Times Now’s Rahul Shivshankar, Vineet Jain get defamation notice from journalist

The journalist Kanchan Srivastava has served a defamation notice for Rs 5 crore on Times Now anchor Rahul Shivshankar and the TV news channel’s managing director Vineet Jain. The notice accuses Shivshankar of defaming the journalist by presenting her as "Rhea lobby", meaning supporter of the actor Rhea Chakraborty, on his India Upfront show on August 27.

In their coverage of the actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death, news channels flouted all norms of ethical journalism, making serious allegations, without evidence, against sundry people in the film industry and describing them variously as “dirt”, “filth”, “scum”, “druggies”.

In October, several Bollywood producers and film associations had sought an injunction against Republic TV and Times Now for “openly flouting” the Programme Code and for "conducting media trials of Bollywood personalities” and damaging their right to privacy.

UPDATE: The report has been updated to more accurately reflect the contents of the defamation notice. We regret the oversight.