Edition 4: MIB's virtual meeting with news channels during Operation Sindoor
Information and broadcasting minister told news channels to stick to facts.
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting had convened a virtual meeting with top honchos of major Indian news channels on May 9, telling them to stick to fact-based reporting during the then ongoing Operation Sindoor, two people aware of the matter said on the condition of anonymity. The virtual meeting, chaired by minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, took place following a long night of outlandish misreporting by Indian news channels about the then ongoing armed conflict between India and Pakistan.
In the virtual meeting that lasted less than an hour, Vaishnaw told the news channels to be cautious about how they report given the environment of rampant fake news, according to the people cited above. This meeting was attended by top editorial brass from Times Now, Republic, India Today Group amongst others.
On the night of May 8-9, news channels had broadcast false claims of India attacking Lahore, Indian Navy destroying Karachi Port, and Indian armed forces capturing Islamabad. Other false claims included military coup within Pakistan and Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif surrendering to Indian forces during the conflict.
Multiple news channels showed older, unrelated videos from other armed conflicts and at times, from video games. For instance, multiple channels had falsely reported videos showing Israel’s Iron Dome system intercepting drones as India intercepting drones above Jaisalmer.
Another meeting with digital news publishers was in the works within the MIB, a person aware of the discussions said. Its scheduling was delayed because the ministry had not decided which digital publishers should be included, and how to prevent the invited digital publishers from reporting on the meeting themselves. With the declaration of pause on the conflict on May 10, invitations for this meeting eventually never materialised.
(Please see Boom and AltNews articles discussing some of the false claims made during this period.)
“The End”