Dirty journalism: How Aroon Purie's India Today group channel Aaj Tak propagates falsehoods, publishes fake stories

Once Aroon Purie's India Today group commanded respect.

Today it is reduced to spreading fake stories and propagating falsehoods.

Imagine, the level to which the journalistic standards of this group has fallen--Aaj Tak carries the false story about a Saudi mufti's purported fatwa that a man can eat  his wife or her body parts.

It was a satirical take in a magazine and when it was picked up by mainstream media's online sites, it was refuted.

The government and the mufti also came out and said that it was absolutely wrong.

In fact, even the India Today group's DailyO had long back published that it was a false report. LINK. Still, Aaj Tak carried it once again. Aajtak's website gets hits in millions.

Also, Aaj Tak has millions of followers on Facebook. That, a supposedly mainstream newspaper can go to such level just to garner 'hits', is shocking. It tells you about the situation of journalism and journalists in 21st century India.

Hope, Aroon Purie and his management realises that they have hired people who can't distinguish between rumours and news. That, people who don't understand the sanctity of the written word, need to be ousted from the profession.

Else, it is doomed. Once credibility is hit, it is very difficult to restore it. Time for Aaj Tak-India Today to take a decision. Aaj Tak should apologise and acknowledge that it made a mistake. That's the least it can do.

Revolt Press: News website twisting facts, a disgrace to journalism

What's the job of media? It is informing public or distorting facts in order to spread false information?

Ironically, getting hits seems to have become the sole criterion for success in online media.

As there are thousands of websites, the hits will come only when you give bizarre headlines.

RevoltPress, a website, that delivers news in both Hindi and English, has taken this 'bizarre' to an extreme.

Take for example, the news that has been show here along with the post. It wrongly says that Pakistani men marry their own sisters. The headline clearly suggests as if it is incest that is prevalent in Pakistan.

The intro begins with the practice in Islamic world. The fact that an absolutely misleading news is not just published but it's being posted widely in Facebook groups and aggressively pushed, shows that they have no qualms about their brand of 'Yellow journalism'.

Such stories get them HITS, which bring some money in the form of advertisements and also a bit of name for the 'media group'. It today has nearly 1.9 lakh likes (followers) and hence reach of such articles keeps increasing as they keep posting such articles, again and again, with an interval of few days.

As far as the particular misleading post is concerned, the truth is that there are marriages between cousins in Pakistan. But it is common in India too. In many parts of the country, there are marriages among cousins in Hindus. In Andhra, it has been common for the girl to marry her real maternal uncle (mama).

But calling a cousin as 'sister', giving an impression of 'incest' and its prevalence in entire society, is disgusting to say the least. Sadly, journalism is the biggest casualty with the proliferation of such news websites. This is perpetuating false myths, spreading hate and agenda-driven activity that needs to be condemned in the harshest possible words.