Delhi court calls out 24News for sensationalism in Rajeev Chandrashekhar vs Shashi Tharoor

A Delhi Court on Tuesday flagged how bits and pieces of an interview can be used by the media to sensationalize a news report..Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Paras Dalal said a news channel can easily fall to "scheme of sentimentalization" since in today's times with diminishing attention span, the news presented for consumption requires sensationalizing and eye catching headlines.The Court made these observations while dismissing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Rajeev Chandrashekhar's defamation complaint against Congress Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor In particular, it questioned the conduct of Malayalam news channel 24News. On the basis of a 24News interview, Chandrashekhar had claimed that Tharoor accused him of bribing voters in Thiruvananthapuram ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections..However, the Court found there was no such imputation in the interview given by Tharoor. Instead, it found that 24News had not presented Tharoor's statement with the proper context. There was no reason for the channel to run the interview in two parts, it opined"It is noteworthy to see how interviews, words, etc. can be manipulated to mean differently with some outside context or interpretation attributed to such words. Ex.CW1/3 when read in whole as part of 23 minutes video seems civilized conversation between two persons and provides a full context of what was asked and what was answered. However, a bit and piece of any answer when presented to sensationalize with some random context by third person can present a complete different picture. Same has been done in the 3:54 minutes video played for the viewers to be consumed as early morning breaking news," it said. In particular, the Court questioned the conduct of the news anchor who spoke in a morning show about Tharoor's alleged statement."The anchor however makes no disclosure that there was a complete 23 minutes interview which is to be viewed before judging the context in which Dr. Shashi Tharoor gave answers, yet the Anchor opens with his own narrative and gives a context of what is to follow. The anchor never referred to the question which was put by the interviewer/ CW10 and after his own narration, played few answers of the proposed accused," it observed..The Court also noted that Tharoor in subsequent interviews in all fairness had brushed aside the news as without proof and left it to the people of the constituency to make fair judgment."Proposed accused merely expressed having heard talks as what was being questioned, however he never imputed that the complainant has bribed the voters," it added..Senior Advocates Pramod Kr Dubey, Vaibhav Gaggar with advocates Somdev Tiwari, Dhruv Mehta, Amrita Vatsa, Swati and Muskan Sharma represented Rajeev Chandrashekhar.[Read Judgment].Follow Bar and Bench channel on WhatsAppDownload the Bar and Bench Mobile app for instant access to the latest legal news.