“Good news coming from Jharkhand…for BJP. BJP wins both Rajya Sabha seats in Jharkhand”, Aaj Tak made this announcement in its ‘Special Report’ on Rajya Sabha elections. The news turned out to be false as both Congress and BJP had won one seat each.
In a busy newsroom, mistakes do happen. Specially when you are trying to be the first to break news. For Aaj Tak this was the second mistake in a span of 6 hours. Earlier today the channel has misreported the Delhi High Court verdict on office for profit case involving AAP MLAs.
Aaj Tak, was not alone in its blooper. It was joined by ABP News.
As Alt News has stated in an earlier article, the real time “breaking news” model is actually in direct conflict with fact checking. The pressure to be the first with the news break seems to leave no time for even a basic check that would involve verifying the news with the official sources. With the volume of fake news that is floating around at any given time, we need our media to pause and verify before breaking a news story. To be accurate with the reporting is after all equally, if not more important, as being quick.
Independent journalism that speaks truth to power and is free of corporate and political control is possible only when people start contributing towards the same. Please consider donating towards this endeavour to fight fake news and misinformation.
