[Cobrapost] Operation-136 II sting operations (PayTM, TOI, Hindustan Times, New Indian Express, etc)

iPwnz

Brutally Honest
Skilled
Cobrapost just released their latest sting operation videos. This operation is given the name "Operation 136." "136" was India's press media ranking in 2017 in "Reporters without Borders" worldwide
ranking (see image below). I believe this undercover operation started in 2017 otherwise it would be called Operation 138.

Screenshot_20180529-160618~2.png


India's ranking since then has fallen to 138 courtesy of our PM Narendra Modi

Screenshot_20180529-160652~2.png


Just one rank above Pakistan, whom India likes to shit talk about.

Screenshot_20180529-160435~2.png


Even the organization has said this:

"Deadly threat from Modi’s nationalism

With Hindu nationalists trying to purge all manifestations of “anti-national” thought from the national debate, self-censorship is growing in the mainstream media and journalists are increasingly the targets of online smear campaigns by the most radical nationalists, who vilify them and even threaten physical reprisals. At least three of the journalists murdered in 2017 were targeted in connection with their work. They included the newspaper editor Gauri Lankesh, who had been the target of a hate campaign on social networks. Three other journalists were killed for their professional activity in March 2018. Prosecutions are also used to gag journalists who are overly critical of the government, with some prosecutors invoking Section 124a of the penal code, under which “sedition” is punishable by life imprisonment. No journalist has so far been convicted of sedition but the threat encourages self-censorship. Coverage of regions that the authorities regard as sensitive, such as Kashmir, continues to be very difficult. Foreign reporters are barred from the region and the Internet is often disconnected there. When not detained, Kashmiri journalists working for local media outlets are often the targets of violence by soldiers acting with the central government’s tacit consent."

Channel home page.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJbGQNou2GBFAi_fnMP2_4A

Paytm gave their users data and information to BJP/Modi
DELETE YOUR APP NOW!

India Today Part 1 of 2

Zee Group Part 1 of 5

The Times Group Part 1 of 3

Hindustan Times Part 1 of 3

New Indian Express Part 1 of 2

Radio One

There are lots more. You can see the other videos from their homepage.
 
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Even Youtube is playing BJP ads on everything now. I hate political ads. they just lie - lets make things better. Like increasing petrol prices, increasing taxes, adding new taxes, making life miserable for everyone. Make things better only for mantris and govt servants by hiking their salary and pensions every year by 15%. let common person die under tax burden.
 
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com...nt-and-falsification/articleshow/64335830.cms

This so-called investigation, which targeted over a dozen media organizations, was conducted by ‘journalist’ Pushp Sharma, who posed as one Acharya Chhatrapal Atal and claimed he was linked to various saffron groups.

This is the same Pushp Sharma who was arrested by Delhi police in May 2016 for fabricating an RTI reply to publish a report claiming the government was discriminating against Muslims in recruitment of yoga trainers by the AYUSH ministry. He was at that time booked for cheating, forgery and promoting enmity between different groups. He had also been arrested earlier in 2009 for extorting money from government officials by threatening to conduct sting ops against them.

Cobrapost and Pushp Sharma met representatives of many prominent media houses such as Hindustan Times, Zee, Dainik Bhaskar, India TV, Jagran, Star and also Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd (BCCL). All of them conducted business negotiations, but nothing was concluded because of the inappropriate, unethical, and illegal demands of Sharma.
 
No clue about the newspapers, but Paytm is lying.

I use email aliases to sign up on sites, and a few months back I started receiving a steady stream of spam on the alias I used to sign up with Paytm.
This was also around the time when RBI had made it mandatory for e-wallets to carry out KYC.
 
The sad part is that only a small section of alt-media and the cobrapost guys are speaking about this. My guess is it'll be swept under the rugs very soon, the public will soon be focused on the next hyped up thing on media and forget all about this. I mean they don't give a sh!t about petrol crossing 86 bucks, they still think modi and co are the best choice...
 
Btw,Title doesn't have the word PAYTM!!!
That's because there are many other orgs too. Let me edit it.

Till now only 3 Indian online news portal have carried this sting operation news.

