Media and Ethics

We received a comment turn query from 'anonymous"(4th comment) who identifies himself as a Hindi journalist(worked with Santosh Bhartiya, the editor of Chauthi Dunia). His queries : ' who is funding Chauthi Dunia and will it survive after the election?' are relevant but do not come under the perview of this blog.

Chauthi Dunia published in its second issue a lead story "BJP ki sarkar Banana chahta hai Mossad"(Mossad wnats to make the BJP government). The author of the report is Dr Manish Kumar. Tis report seems to be an extension of the propaganda by a section of the Urdu press. The writer does not provide any substantial points to prove his theory. The million dollor question is : 'what is the basis of the writer's claim that Mossad wants to make BJP government in the centre?' He takes the resort of usual method of a table story , ie," the information obtained from the intelligence sources". Tomorrow someone can write about any national leader or the party that he or she is an agent of a particular country and the basis of the report will be "intelligence source". Unlike the Hindi and English press , the Urdu press did the same while alleging that CIA and Mossad were behind the 26/11 or 9/11! The writer cites Hindu Jew summit in Delhi on February 5-7, 2009 in which Swami Dayanada Saraswati and 20 Hindu religious leaders participated. he forgets that the Jews are the genuine minority in India. if there is dialogue with Hindu -Christians, Hindu -Muslims then what is wrong if there is a dialogue with Jews or any other religious minority. how does it prove that Mossad doing effort to make BJP government. The ethics of the Press is seriously devalued by such reporting.

I spoke to Santosh Bhartiiya on phone , congratulating him for relaunching Chauthi Dunia after almost two decades, put before him two simple questions: why does not his paper carry counter point of such story. He had not given any direct reply. I was astonished to hear from him that there is no intellectual in the BJP-RSS! I told him that our work also found unsubstantiated propaganda by Urdu papers on terrorism in India. They too blamed Mossad, CIA and others for Mumbai terror attack.

I requested him to review AAtankwad aur Bhartiya Media . He received the book but was non committal for its review.

One thing is common between Chauthi Dunia's reporting and Urdu press : there has been effort to bring Mossad into the center stage of political debate in India . Why so ? This needs separate analysis and investigation.( by RS)