is it a coincidence that Pakistan Government gives green signal 2 days before 26/11 and Indian media cooks up a story of Indian approval exactly on 26/11?

6. BJP had blocked the same GST bill for many years while in opposition. (Hence Congress blocking was justified)

The GST bill is considered to be the biggest tax reform in Independent India. It is expected to resolve a lot of issues and end many inefficiencies in the current tax system. In such a scenario, it was seen that the Congress was blocking this bill repeatedly on different pretexts ranging from minor technical issues to National Herald. To somehow defend this stand of the Congress, MSM invented the excuse that BJP too was guilty of blocking the same. This was the favourite counterpoint of anchors on any TV debate.

But MSM deliberately hid a few aspects from the viewers. Firstly, besides BJP states, even non-BJP states had opposed the UPA’s GST bill. States like the Congress-led ruling UDF government in Kerala, Non-BJP ruled Tamil Nadu. Non-BJP ruled Orissa and Congress ruled Maharashtra and Haryana had opposed various aspects of GST at multiple occasions. Obviously, they must have had some major problems with the bill which led to such unity across party lines.

And problems they did have. The states wanted Alcohol and Petrol out of GST, Entry tax to continue and some sort of guarantee from Centre for potential revenue loss. These issues were resolved only by the NDA Government in December 2014 when they decided to keep Petroleum and Alcohol out, and agreed to a 1% additional tax to compensate states for losses. It was only after this revised GST bill was presented that the states agreed.

So the MSM argument fell flat on its face because Non-BJP states had also opposed UPA’s GST bill and secondly, UPA’s GST bill was different from what NDA had proposed.

7. Narendra Modi’s clothes: Rs 10 lakh suit and others

Yes, not foreign policy, not economic policy, not reforms, but PM Modi’s attire was the topic of discussion for our esteemed media on multiple occasions this year. This is an inconsequential topic in all fairness, but Indian media’s fixation on this issue has forced our hand to list out their lies.

First up came the biggest lie related to Modi’s clothes: The Rs 10 lakh monogrammed suit. This lie spiralled out of control as it reached opposition politicians. We had covered it here in detail, showing how our media calculated the price of this suit based on pure speculation. Eventually the person who had gifted this suit to Modi rubbished all such claims.

Next up, our media and eminent journalists decided to focus on Modi’s shawl. Again, pure speculation by the likes of Rana Ayyub and Sagarika Ghose led to a rumour that Modi was wearing a Louis Vuitton shawl. Later, the official Louis Vuitton denied having ever made such a shawl and the same design shawl was found on Flipkart, sold by Vimal.

Modi’s clothes were again under scrutiny when he went to USA. Hindustan Times claimed that he had changed his clothes 4 times for 4 events in a single day in his US trip. Unfortunately for them, the entire trip was being live tweeted (with pics) by the MEA and from the tweets it was clear that the 4 events were spread over 2 separate days and not a single day.

On the face of it such lies and media reports are petty, but these are the kind of stories which go viral and create a completely different impression in the minds of readers

8. Malicious editing of Baba Ramdev’s interview by Sreenivasan Jain

The lie component in this entire episode isnt that big a deal but the real cause for alarm is the brazenness of editing a video in such a way that the question and answer is interchanged, in order to create a furore over the now controversial answer. We had written a separate post on this here.

The other manipulations in the interview can be seen from the above linked post, we will focus here only on the main distortion. First, let us see what actually happened, as per the unedited interview:

1. (Sreenivasan Jain Question 1): The state of farmers is quite poor, other people are also troubled, Modi Government has completed one year, are you satisfied with the running of the Government?

2. (Ramdev Answer 1):  Modi has started well, some of his schemes may take 1, 2 or 5 years to show results. He is involved in nation-building programmes, not vote-bank building programmes. He wants to take India ahead, and is trying with honesty and hard-work. He works for 18-20 hours a day. But he must also start work which creates vote-banks (i.e. for the backward and downtrodden people).

3. (Sreenivasan Jain Question 2): Vyapam has come forward, Vasundhara Raje’s and Sushma Swaraj’s issues have come, many Maharashtra Government ministers are accused of scandals. Don’t you think BJP’s image is changing because of these scams, and Modi is silent on all of this?

4. (Ramdev Answer 2): I had supported Modi. You can see my tapes from before, I have said, without Modi, BJP is nothing. I am not a BJP spokesperson, I am self made, I am not BJP’s baba. (Now Sreenivasan Jain probes baba repeatedly, and asks him to comment on Modi’s silence. Ramdev avoids for a long time, and finally replies) From my side, no comments. We should comment, only when the matter is more clear. Scams should not happen, and scamsters are the enemies of the entire country. Till things are not clear, making premature statements is not correct. I don’t want to get into a new controversy.

Sreenivasan Jain did showed his first question, and then showed Ramdev’s second answer! He completely deleted the first answer which was on how Modi’s Government has performed, and instead shows the answer which relates to the various scams. This was noticed only because Baba Ramdev had the presence of mind to independently record the entire interview. Not only did Jain continue as an employee of NDTV after this, he even won the ‘Journalist of the Year’ award at the RedInk journalism awards, given by the Press Club.

Media Lies of 2015 In detail:

January 2015: 7 Lies

February 2015: 8 Lies

March 2015: 9 Lies

April 2015: 18 Lies

May 2015: 20 Lies

June 2015: 20 Lies

July 2015: 27 Lies

August 2015: 25 Lies

September 2015: 24 Lies

October 2015: 23 Lies

November 2015: 22 Lies

December 2015: 17 Lies
 
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