The Indian Express is one of the only mainstream English dailies to report on Cobrapost

The mainstream media has maintained a resolute silence on Cobrapost’s Operation: 136. The Indian Express is one of the only prominent English news dailies that has reported on the sting and its contents. Today the Express has a column by Pratap Bhanu Mehta that dwells on the issue further. The piece headlined, “Where Anything Goes”, says, “The media has gone from being the saviour to democracy to being one of the principal threats to it.”

Mehta notes that while the sting and its motives may be questioned, “ it is hard to escape the rotten odour that comes through in these tapes from so many media houses”. On the question of whether the sting will effect reform in the media, Mehta is pessimistic. He says, “When almost no news source can be trusted, people will have the license to believe whatever they were pre-disposed to believe even more. Our vicarious thrill in the momentary shaming of some large media houses will soon give way to a more cynical foreboding.”

BBC has also published a piece on the sting, headlined, “The story barely reported by Indian media”.

You can read Newslaundry‘s coverage on part 2 of Operation. The links are below:

1. How Acharya Atal Stung Big Media
2. Big Media is broken – and so are we
3. #Cobrapost sting: Some hard questions on hard cash