Sexed-Up Media Mafia, Caught With Pants Down

The term ‘sexed-up’ for the media came to prominence in 2003. In May 2003 Andrew Gilligan, a BBC journalist, reported allegations that a dossier published by the British Govt of Tony Blair had "sexed up" the military capabilities of Iraq in order to bolster the argument for going to war with the country. Following the scandal Gilligan had to quit his job and there was greater tragedy to follow. Gilligan's source was biological weapons expert David Kelly. Kelly was found dead, having apparently committed suicide, shortly after being identified as the source for the story. That was serious business but where our Indian media is concerned ‘sexing up’ their reports is a fairly routine affair. This becomes even more pronounced on a bad day for their masters, the Congress, and if they could get something to tar the BJP with. Business as usual!

So on March 21, a day when the Congress was wiped out in the by-polls in Andhra Pradesh,  the media mafia found a thrilling story in the form of two BJP MLAs in the Gujarat assembly being caught watching porn pictures. That’s it! From Rajdeep Sardesai’s CNN-IBN to every scumbag’s Aaj Tak and the filthier cousins of NDTV, TimesNow, Headlines Today all went to town with the story from noon till night. TimesNow, of course, is quickly acquiring the status of ‘liars to the nation’ in an effort to beat other English channels for TRP.

All the channels played the video of the MLAs with their Ipads with grainy pictures and the Ipad images blurred. Not one channel bothered to stop and verify if there was really evidence of the MLAs actually watching obscene material on their Ipads. Truth is: The channels did have the evidence to the contrary but they chose to stick with the lies. The videos, without the blurring, can be watched here and here. One posted by Deshgujarat and the second one by Congress leader in Gujarat, Arjun Modhvadia. In what is visible one MLA is actually scrolling pages from left to right. Hardly looks like keenly watching anything in particular at all.

The channels played the video, grabbed by a journalist called Janak Purohit of Gujarat Samachar (A local daily from Ahmedabad) who claimed to have reported the incident to the Speaker of the Gujarat assembly. So today, after the Forensic Laboratory cleared the Ipads of having any obscene content and thus clearing the MLAs, the channels are playing the same videos again. This time the video images weren’t blurred and it was quite obvious that there was no evidence of any dirty pictures being watched. So why did the channels blur the images earlier? Simple! Spread the lies, cause as much damage to BJP and through that to Narendra Modi, and then later claim no evidence. The old rule: Stick the convict badge, then worry about the crime and evidence.

Interestingly, Rajdeep Sardesai, the father of the media mafia’s conscience, tweeted about the incident (at different times) and here are some:

@sardesairajdeep

I think it's a tad unfair to pronounce the Gujarat MLAs guilty of watching porn without any corroborative evidence. (22.10 March 21)

@sardesairajdeep

Shoot and scoot journalism will be the bane of our profession. We pass judgements too easily, often without fact checking. (22.16 March 21)

@sardesairajdeep

@dineshdasa1 Well, I said it 2 days ago, the BJP MLAs alleged to have watched porn were not given fair hearing in media. (17.20 March 23)

All that after a lot of damage was attempted. Read the last tweet above: “..not given fair hearing in media”. Haha! This moron actually believes media has the right to conduct a hearing? This is the same disease that Arnab Goswami, Barkha Dutt, Rahul Kanwal and others suffer from. They have indeed come to believe that their sexed up channels are some form of court where hearings are conducted and verdicts dispensed instantly like a toilet roll dispenser.

There is an online news site called OneIndia.com. On this issue this site had a quick double take. Here’s how the site reported the incident at first: ‘Gujarat porngate brought to you by BJP again’ (March 21) : “Once bitten, twice shy (not) that's how the proverb should run for the Bharatiya Janata party. It appears the saffron party has not appeased the gods, clearly as the 'moral' fabric of the upright political outfit is being shredded by its own members over and over again”. Now, a day later on March 22, the same site somehow discovered extra-ordinary wisdom and intelligence to report: ‘Porngate’ exposes faction ridden Gujarat Congress’. The second report implies that one faction of the Congress sexed up the fake porngate incident to draw attention away from a by-poll win by another faction of the Congress.

After Radiagate and Barkha Dutt’s brokering for Congress, this is what Rajdeep Sardesai had to say: “Conversation between source and journo is legitimate. if quid pro quo is shown, expose it. else, dont destroy hard earned reputations”. This, when it was clearly evident what Barkha was up to and the man was defending the indefensible. Yet, when it comes to others the question of facts does not bother him one bit, especially if it concerns BJP or its members. To his credit, Rajdeep does express the flaws of the media when his conscience strikes. But all the anchors must wonder how and what they would feel if such a terrible report about them had been aired. That they were watching porn while at work. They must wonder what their families, friends and colleagues would think.

Our sexed up media owe a sincere apology to the two MLAs to whom they have caused immense distress and damage. I wouldn’t be surprised if the MLAs sued that scumbag called Janak Purohit and even some news channels for the fake report. This is not the first time the media mafia has done a ‘whack job’ on BJP members. The BS Yedurappa case is still not very old nor is the Shehla Masood case. The recent death of IPS officer Narendra Singh in MP which the media attributes to a mining mafia is another case where reports were turned in without full facts.

Till now some journalistic bimbos were compared with Rakhee Sawant … not too long before these bimbos are equated with Poonam Pandey for sexing up reports. Hard to believe that a noble profession like journalism is now being completely run by a mafia of pimps of the Congress who try everything to sex up their reports and still fail to launch. This time they were caught with their pants down and skirts up!