Times Now targets Kerala for allowing festivities, using visuals from Andhra

On Monday, Times Now decided to go after the Kerala government over Thrissur Pooram. On April 17, health minister KK Shailaja had said that the festival could not be cancelled despite public health concerns owing to the surging coronavirus infections because that would “cause many problems”. Today, however, her government announced that it would be closed to the public this year.

As the Times Now anchor discussed the matter with their reporter, the screen showed crowds engaged in some kind of celebration. The idea presumably was to depict what was happening in Kerala, but there was a problem: the visuals weren’t from Kerala at all.

Mostly, as people on Twitter were quick to point out, the visuals showed people celebrating Ugadi in Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh. Ugadi, also known as Gudi Padwa, is New Year's Day in Andhra, Telangana, and Karnataka.

Thrissur Pooram is on April 23.

Having recorded around 1.24 million Covid cases so far, Kerala is the third-worst affected state in the country. Andhra has a total of 9,62,000 cases.

In no time, the Twitterati called the channel out on its misreporting and urged it to stop spreading fake news.