Editor, RE guilty of contempt of court

The Delhi High court recently held the editor, publisher, Resident Editor and cartoonist of Mid Day guilty of contempt of court for writing and publishing a series of articles against former Chief Justice of INdia YK Sabharwal.

PTI report said that there is sufficient material to hold them guilty of contempt of court. The Supreme Court judgments have laid down the 'Lakshman Rekha' which the publication has crossed, observed the HC division bench.

Editor of Midday MK Tayal, Publisher SK Akhtar, Resident Editor Vitusha Oberioi and Cartoonist Irfan have been asked to be personally present themselves before court on september 21. The tabloid had published reports alleging that Sabhwarwal's son had ties with mall developers who benefited from the sealing drive during his tenure in the office.

Interestingly, Tehelka weekly had done similar story before but they probably handled it better. The cartoon should have been avoided. Earlier a press confernece by a group of legal luminaries and prominent citizens in Delhi on the same issue was attended by journalists but none published or broadcast it for fear of the contempt of court.

Live India's sex scandal 'sting' & how CNN-IBN was saved

News channel Live India, has suffered a big blow to its reputation with the 'sting' of a Daryaganj school teacher (Delhi) involved in an allegd sex scandal.

But Rajdeep Sardesai must thank his stars as the journalist who planned the sting was earlier with CNN-IBN and the channel had decided to telecast it on Teacher's Day. Some sceptic guy were not convinced with the story and told the reporter Prakash Singh that he needed to explain a few more things about the operation.

The guy got left the channel and joined Live India, which foolishly aired the sting operation leading to outrage, mob violence and the teacher (Uma Khuarana's) dismissal. A fabricated sting has put the entire electronic media in the dock. Another wannabe journalist Rashmi Singh's role in the sting operation is under investigation. See the Indian Express story here and here.

Now Sudhir Chaudhary is saying that the reporter kept the channel in the dark. He had only recently left India TV to head Live India (formerly Janmat). What about the editorial skills of your editors. Poor Choudhary can't be expected to deliver better, after all, he is graduated from India TV school of journalism.