India Today takes Rajdeep off-air for two weeks -Tweet on farmer protest, retracted later, likely reason

Rajdeep Sardesai.Surinder Nagar

Paran Balakrishnan   |   TT   |   New Delhi   |  28.01.21  :  Prime-time anchor Rajdeep Sardesai has been yanked off-air for two weeks by his employers India Today after he tweeted that Punjab farm protester Navneet Singh had been “killed allegedly in police firing” during the Republic Day tractor rally and that farmers had told him “the ‘sacrifice’ will not go in vain.”  Sardesai also repeated his statement on-air.  

The news anchor, though, retracted his statements on Twitter and on-air after the police released a video showing Singh losing control of the tractor and the vehicle overturning near New Delhi’s ITO crossing. 

A post-mortem confirmed that Navneet Singh had not been shot. On Tuesday afternoon, a group of protesters had refused to allow Singh’s body to be moved. They insisted to journalists that he had been shot though they refused to show the body to the reporters.

“While the farm protesters claim that the deceased Navneet Singh was shot at by Delhi police while on a tractor, this video clearly shows that the tractor overturned while trying to break the police barricades. The farm protestors’ allegations don’t stand. Post-mortem awaited,” Sardesai said in a later tweet. 

The anchor, whose long reporting career has made him a household name in many quarters, had been reporting from what he called “ground zero” on the protests. He also tweeted that the police had exercised “great restraint despite grave provocation by the farm protesters” in dealing with the Republic Day demonstrations. 

Sardesai, who’s consulting editor at India Today, is said to have denied rumours that he has put in his resignation.

It’s not the first time that the veteran journalist has been first with disseminating information that turned out to be wrong. Sardesai, who’s been a familiar face on our screens for over 20 years and is known for strongly supporting fact-based journalism, is just one more victim of today’s highly competitive 24/7 breaking news culture where TV channels, newspapers and online portals are all racing to be first with the scoop of the day to drive up ratings and views.

Sardesai, himself, had last August prematurely announced that former president Pranab Mukherjee, who was in Delhi’s Army Hospital, had passed away. After being called out almost immediately, he quickly put out a tweet expressing his apologies: “My deep deep apologies for falling for fake news being circulated on Pranab Mukherjee passing away. I am deeply distraught for falling for this fake news… it was unprofessional of me not to reconfirm it before tweeting. Apologies to all.. and prayers with the family.”

BJP party stalwarts have been calling for an FIR to be lodged against the TV celebrity over his Republic Day coverage and demanding that India Today dismiss him. 

The television anchor’s long-standing screen career has also made him a Twitter star with nine million followers. He believes that keeping up a high-profile Twitter presence is part of his job and he devotes around 30 minutes daily to the site. 

On Twitter, he’s ahead of his former colleague at NDTV Barkha Dutt who has 7.2 million followers. Both journalists, though, are way behind Prime Minister Narendra Modi who’s the country’s top Twitter star with 55 million followers. Besides Modi, India’s big names on Twitter are either movie stars or cricketers like Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli. Deepika Padukone, is in 10th place with 27 million followers.

The race to be first with the news has led to many other stumbles by many channels and newspapers. NDTV, for instance, called the 2015 Bihar elections for the BJP early in the counting and ended up apologising profusely when the RJD led the way, followed by the JD(U).