If you don’t like the message, shut out the messenger?
Two weeks ago, the Indian government threatened to file a First Information Report against two reporters of The Times of India, Nirmalya Banerjee and Prabin Kalita, for authoring “wrong” reports of a conflagration between Indian and Chinese troops in Northeast India. The move was thankfully shelved.
Now, the Tamil Nadu police have arrested B. Lenin, a news editor of the Tamil newspaper Dina Malar.
Reason: the large-circulation paper had published the reported confessions in custody of Bhuvaneshwari (the actress who played the role of a call girl in Boys) who was arrested recently for running a high-profile prostitution racket.
Apparently, the actress who was picked up in a police sting, had named several other female stars from tinseltown who also indulged in flesh trade or ran brothels.
The newspaper printed the story with the pictures of the other actresses allegedly named by Bhuvaneshwari.
Bhuvaneshwari reportedly claimed that these top heroines charge as much as Rs 1 lakh for an hour’s service.
Tamil movie artistes took out a protest at the slander and then, acting on a complaint a complaint filed by Radha Ravi, general secretary of the South Indian Film Artistes Association, the police came knocking and charged Lenin under section 4 of the Tamil Nadu women harassment (prevention) Act for “indecent representation of women“.
The Chennai Press Club and the Madras union of journalists have slammed the news editor’s arrest, and urged for his release. Union general secretary D. Suresh Kumar wondered how the police arrived at the conclusion that Lenin was responsible for the offending news report.
Clearly, the actresses and their families have been slandered, and there is a fit case for defamation. But the arrest of an editor who may or may not have had a role in the original story?
Newspaper facsimile: courtesy Sriviews
Also read: Censorship in the name of national interest?
churumuri 
Interesting opening comparison between TOI and Dina Malar. A bit of an apples to oranges compare.
I guess I would have to side with the magazine in this case. You can take proportionate action.
To barge and arrest on “indecent exposure” is dodgy.
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Is brothel a different place than theaters screening soft porn .. err…. decent commercial Indian movies? Is that artistic nudity and this report is nakedity or vice versa? Can someone explain.
Can anyone explain what is meant by indecent representation of women in India .. err …. in the most urbanized state.
Well it’s becoming t(f)antal(s)izingly expensive too …
Wonder what would be shelf life of this report and police (man/miss)handling.
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If Dina Malar editor published this story told by Bhuvaneswari, without verifying the facts, how is he not culpable in defaming the actresses. Can the media publish anything they want without verification and get away with it. Just remember how TV9 behaved when that Mangalore MLA’s wife absconded to Delhi and eventually was responsible for her death.
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HIndunation…few years ago used to do the same thing…
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Please reproduce the pictures of the slandered along with a translation of the news story.
Please do not assume that we Kannadigas have entirely given up our hapless language and started reading Tamil newspapers in the original.
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hmmm… answering to the question of arresting an editor, irrespective of whether or not he/she played a part in the original story, the editor is responsible for what is printed in the publication for which he/she is editor.
Thus, the editor carries a responsibility to examine and scrutinize not only the language of the content of an article/report, but also it’s credibility/validity. Thus, if the editor did run this afore mentioned piece in the publication and if the report was false, then the editor will have to face the consequences for not having done his/her job responsibly.
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Agree with PTL – please translate the story and publish here – and try to take care that nothing is lost in translation :)
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If, there is one profession in this country today, which can get away with anything and everything, it has to be journalism.
No newspaper, news channel, magazine – general interest or otherwise, is an exception. Including this website!!!
They write utter lies, inane stories and when things are not happening according to their warped sense of self righteousness, they even concoct stories. Facts are given a miss, credibility be damned. Honesty is something which these creed of journalists have never heard of.
For those of you who read the trash called ” Hai Bengalooru” by the master propogator of soft porn, you would have noticed this head line : Vanchaki Bettale aadaga sattalu” or something like this in the current edition. The story inside is a rehash of what the newspapers reported a few days earlier. And this is a small write up. But the key words in the front page is Vanchaki and Bettale. Is this not crap?? By what yardstick of journalistic freedom can one defend this???
I was talking to an editor friend of mine whose name appears everyday in the newspaper as the person responsible for the news contained in the paper. When I asked my friend what this meant, the replay was that if there is anything which is published which is not true or hurts the sentiments of the public or some such thing, the editor can be arrested.
The same, I presume has happened here.
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@huttadallihutta
adding to your list, apart from honesty, seems to me that our journalists practise “selective hearing” or ” jaana keudatana” as far as ACCOUNTABILITY is concerned.
i.e. politicians and civil servants are accountable and answerable to public, but apparently the journalists/reporters are not! People should apparently accept whatever ROT that the modern news media puts up.
On a sidenote, unfortunately the ONLY news agency on tv that seems to somewhat maintain standards of newsreporting seems to be Doordarshan. Isn’t this kind of a shame on the private channels which claim that the media is the 4th pillar of democracy?
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Why cannot the journos/editors be arrested if they’ve erred??? are they above law??? when they don’t care for the reality of the news then they deserve to be punished… remember how TOI created a sensation out of every trivial issue in Karnataka – Mangalore Pub, Charile Chaplin (which was the silliest of the lot), late night party etc.,…. such news papers are an epidemic on whole society…
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Rajesh: You mean to say a bunch of thugs going and beating up women for being in a Pub is a trivial thing?
Papers go overboard at times. TV9 almost certainly killed Padmapriya, by their irresponsible coverage. What needs to be done is to hold their legs to fire when they do go wrong, such as what has happened in this case where simple slander is being published as front page news. If they can’t substantiate such character assasination, then they can be punished, but why bring in Pub attack etc in to this??
Pub attack happened. They reported and provided their editorial comments. That’s what journalism is about.
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This whole indecency, prostitution etc. being an issue for police to investigate and act is ridiculous.
Prostitution, if not commit ed by coercion, is nothing but an act of consensual, contracted sex. If a human being can go and use his body an entire day doing manual labor to earn his keep, then prostitution isn’t much different. Almost all of us are prostitutes, who sell some attribute of our person (intellect or body) to earn our livelihood. But, we all become very sanctimonious when someone sells something that they think will earn their their comfortable livelihood.
They are much better than the corrupt politicians, police officials and industrialists, who are getting something without giving back anything in return!!!
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As PTL said without a clear translation and a context it is hard for anyone not understanding the article to comment. From the pictures,
it appears as though the aim of the newspaper was titillation of its readers more than anything else. Once they set the ball rolling, I believe they should be ready to face the fallout of this.
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Why talk about only the perverted journalist Lenin of Dinamalar. We have our RAVI BELAGERE in karnataka.
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Isn’t this outrage a farce? Does anybody really believe that an actress who _wanted_ to sell her body would not do so because of the law/social mores/’conscience’ ? Or that a powerful, rich person would not get what he wanted because it was illegal/immoral? Why are we outraged? Who is the victim here?
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