Media watchdog Newslaundry has received two legal notices from the Times Group in the last few months. Co-founder and CEO Abhinandan Sekhri revealed this information in an episode of Newsance, Newslaundry’s news analysis and commentary show, where he also tore into the rationale of the notices with a sharp and humourous critique.
“We got a notice for doing our job, which is calling out the bullshit of legacy owned channels who think that they are untouchable,” Sekhri said. He added that one of the notices had also demanded damages worth Rs 100 crore.
“Here’s the irony. While we are getting legal notices for doing nothing illegal or unethical but correctly calling out prime time bullshit by the Times Group, here’s what their promoter is tweeting,” Sekhri said, referring to Vineet Jain’s tweets on how freedom of expression is being curbed in the country. Vineet Jain is the Managing Director of Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd that owns Times Group.
The first notice is for civil and criminal defamation for an episode of Newslaundry NL Cheatsheet series called “Explained: How to rig TRPs” and has named everyone who worked on the episode. The notice says that in the episode, Navika Kumar, Group Editor – Politics, Times Now, and the channel’s editor-in-chief Rahul Shivshankar were referred to “in the most irresponsible, incorrect, derogatory and defamatory manner.”
The notice accuses Newslaundry of using Navika’s photo with other competing channels’ anchors “to create an impression that our client has been involved in illegal acts of TRP manipulation and rigging”. This was done in a tweet, that the notice calls “false and defamatory”. Further, Times Group also took offence to Newslaundry calling Rahul a “karare channe seller (chickpeas seller)”.
Times Group has said that Newslaundry has tried to “piggyback” on its anchors “reputation in order to disseminate the said episode” widely, and have affected the channel and the anchors' reputations and has asked for Rs 100 crore in damages.
Another notice, sent in October by the Times Group, takes offence to a Newsance episode titled “Toadies Banega Tu?” a play on MTV’s reality show Roadies. According to Times Group, Newslaundry, in the show, had made remarks that were “beyond the realm of parody/spoof”, “false, baseless and highly defamatory”, and lowered the “reputation” of “towering news personalities like Rahul Shivshankar and Navika Kumar in the eyes of their viewers and their colleagues.” “The video has reached around 3.3 lakh views and was made intentionally to lower the reputation of the channel and its representatives.”
Other than these two notices, Newslaundry received a third legal notice from Sakal Times (owned by Sharad Pawar), in June. That notice too takes a similar tone – first listing Sakal Media Private Limited’s credentials as a reputable and pioneering media house. It then argues how Newslaundry is not responsible in its reporting. The Newslaundry article against which the notice is titled, “’The future is very bleak’: Sakal Times staffers say they have been sacked in violation of Maharashtra order”. Calling the “so-called story” based on “filthy and unreasonable grounds'', and was intended to “fetch unhealthy publicity”, made reference to some national leader who was unconnected with the issue. Calling Newslaundry’s article “offensive, obnoxious and smacks of the underlying malice and mischief” to tarnish the image of Sakal Times, the notice demands damages worth Rs 50 crore for loss of reputation, Rs 15 crore for mental agonies. Other than the legal notice, an FIR was filed against Newslaundry journalist Prateek Goyal.
All notices demand the particular Newslaundry episodes/articles to be taken down, and apologies to be issued to the aggrieved parties.
Sekhri punched holes in the legal notices sent to Newslaundry, standing by the outlet’s publications challenged by Times Group and Sakal Times. Further, Times Group have also sued Newslaundry for intellectual property infringement for using their logos and anchors’ photos without permission. Calling out the hypocrisy in the same, Sekhri displayed screenshots of the suing publications using logos of Tata Motors, Air India, and other companies in their own reports.
Taking on Times Now and Sakal Group, Sekhri challenged, “So go ahead ‘biggest media house’ and ‘towering news personalities’. Do your worst. In the words of a towering news personality, I dare not say, “If mocking journalism clowns invites court cases, bring it on. All the B-graders can come together but Newslaundry subscribers will continue to back the truth.”
His words were modelled on one by Navika Kumar back in October.
If fighting for justice invites court cases, bring it on. All the a-listers can come together but India will continue to fight for the truth. You can’t intimidate us @TimesNow & can’t take away the viewers who believe in us. Let Truth prevail. @aamir_khan @iamsrk @karanjohar
— Navika Kumar (@navikakumar) October 12, 2020
“Do your worst. Our legal fees are covered by paying subscribers who pay to keep news free, just like they did when Sakal Times came after us. We won’t have to sell ad space or editorial space to political parties to meet our legal costs,” Sekhri said.
Watch the full video here: