Reader TTS

The recent spat between _Times Now _managing editor Navika Kumar and Yogendra Yadav had Kumar state on air: “I am proud of the journalism we do.” There perhaps hasn’t been a sadder spectacle

on Indian TV news given that Kumar was making these assertions on an episode of _The_ _Newshour _which went against the very basic tenet of journalism: a commitment to facts and

acknowledging when you get it wrong. Kumar was hosting a show on Vijay Mallya’s “escape mystery” pegged on the ongoing infighting at the Central Bureau of Investigation. According to _Times

Now_, they had the scoop on who was responsible for the dilution of the Look Out Circular (LOC) issued for liquor baron Vijay Mallya. To discuss this, Kumar had put together a seven-member

panel which included Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia, lawyer Shehzad Poonawala, and Swaraj India founder Yogendra Yadav. In the first 17 minutes, Kumar showed documents

that indicated that the dilution of the LOC was done on the instructions of AK Sharma, Joint Director, CBI. What Kumar presented as an exclusive and later dubbed as breaking news was

reported by media outlets such as _The Indian Express_ and _NDTV_, among other in September this year. But never mind that, since claiming other people’s work as theirs and passing off old

events as breaking news is, well, an old habit at _Times Now_. On the show, Kumar was seen outraging over the dilution of the LOC and then went onto suggest that CBI Director Alok Verma was

somehow responsible for this. The idea put forth was that AK Sharma couldn’t have watered down the LOC so without the CBI director’s approval. She thundered, “Was it Alok Verma … CBI’s

Number 1, Director of CBI, [who] allowed Vijay Mallya to get away … and isn’t that a serious enough charge to be looked into? That’s the big question we need to debate.” If Navika and her

_Newshour_ team had done a little research, they’d know that Verma became the CBI director only after Mallya left the country. The LOC was downgraded in 2015 and Verma took charge of the CBI

in February 2017, more than a year later. After this, Kumar posed her first question to Yadav. She asked Yadav to weigh in on whether the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) and the

government should have been mute spectators to Verma’s repeated failure to pay heed to CVC’s notices to share information, request for meeting, among other things. This was when Yadav

announced his desire to not participate in the show. He said, “Navika, it seems I am on the wrong show. Because when I was called for the show I was told that discussion would be on whether

Mr Verma’s strange midnight dismissal has dented the image of NDA. Clearly, in the meanwhile, you have had second thoughts about the show.” Yadav also pointed out the basic error in _Times

Now’s _news offering—blaming Verma for Mallya’s escape. He asked Kumar to check the dates of Verma’s appointment as well as the dates of Mallya’s departure before she set out on this “great

investigative journalism”. This is because Verma took charge as the CBI director in February  2017, whereas Mallya left India in March 2016. This did not sit well with Kumar. She retorted,

“Let me intervene at this point and thank you for the various certificates of journalism that you are going around distributing.” Over the course of this altercation, Yadav asked Kumar to

“please stick to the show you have called me for”. Kumar asked whether it is Yadav who will determine the show’s specifications or if she, as a journalist, could have the leeway to break a

story if there are documents that she had accessed. Now Kumar is indeed free to decide on what she wants to discuss, but the fact is that the news of the dilution of the LOC was out at least

a month back. As for documents that Kumar was waving around, they were also referred to on Rahul Shivshankar’s show at 8 pm—one hour before _The Newshour_. It is hard to believe that _Times

Now_’s guest-coordinating team could not inform Yadav about the change of programme, given the development of the documents reaching _Times Now_ was hardly “breaking”, so to speak. It’s

been two days since the show aired but _Times Now_ is yet to issue a correction. What stops it from doing so if they still consider itself a part of the news business.