Growing up in India, I was a big fan of “a media outlet” that rhymes with MBCV and its leading journalists at that time – a bearded guy, a handsome young man and a woman reporter, who all shall stay unnamed. The news coverage by “a media outlet” that rhymes with MBCV was a welcome break from decades of stale news coverage that the government channels subjected us to. As more news channels stepped in, we’ve slowly watched the demise of quality coverage by private news channels. Understandably some of them have resorted to sensationalism to keep up with the competition. However, things came to a head during the 60 hour Mumbai terror attacks in November and the Indian media was put under sharp scrutiny by the rest of the world.
Understandably, the blogosphere was not far behind in this criticism. One such blogger, Chyetanya Kunte, an Indian in Netherlands, heaped criticism on one of India’s leading journalists, “a woman reporter”. [link - scroll all the way down for the original post] [via]
Well, he made a mistake common among bloggers, including yours truly, he got a little lazy and quoted a Wikipedia blurb criticizing “a woman reporter”.
One of the criticisms about “a woman reporter” **edited** on Wikipedia reads thus:
During the Kargil conflict, Indian Army sources repeatedly complained to her channel that she was giving away locations in her broadcasts, thus causing Indian casualties.
He got sued by “a woman reporter” and her lawyers for quoting Wikipedia and had to take down the post. [Withdrawal] [via]
Here’s the interesting part, even though the blogger quoted Wikipedia and got sued for it, the Wikipedia entry could’ve easily been backed up by a media story where Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Sureesh Mehta, leveled similar criticism against “a woman reporter”. [Hindu]
I’m no legal eagle, but my guess is that if Kunte had linked to the media story and/or used “a woman reporter” instead of naming names, the woman reporter’s lawyers would’ve had a tough time hitting him with a lawsuit.
The lawsuit itself is an unusual form of cyber bullying, in my opinion. Again I’m no legal expert, but my guess is that if the case actually made it to a court, being that the Wikipedia quote could have easily been backed up with a story in the media, the woman reporter’s lawyers would have faced a tough time proving anything. Again this is just a guess, but the blogger did not want to be put through the hassle of courts and law suits and understandably blinked first, i.e., chose to tender an unconditional apology. [Withdrawal] [via]
The woman reporter herself has a previous history of crusading against blogs, whether she perceives them as a threat or is unable to take criticism, is anyone’s guess. [Youtube] [via]
During the Kerals.com cyber bullying incident against a desi blogger, I floated an idea with some leading desi bloggers, is it time for desi bloggers to form some sort of umbrella organization that protects them from various forms of cyber bullying by major media outlets and large corporations, by providing resources to services like legal help?
Update (from Anantha): It appears that while the said reporter has pretty much admitted to have sent a legal notice (via Confused) to Cheytanya “for the rubbish and lies peddled in this email”, something much funnier has emerged (hat-tip Maxdavinci), via Twitter message).
It appears that her own employer had featured Cheytanya’s comments (verbatim from his blog post) as part of a Indo-Asian News Service report on their website. A search on Google for the exact title of the IANS report (“Call to regulate media coverage of terror strikes”) returns 115 hits, which establishes that this wire report was in fact used by other news sources, including her own employer whose link (Google cache) turns up in the very first page.
So the Über bloggers here are now wondering about this – why would the aforementioned media outlet threaten a lawsuit about something they featured on their own website, just two weeks earlier? Isn’t that (look, I am just thinking out loud. No one can sue me for thinking. Or can they!) stupid? It appears to us that the Queen actually knows she is naked, but wants to make an example out of just one person (chosen from perhaps thousands) who chose to shine the spotlight on her naked ass.
Ooooh, we actually love this analogy. Hence the appended title!
And while we were all focusing on the David Vs. Goliath angle, Sumant raises an excellent point. His post urges us to think about why the media house sued? Is is because the reporter was called “stupid”? Or was it because of Cheytanya’s inability to stand behind the claim that the reporter was responsible for army causalities during the Kargil conflict, which is unsubstantiated depending on who you choose to believe.
While we consider Sumant’s post to be very pertinent, it is the truth that an example has been made of Cheytanya. And though our argument seems to be one that is straight from our heart (as opposed to Sumant’s mind), it still gives us a good enough reason to take be a part of this stand. We would love to hear some thoughts and opinions from fellow bloggers in the desi blogosphere and our readers.
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