[The Wire] Cobrapost Sting: Big Media Houses Say Yes to Hindutva, Black Money, Paid News

[Scroll]Cobrapost exposé shows Indian media is sinking. Now we can fight back or be drowned for good

[The Print] Cobrapost sting ‘exposes’ media houses: All deny charges, Times Group, Zee claim reverse stings

And BBC

The story barely reported by Indian media

Meanwhile,
India Today Group has threatened the portal with legal action, while Paytm has assured ‘user data is 100% secure’.

And oh not even my local newspapers are carrying this news. It could be what we are thinking.

Important highlight:
Screenshot_20180529-155428~2.png
That's a whopping $70M or 487.5 Crores for ONE paid Hindutva/pro-BJP news. No wonder these news anchors are rich as shit.
 
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In addition to paid-news, the expanse of black-money is also exposed in this operation.
Will anyone raise voice against the black-money involved in Indian media and investigate it?
 
The reason for India's low position in the press freedom index is because investigative journalists end up dead when they expose scams. Some mafia hit as its threatening revenues. It's not the state that is against the media here. Another reason is newspapers in particular are dependent on govt ads that take out full pages for various tenders. So they don't tend to be as critical as they could be to keep that revenue stream ongoing. This has been the case for long. The impression given is the media is generally pro-ruling party. Not altogether a bad thing if they can explain what the govt is doing with clarity and let readers decide.

As for this sting, what does it prove exactly ? that media houses will sing a particular tune if a consideration is offered

The intent it appears is to alert people of any paid news by doing a pre-emptive hit.[DOUBLEPOST=1527861701][/DOUBLEPOST]
The sad part is that only a small section of alt-media and the cobrapost guys are speaking about this.
I gave up on alt-media over a decade ago because it was so hard to find anything that wasn't complete bollocks[DOUBLEPOST=1527861848][/DOUBLEPOST]
In addition to paid-news, the expanse of black-money is also exposed in this operation.
Will anyone raise voice against the black-money involved in Indian media and investigate it?
Happened already, it was called notes ban and all the upset that caused.

Should we have another stunt in the name of black money ?[DOUBLEPOST=1527861947][/DOUBLEPOST]
Paid for by..

the opposition dirty tricks dept :D

You can see the battle for 2019 is heating up nicely.

Every week there will be some crap to marvel about.

2019's elections will be even more costly than 2014[DOUBLEPOST=1527862455][/DOUBLEPOST]
expose.jpg
 
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http://www.thehindu.com/news/nation...ress-freedom-falls-to-138/article23679187.ece

India’s ranking in the Press Freedom Index has fallen two places to 138, a watchdog said on Wednesday in an annual report, blaming “physical violence” against journalists like Gauri Lankesh as the key reason behind the country’s low ranking.

Hate speech is also an issue in the continent’s other giant, India, which has fallen another two places to 138th. Ever since Narendra Modi became Prime Minister in 2014, Hindu fundamentalists have been referring to journalists in extremely violent terms,” the report said.

Any investigative reporting that annoys the ruling party or any criticism of Hindutva, elicits a torrent of online insults and calls for the death of the reporter or writer responsible, most of it coming from the prime minister’s troll army,” the report said.

https://scroll.in/article/863044/we...tisgarh-lament-lack-of-support-from-employers

On December 21, the Chhattisgarh government disclosed in the Assembly that it had arrested 14 journalists this year, till November. This was in response to a question raised by Leader of the Opposition TS Singhdeo. The admission lays bare the continued threat to the freedom of press in the Maoist-violence affected state.

Last year, the Chhattisgarh police, particularly in Bastar, hounded out severaljournalists from the state and arrestedothers for relentlessly exposing police excesses carried out in the name of anti-Naxalite operations.

