The Times of India, whose Web edition is rife with inaccuracies, cut ