We live in an age where everything is within the realm of possibility, especially in the field of journalism. The community of journalists world over, like little children who spill the milk deliberately and then look away pretending that their little brother did it, have gotten into the habit of spreading fake news and pretending to be the harbingers of virtue. They often sell their pens for pocket change while keeping up the pretence of sitting on their high moral horse. Paid news is passed off as analysis, Islamists are hailed as feminists, terrorism is dressed up as revolution, terrorists are branded as headmasters’ sons and loving fathers, the sovereignty of the nation is sacrificed at the altar of political patronage and the last shred of ethics is discarded like a dirty tissue that has outlived its utility.

On similar lines, Suhasini Haider, The Hindu journalist tweeted today announcing that it was partnering with BBC to protect its readers from disinformation.

News majors to fight disinformation: @the_hindu joins @BBCNews and others with a pledge against fake news. https://t.co/IVoIjiEtjC — Suhasini Haidar (@suhasinih) September 7, 2019

The article read:

The Hindu is partnering with the BBC and other leading global news and technology organisations in new industry collaboration to tackle disinformation. The collaboration was announced by the BBC and the partners in the early hours of Saturday.

- Advertisement -

Under this collaboration, news and technology majors will work together to protect their audiences and users from disinformation, particularly around crucial events such as elections.

Irony is wasted on the stupid, and that The Hindu and British Broadcasting Corporation don’t recognise the elephantine moronity of the two publications joining hands to combat fake news, is one amusing aspect of the fiasco that is bound to deliver some chuckles through the ages.

The Hindu attempting to combat disinformation is much like Charles Manson giving sermons of racial harmony and co-existence. The very organisation that pioneered the helter-skelter of fake news is now attempting to convince people that they care about their audience getting accurate information, especially during important events like the elections.

While The Hindu keeps up pretences and the rest of the ‘liberal’ media clap like chattering monkeys, it would bode well to travel back in time and remember the times that The Hindu itself has behaved like the greatest purveyors of fake news.

One recalls how the Editor of The Hindu had tweeted screenshots from a fake CBSE website to claim that the official Government of India website had a badly written note to students. Of course, he had later deleted his tweet but not before ‘liberals’ had abused Smriti Irani, the then HRD Minister.

The Hindu had then lied blatantly to insinuate that the government of India is not working towards realising the dream of cashless economy. The Hindu’s unbridled hate is such, that they had even got slammed by the Greek Embassy for misquoting a Greek Minister in an anti-demonetisation article.

The clarification was nothing but an indictment of the style of reporting of Suhasini Haider and The Hindu. As was made evident by the Greek authorities, they were anguished by the fact that the report misquoted the Minister which led to an extreme oversimplification of what he wanted to actually say and stated that he did not wish to make any judgement based on a country’s internal policies of which he has no knowledge of. The fact that The Hindu, which originally reported the news, had to carry a clarification which in itself slammed The Hindu, gives us a hint as to the amount of criticism and pressure they must have been under, from the Greek embassy and officials. It is very likely that they felt extremely upset that their foreign minister was used as a pawn by Suhasini Haider, to settle domestic scores in India.

In 2016, The Hindu also had to publish a clarification and an apology after it had shamelessly misinterpreted the answer given by the I&B Ministry.

The Hindu has also spread fake news that had international ramifications. In 2017,

The Hindu had reported Michael Pillsbury as saying: Trump has declined Dalai Lama’s request for a meeting’. This news item was preceded by another report based on the same quote, titled: “Is Trump preparing to change the script on Tibet?”. This obviously had larger ramifications for the US-China relationship and Trump’s foreign policy on this tricky aspect.