The question in the Assembly came in the wake of the arrest of journalist Vinod Verma, from his home in Ghaziabad, near Delhi, late on October 26.[DOUBLEPOST=1527869206][/DOUBLEPOST]
Lol this is awesome. Of course they will try to justify their actions after their top people got caught with their pants down, but claiming this was a reverse sting??!!
Most media reports have damned the report including the respectable ones ( albeit for different reasons)
 
http://www.thehindu.com/news/nation...ress-freedom-falls-to-138/article23679187.ece

India’s ranking in the Press Freedom Index has fallen two places to 138, a watchdog said on Wednesday in an annual report, blaming “physical violence” against journalists like Gauri Lankesh as the key reason behind the country’s low ranking.

Hate speech is also an issue in the continent’s other giant, India, which has fallen another two places to 138th. Ever since Narendra Modi became Prime Minister in 2014, Hindu fundamentalists have been referring to journalists in extremely violent terms,” the report said.

Any investigative reporting that annoys the ruling party or any criticism of Hindutva, elicits a torrent of online insults and calls for the death of the reporter or writer responsible, most of it coming from the prime minister’s troll army,” the report said.

See what our index was in 2013

https://rsf.org/en/ranking/2013

140!

MMS also had a troll army ? i don't think so

Complaint was MMS was not saying anything. Now the charge is Modi isn't saying anything

So you can say things have not improved here unlike ease of doing business which did improve
 
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As for this sting, what does it prove exactly ?
Huge rate of corruption in the media? What did you think?
https://scroll.in/article/863044/we...tisgarh-lament-lack-of-support-from-employers

On December 21, the Chhattisgarh government disclosed in the Assembly that it had arrested 14 journalists this year, till November. This was in response to a question raised by Leader of the Opposition TS Singhdeo. The admission lays bare the continued threat to the freedom of press in the Maoist-violence affected state.

Last year, the Chhattisgarh police, particularly in Bastar, hounded out severaljournalists from the state and arrestedothers for relentlessly exposing police excesses carried out in the name of anti-Naxalite operations.

The question in the Assembly came in the wake of the arrest of journalist Vinod Verma, from his home in Ghaziabad, near Delhi, late on October 26
I feel for journalists who really want to cover naxalite-affected states but can't due to threats on their lives. Both the government and the naxals are toying with the lives of innocent civiliaens.
Regarding journalists in general rememere one man's thrash is another man's treasure. Sad to say but there is a huge market for paid-crap. It would be worth billions.
 
Huge rate of corruption in the media? What did you think?
If you offer them something to run something its not corruption its business. That is all. All the stuff they are running is vetted by lawyers so they don't endanger themselves.

As a free speech radical i find the laws in this country a bit too strict. The slightest thing gets you charged with this spreading enmity nonsense. You should be free to say you hate anything course without crossing the line on incitement. Could do it in the 40s, then Gandhi got shot, they tightened up after on the spurious basis it would be impossible to stop people advocating murder. That sort of thing used to go on in politics in those days but the pretext given is still complete crap. The americans don't have this problem.

The funny thing is back in 2011, i remember people posting these graphics saying how all the media houses where in Congress pockets and the coverage was totally unfair towards the then opposition BJP. They'd even post family trees to show collusion. This is why regional parties ended up doing their own communications, they had their own tv stations which then got called paid news. Now its youtube & twitter

media.jpg


Hasn't changed. Maybe with more sources on youtube things might change ? doubt it
 
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https://thewire.in/media/cobrapost-sting-dainik-bartoman-dainik-sambad

Interesting that both of them were from west bengal. This is a conspiracy theory of mine, but could it be fear of mamata rather than ethics?
Plausible and it falls in the same pattern. Piss of the govt, they won't use your paper for tenders ads. You will fold after some time.

Newspapers are sold at 80% loss i heard, this is why you get paid to recycle

Rs.5 a copy. Fantastic pricing. Compare with WAPO at 50 cents or $2.50 for NYT
 
I would rate both the american media and the public as idiotic as in india, except the people there might have a teeny little bit more sense, calling trump out on his bs, whereas here they keep praising modi no matter what he does.

However, the one big singular factor which brings much needed balance there is the justice system. It's not perfect, but the supreme court etc. almost guarantees that the constitution is upheld. Which to me seems like the only sane thing in a mad world. And it's also probably one of the main reasons why people are happier there than here. Here it's more of justice delayed or twisted than otherwise.
 
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