NDTV anchor and Ramon Magsaysay Award winner Ravish Kumar was at the centre of a controversy last week. An edited video sought to “expose” Ravish’s so-called biased reporting and went viral on Twitter and Facebook.

It is now clear that the video was dubiously edited out of context to paint Ravish as being soft on the United Progressive Alliance (II) government. If one watched the original and complete video with Ravish’s commentary, it is apparent that he spoke in no uncertain terms about the economic slowdown during the Manmohan Singh era and wasn’t cutting the then governing dispensation any slack. 

He begins his 2013 programme thus: “The economy of the country is not in a good state…Compared to the past when it was growing between 8 and 9 per cent, now all indicators point to a slowdown…manufacturing, agriculture all show a slowdown. Even our flagship service sector has fallen to 6.6 per cent meaning tourism, hotels, etc, all are not growing.” Ravish then quotes figures from the Economic Survey to ask if the Indian economy, which was once regarded as a ‘tiger’, should now be described as a ‘lamb’? Towards the end of his introduction, Ravish says: “…are we being too critical or sad about the economy? There are many countries in the world which are growing at a rate less than 5%. These are the aspects we will discuss on prime time today.” It is this bit at the very end that was clipped out and circulated to on social media platforms to question Ravish.

When it comes to the right-wing on social media, attacks on Ravish and his journalism have acquired a banality of sorts and follow a predictable pattern. However, what was surprising this time was the number of journalists who peddled the edited video as some sort of proof of Ravish’s ‘biased journalism’. Some like News Nation anchor Deepak Chaurasia remarked on Ravish winning the Magsaysay while sharing the clip.

Newslaundry spoke to some of the news professionals who shared the video on social media to try and find out what these journalists had to say about sharing a dubious video to question the journalistic integrity of a colleague in the industry. After all, it is expected of journalists to be careful about sharing such videos on social media and to retract them if found to be maliciously edited. 

The same set of three questions were asked to each of the journalists. Here are their responses.

Manoj Malayanil
Independent journalist, former output Editor at Zee Hindustan

On Facebook, Malayanil wrote a long post on a report published by BBC on Ravish’s clipped video. Malayanil criticised the fact-check by BBC.

Have you seen the full video of Ravish’s programme from 2013?

Nobody runs the entire videos if it is 40-45 minutes long. People who work in the television industry know it. When they want to give an idea of the video to the audience, they take a small bit of the entire video and telecast it.

What do you think of Ravish Kumar’s award and journalism?

Ravish Kumar makes sweeping statements in his prime time show. He covers the entire media on his show and calls them ‘chor’ (thief). So, when he can question the objective of every media organisation then he too will be questioned on his objectives and he has to be accountable. It was him who had coined the term ‘Godi Media’.In his speech at the Ramon Magsaysay Award ceremony he condemned the Hindi media. I don’t have anything personal with Ravish and my post is also not personal.

As a news professional do you often share videos without verifying their context or accuracy?

Just like a policeman can identify a thief by merely looking at the person,  a journalist who stays in the publication domain for a long time can also identify the opinion of the other person. I can identify his ideology. During 2014, the entire channel (NDTV) was against Modi. This has nothing to do with whether I have seen the entire video or not, all of us are aware of his ideology and agenda. I don’t even like Arnab Goswami, that man just shouts. So, there is no middle way in this country.

Deepak Chaurasia
Anchor, News Nation

When this correspondent tried to contact Chaurasia, he said: “Abhinandan Sekhri has already commented on my tweet and you (Newslaundry correspondent) have already decided that the video has been edited, so you can write whatever you want.”

When this correspondent insisted that she is interested in his views, he said: “Ravish is an old family friend and our kids go to the same school and I have known him since 1995. Ravish’s wife is my wife’s junior from JNU”.

Abhishek Upadhyay
Independent journalist and former journalist at TV 9

Abhishek Upadhyay shared a post on Ravish Kumar’s viral video. He says in the post that “the soldiers of the Congress party have lost their calm after this video and are asking people to watch the full video”. 

Have you seen the full video?

Yes, I have seen the full video and only after watching the video, have I put my post up on Facebook. [Upadhyay said the video that is going viral on social media is not an edited video but is a “cut video”, which gives an idea of the full video.]

What do you think about Ravish Kumar’s award and journalism?

Whether he deserves the award or not, it depends on the selection committee and I can’t comment on that. The entire 2013 video bails out the then government led by Manmohan Singh. At that time the government itself declared there was an economic crisis going on in the country. But Ravish, instead of talking about the economy, started highlighting the schemes that the government brought to curb poverty and how sufficient amount of food would be provided amongst poor. He even bailed out the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram by saying that it was the season of election and that people should not expect him to act like an economist.

He said that it is not just India but the maximum countries in the world were going through the same economic crisis. He knew, to defend the establishment he had to put on a soft corner, so he raised the issue of poverty. He also reported in the video that the government was going to collect tax to generate revenue but he assured people not to freak out as the tax would not increase but it would be implemented in more sectors.

As a news professional do you often share videos without verifying their context or accuracy?

I can just talk about myself and will not give a generic statement. In my post, I have quoted Ravish verbatim and raised questions. People impose allegations on everyone. They even put allegations on Ravish Kumar that he is soft towards one party and tough towards others.

The issue of accuracy should be put on everyone, whatever Rana Ayyub is writing for The Washington Post on Kashmir, after the abrogation of Article 370, has no credibility. She has reported that women got harassed by the forces and a man was hit, but neither an FIR or NCR has been filed on any of these cases nor is there a recorded version of these victims.

Rohit Sardana, Anchor and Editor at Aaj Tak and Jitendra Sharma, Crime and Investigating Editor at Zee News

This correspondent made multiple attempts to contact Sardana and Sharma but to no avail. While Sardana did not reply to multiple messages and phone calls, Sharma assured that he would speak, but later rejected the calls and messages.