On Tuesday, NDTV Managing Editor Sreenivasan Jain put out a Facebook post reacting to the recent take down of his story on Amit Shah’s son Jay Shah and his businesses. Describing the take down as a “distressing aberration”, he said that it was “deeply unfortunate” that the channel had to remove the story for legal vetting. Here is the full text of his Facebook post.

A week ago, a report by Manas Pratap Singh and me on loans given to Jay Shah’s companies was taken down from NDTV’s website. NDTV’s lawyers said it needed to be removed for “legal vetting”. It has still not been restored. This is deeply unfortunate, since the report is based entirely on facts in the public domain and makes no unsubstantiated or unwarranted assertions. A situation like this presents journalists with hard choices. For now, I am treating this is as distressing an aberration and have decided to continue to do the journalism that I have always done – on NDTV. All of this has been conveyed to NDTV.

Newslaundry had earlier reported about the removal of the story, however, the Reality Check episode on the same issue titled “Loans to Jay Shah: Cronyism or Business As Usual?” still exists on the website. Newslaundry reached out to Jain and Suparna Singh, Managing Editor of their digital property NDTV.com, seeking a response on why the disparity between a web article and a television programme. Both did not wish to comment on the story.

Meanwhile, Jain’s reaction made NDTV’s former Group Managing Editor Barkha Dutt speak up about the axing of stories at NDTV. Yes, Barkha Dutt of the Radia tapes fame. Remember Radia? Despite coming across as a firm Radia buddy, someone got to stay on as the NDTV mascot. But all that is past. Now after parting with NDTV and losing one’s shirt and mojo on social media over the use of the name Mojo. It seems to be war, okay WAR NOW, sounds very much like a channel, now doesn’t it? 

In her putdown of Jain’s post, Dutt did not mince words in saying the spiking of stories was no “aberration” at NDTV an harked back to the P. Chidambaram interview that was yanked off the NDTV schedule in October last year. Well, Barkha, a year’s too long ago, but pray, what took you so long to talk about this? We don’t know, or is it WAR AGAIN? In a twitter thread, she explained how the channel had earlier axed Dutt and NDTV’s Security and Strategic Affairs Editor, Nitin Gokhale’s interviews with former Home Minister P Chidambaram and former Navy Chief Admiral DK Joshi respectively. She of the Radia tapes.

But Dutt’s rant didn’t end there. A few hours later, she took to Facebook and hit out at Jain without naming him. “When I first heard the controversy that the axing of stories at NDTV is hardly new and those seeking the higher moral ground today remained absolutely silent when some of us fought with the owners and management over these issues,” the post read. Dutt also elaborates on the other stories that were “axed” by NDTV’s management and the reason of her exit from the channel. “I said that a lack of engagement with the news or elections that were imminent did not suit me and I would rather exit,” she wrote.

While Jain stayed quiet after his Facebook post, he spoke up after Dutt’s social media outburst in a Twitter thread.