After a Cobrapost expose revealed that many media outlets were willing to run content showing opposition leaders like Rahul Gandhi in a negative light in exchange for money, the Congress chief, in an apparent dig at the BJP, on Wednesday said he could never hate those who hated him. Gandhi said for people peddling fake news was just business, asserting that hate is sold for a price. The Congress chief’s remarks come at a time when the Congress and BJP are engaged in a war of words over allegations that their respective apps were compromising personal user data to a third party without the users’ consent.
“I can never hate those who try to stir up hate against me, with fake stories and their cunning twisting of fact. For them it’s just business; hate sold for a price, as the Cobrapost expose shows,” Gandhi tweeted, tagging an Indian Express report with the headline “Sting: 17 media firms ready to push communal reports for cash”.
The Congress chief further said he was honoured in knowing the fact that some people made their livelihoods spinning lies about him. “I’m blessed and honoured that they make their livelihoods spinning lies about me,” he said. On Monday, Cobrapost released a series of sting operations and claimed that senior employees of 17 media outlets in the country had agreed to push polarising stories for money when they were approached by an undercover journalist.
The video of the sting operations purportedly showed that representatives of many of these media companies were willing to accept cash, and not raise a bill for that amount. Some of the major media outlets named in the sting operation include DNA, Dainik Jagran, Amar Ujala, India TV and ScoopWhoop. Journalist Pushp Sharma posed as Acharya Atal, who introduced himself in some of the meetings as belonging to an Ashram in Ujjain and in others as representing some Shrimad Bhagvad Gita Prachar Samiti.
In the videos of the sting operation, employees of the 17 media companies seem to agree to push a pitch “Acharya Atal’s soft Hindutva” agenda, and closer to the upcoming general elections, many of them are seen willing to run content that would have shown Opposition leaders Rahul Gandhi, Akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati in a negative light. Most of the media representatives the undercover journalist met were either owners of regional news outlets or worked as senior executives on the business-side of the media companies.
