#Operation136 - A Long Awaited Expose

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For all those who haven't already figured out from the title what this is about, let me acquaint you with Cobrapost, which is a non-profit news website and TV production that is acclaimed for its investigative journalism.


On March 26, Cobrapost released Part 1 of its sting operation called Operation 136 in which it revealed the current rate cards of two dozen of the country's biggest media houses. In the operation, Pushp Sharma a senior journalist went undercover as a man claiming to be a Hindu nationalist and asked the influential conglomerates to run his campaign to promote Hindutva polarization and meddle with the electoral process. The disguised investigator offered anything between 6 and 50 Crores to run a campaign till the 2019 Elections. And although none of us are really surprised that the outcome of such proposals was acceptance with extreme optimism, the presstitutes' recorded responses could leave the everyday passive news recipient astonished. 

The executives at Star India were recorded as saying that there was nothing unethical about Paid News. The Times Of India and radio networks such as BIG FM and Radio One even confessed to running many such "long-running" campaigns to promote certain propaganda before the elections. Some of the most read newspapers such as Hindustan Times, New Indian Express, Zee News and even channels like Aaj Tak, TV 18, ABP News, India Watch and Scoop Whoop were exposed.

Before Cobrapost could release the second part of the operation, they got a stay order from the Delhi High Court because of an appeal moved by the Dainik Bhaskar Group. That, however, did not stop them from letting this important news piece reach the public and they released Part 2 on May 26. If it wasn't for the feature going viral on Twitter, this news would've gone unheard of, just like many other  exposes in recent history, that threatened to expose Paid News. It is time we come face to face with the fact, that the news channels and reporters that we make a part of our daily life, do not serve us the truth and rather propagate a more distorted reality and a new-age fascism that is on the rise. They give the phrase 'Yellow jounalism' a new dimension.

To be honest, at the end of this post I feel that we are as lost and misguided as the stone pelters in J&K and as vulnerable in the eyes of the government. We need to make more informed choices about the news we read, hear or watch. And not believing everything that is published is no longer an option but necessary to be more objective citizens.

I would recommend all my readers to read the complete report on https://cobrapost.com/

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