Social media prompts The Hindu to put out apology

On October 1, The Hindu published a story headlined “Elphinstone stampede: Dying woman molested on bridge by bystander, video shows” by their reporter Vedika Chaubey. As the headline suggests, the report claimed a stampede victim was molested by a bystander on the Elphinstone road foot overbridge. The story was subsequently carried by many other news organisations, including the UK-based The Independent.

While the story attracted several reactions from the passengers, the police had not confirmed the incident. The story then got a lot of backlash on social media where many users claimed that The Hindu story showed only 8-seconds of the clip and no conclusions could be made from it. Other users shared more clips of the same incident and claimed the man accused of molesting the woman was actually trying to help her before she died. Some others demanded strict action against the paper for carrying the story without verifying the video.

Last night, owing to the fact-check by social media, The Hindu retracted the story and apologised for the blunder on Twitter.

Soon, their apology attracted a lot of appreciation and flak. There also those who demanded action against the reporter for not doing a basic-fact check.