Pramit Singh on the case of blogger Chetan Kunte: apparently forced to take down a blog post by a news organisation for criticising their coverage of the Mumbai attacks.

No one creates heroes better and faster than old media. Sometimes, they do it inadvertently. Take the case of blogger Chetan Kunte (Chyetanya Kunte), who ‘dared’ to question the work of a mainstream media journalist Barkha Dutt of NDTV news channel.

Chetan Kunte was not alone in criticizing the media coverage during the Mumbai Terror Attacks NDTV – the Navy Chief, the NSG, the local panwallah, even those good-for-nothings who live and die by the reporting ethos of India TV, there were few among us who liked the coverage.

But, in the end, it was Chetan who got the Golden Notice, the letter that makes careers, the letter from the lawyers.

This incident once again illustrates Indian Media types have thin hides and a sense of self importance almost as big as that of the assorted religious gurus.

NDTV is a fine news channel but not in the league of the New York Times, which is covered in unflattering terms on blogs such as Gawker.com on weekly if not daily basis.

I haven’t heard about the New York Times suing any blogger so far.

Commenting about the coverage, Miss Dutt said in the Indian Express, “If they hated us so much, why are they watching us?”

Because we have no choice, boss. If we don’t watch NDTV, we have to do with a hyperventilating, loud Rajdeep Sardesai on CNN-IBN or a hyper-opinionated, ‘are you talking to me?‘ Arnab Goswami on Times Now. The only news channel worth watching is NDTV India, in Hindi, especially when Ravish Kumar or Vinod Dua are at the helm. Let the news take over, dear.

Chetan was forced to take down his ‘offending post’ but you can access the Google Cache version here.
Incidentally, it is more than 3 years, after the IIPM scandal, since a major lonely blogger vs. big business story has broken out in the Indian Blogosphere scene.

Note to Miss Dutt: the Online publishing world is bigger than anything you have ever seen so far. Enjoy your days of media hegemony while it lasts.

Why so serious?

Coverage of the issue continues on these fine blogs:

• Kunte’s withdrawal post.
• Patrix’s Post.
• Sandeep’s Post.
• Gaurav Sabnis (the man who wrote about the IIPM scandal) Post

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Here’s a clever move:

• Indian TV station NDTV, and specifically broadcaster Barkha Dutt, is criticised for coverage of the Mumbai attacks. As Gaurav Mishra describes it:
  “Bloggers were scathing in their criticism of Barkha Dutt’s sensationalistic coverage of the 11/26 Mumbai terror attack, accusing her of broadcasting sensitive information about the position of hostages and security troops, sensationalizing the news coverage, and being borderline hysterical, in general. The National Security Guard, the Naval Chief, and the Information & Broadcasting Ministry had also criticized Indian news television coverage of the crisis. This groundswell of criticism prompted mainstream media to join in (The Hindu, The Indian Express) and forced Barkha Dutt and NDTV to go on the defensive (LiveMint).”
• Amid this “groundswell of opinion”, NDTV appears to threaten one of those critics – the blogger Chetan Kunte – with legal action.
• Kunte pulls his blog post and replaces it with a retraction statement (image above) that sounds as if it’s been dictated by someone else’s lawyers.
• Indian blogosphere erupts in outrage, and either links to a Google cache of that withdrawn blog post, or republishes it entirely. Not to mention critically discussing the TV station’s coverage once again.

Lesson to news organisations: your viewers are your distributors now. Suing them is not good management. Nor is it good for freedom of speech – something you might find useful yourselves in the future.

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