To anyone who has suffered our legacy media and its hubristic doyens for any length of time, it was a familiar scenario. Sagarika Ghose, once again did something she likes to do a lot, targeting Narendra Modi using dubious facts and less than stellar logic

Will the suit boot ki Modi sarkar now wake up to a reality beyond social media/ ceremonial spectacles and hugging foreign dignitaries? — Sagarika Ghose (@sagarikaghose) April 23, 2015

We buy billion dollar fighter jets, tycoons get richer, yet the war within rages–farmers death, communal disharmony, rapes, poor get poorer — Sagarika Ghose (@sagarikaghose) April 23, 2015

Usually at times like this, when the unceasing lies and naked propaganda threatens to overwhelm self-control and inner peace, the only sensible option open to us is to ignore the deception and subterfuge and move on with our lives.

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This time though, I decided to take a different and positive approach.

I am a great believer in the advice of American Economist Alex Tabarrok: “A Bet is a Tax on Bullshit”

I decided to take up Dr Tabarrok’s advice and challenged Sagarika Ghose and her spouse Rajdeep Sardesai, to bring facts to the table and subject themselves to scrutiny, and ultimately journalism honest.

Alright enough with BS I am ready to pay 5K if Sagarika/Rajdeep combined covered farmer suicide more than 10 times during UPAI/II — 957K@HonestJournalis (@doubtinggaurav) April 23, 2015

Not surprisingly, a lot of incensed netizens took up the challenge, and from a modest amount of 5 thousand rupees, it has swelled to almost Rs 9.5 lacs within a day.

Most of above has been summarized on the story for #HonestJournalismChallenge at https://storify.com/doubtinggaurav/wager-on-sagarika-rajdeep

This reaction to my challenge tells two things

A majority of netizens are fed up with the blatant bias of legacy media. They are willing to make an effort to bring accountability and honesty to media.

Hopefully, #HonestJournalismChallenge is just a beginning of the collective and coordinated effort of netizens to subject legacy media to scrutiny.