A couple of months ago a report that
has appeared in leading Malayalam dailies like Malayala Manorama and
Mathrubhoomi had some such caption which
read as “Pocket picked during travel in
KSRTC bus and pick pocket dies in ensuing clash’. It was reported that a person named Raghu was
killed in a clash following picking the pocket of Gun Man of Congress leader
and Lok Sabha M.P. K.Sudhakaran and the money that was picked was recovered
from the former. One who read the news
item would have taken it on the face value and believed that Raghu was a pick pocket who had
picked the pocket of Gun Man of K.Sudhakaran.
Hardly a couple of newspapers like Deshabhimani only published the true
report. The following day these papers had to retrace their steps and report the truth that he was not a pick pocket
as alleged in the report the previous day and he came to Perumbavoor on
transfer to work in a private company and the money recovered from his
possession was borrowed from his friend for being given as advance rent for
hiring a house. Nevertheless, they did not think it prudent either to apologise or to express regret for
causing humiliation to the deceased and his relations including wife by their
wrong reporting, in total disregard of mental agony and insult
that had undergone by the latter owing
to their wrong reporting. This is the real Dharma of these newspapers.
This is not the first time that the
said dailies have published wrong or distorted reports. On several occasions in
the past they had resorted to distorted or wrong reporting about various issues
and incidents. I remember that some
years ago Malayalam Manorama had published a report on the illicit relations
between a girl in a village in Ernakulam District and some anti social elements.. However, while publishing the photograph of
the girl involved they had wrongly published the photograph of another girl in the vicinity and that innocent girl
had to bear the brunt of insults and ignominy from the public. Needless to state, this finally culminated in the suicide of that girl
and her mother for no fault of theirs..
Intriguingly, even in that case also Malayala Manorama had neither apologized to her and family well in time
about published her photograph wrongly nor have given correction of the news which would have certainly saved their valuable
lives.
Similarly. few years back, Kochi Edition of Mathrubhoomi Daily had published a news in the death
column giving photograph of an old man known to me who hailed from Ernakulam
District with correct name and address saying that he had expired while he was
still very much alive. Neither had they
published any correction nor have apologized for ‘killing the person’ who was
still alive inspite of the fact that his relations had protested against the
wrong report and drawn the attention of the paper to the fact that he is alive.
Last but not the least, when I had
referred the publishing of such wrong news item about Raghu who was killed by
the Gun Man of K.Sudhakaran, M.P., to the special correspondent of Malayala
Manorama stationed at Bangalore he has justified such reporting on the analogy that in such cases invariably
they take the version given by the
police for granted, implying thereby that they do not bother to investigate
about the veracity of the report and
publish the truth. Without mincing any
words it can be asserted that such a stand of Malayala Manorama makes a mockery
of Newspaper Dharma and their duty to the society specially so when gloat
eloquently about their glorious traditions who has mentioned their motto below
the editorial column as ‘Satyameva Jayathe’.
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