The coverage of the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput on television news channels has raised many eyebrows in the past two and a half months. Now, the National Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBSA), an independent body that considers and adjudicates upon complaints about broadcasts, has taken action against a few news channels for their manner of reporting and analysing the news.
The NBSA has fined the Hindi news channel Aaj Tak Rs1 lakh for displaying images of fake tweets related to the death of Rajput while failing to verify them. They also directed the channel to run an apology for its actions.
Other channels such as India TV, Zee News and News 24 have been directed to telecast an apology for violating the ethics of news reporting while covering Rajput's demise.
News channels ABP News, ABP Majha and News Nation have been given a warning for violating the code of ethics and broadcasting standards.
Aaj Tak, India TV and News Nation were also pulled up for flashing the pictures of Rajput’s dead body. Aaj Tak and India TV were asked to tender an apology for this too while News Nation was let off with a warning since they had already apologized.
Saurav Das, a journalist and one of the complainants who approached the NBSA, shared the three-page order of the body on Twitter.
Karma has its way❗️
— Saurav Das (@OfficialSauravD) October 7, 2020
Aaj Tak has been fined 1 Lakh rupees by the NBSA for attributing fake tweets to #SushantSinghRajput.
Further, @aajtak @ZeeNews @News24 @indiatvnews have been asked to air unconditional apologies on its channels for running objectionable content@Memeghnad pic.twitter.com/jc3wvB2X0L
Two channels that have been slammed for their reportage of Rajput’s death are Arnab Goswami’s Republic TV and Republic Bharat but no action could be taken against them. “Republic is not a part of NBSA. So no action can be taken against them,” said Das in a tweet.
Rajput died on 14 June when he was found hanging at his apartment in Bandra, Mumbai.