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Indian media houses open to 'paid content'

Reveals sting ops

The Indian Express Online
Weeks after its first set of sting videos on 17 media groups, web portal Cobrapost on Friday released 49 videos of senior officials of 27 media organisations purportedly talking to an undercover reporter regarding a proposal to promote "Hindutva" politics and content criticising leaders of political parties including the Congress, BSP, SP and the JD(S) in return for money.
The videos purportedly feature executives of Networkl8, Star India, Zee News,
Times Group, India Today Group, Dainik Jagran, Hindustan Times and Paytm, among others.
In some cases, owners or editors of the media groups also feature in the videos. These include Kalli Purie, vicechairperson of the India Today Group; Vineet Jain, managing director of Times Group; Ajay Shekhar Sharma, vice-president of Paytm and brother of the company's founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma; Brijesh Mishra, CEO and editor-in-chief of Bharat Samachar.
On Thursday, the Delhi High Court had restrained Cobrapost from releasing a documentary on "media malpractices". The Dainik Bhaskar Corporation Limited had sought the injunction from the court, which ordered that "till further orders unless varied by the court", Cobrapost's parent organisation is "restrained from in any manner releasing in public domain the documentary 'Operation 136: Part IF in any manner".
Following the injunction, Cobrapost cancelled its press conference and released the videos online.
The title, Operation 136, refers to India's ranking on the press freedom index in 2017.
The undercover reporter, Pushp Sharma, in a report in 2016, had claimed that documents accessed by him under the RTI Act showed that the Ministry of AYUSH was not employing Muslims. The government had claimed that the documents Sharma claimed to have accessed were forged. He was arrested and later released on bail.
Sharma approached media groups with hypothetical offers ranging from Rs 1.5 crore — for local news channels — to Rs 500 crore for national networks including Star India and the Times Group. None of the videos shows that any money was exchanged or a contract was signed or if any of the news groups ran content in lieu of money.
Posing as an "acharya" and representing a fictitious Shrimad Bhagvad Gita Prachar Samiti, Sharma asked these media groups to promote Krishna's quotes from Gita and promote "Hindutva" on their platforms in the first phase of his campaign. In the second phase, he asked these media houses to run content, including jingles to "thrash" his "political rivals" by using terms like "pappu", "bua", "babua" etc and promote "firebrand Hindu leaders".
As the General Election approaches, Sharma told the media houses, the third phase would include aggressive campaigning. He also said that his organisation would use this content to "polarise" and "communalise" the
atmosphere on the ground.
Kalli Purie is heard saying: "...for any kind of advertising the content is not decided by us in any way. Anyone is allowed to put whatever content they want on the platform as long as [it] is within the guidelines..." She purportedly says twice during the conversation that there will be no "interference" in IndiaToday Group's editorial line. She, however, agrees to create the content internally at the India Today Group.
The undercover reporter tells Purie his organisation will use the campaign to "polarise" the atmosphere through "in-field activities" and that they will not be answerable to the India Today Group for that, to which Purie purportedly says, "Agree. But at the same time, if you are doing some in-field activities that we don't agree with editorially we will be criticisingyou".