It all seems to have started with a WhatsApp message early this morning. A photoshopped image of a Times of India front-page headline started doing the rounds and soon found its way to Twitter.
This was shared by many journalists.
[Above screenshot is from an Alt News story.]
But, as it turned out, the image was photoshopped and some of those who had shared it deleted it and apologised.
TOI also put out a statement.
Besides the official response from TOI. Times Group Managing Editor Vineet Jain declared that the company would like to take legal action against the trolls who may have created the fake image.
Now, we’re all for setting the record straight and all but it is a bit rich for Mr Jain to thunder legal action. While the fake headline did mislead a bunch of people for sometime, it was way less dangerous than the real fake news items pedalled by some of the Times Group companies in the name of news. Remember the time when Times Now passed off a one-year old WhatsApp message on conversion ‘rates cards’ for Hindu girls as some sort of an investigative report? Or when TOI linked missing JNU student Najeeb Ahmed to Islamic State? Alt News has a useful piece on Times Now‘s experiments with ‘untruths’. Note that there’s rarely ever an apology or a correction issued in these cases.
Needless to say, Mr Jain’s tweet was met with scores of let’s-show-you-the-mirror responses.
We guess public sab janti hai.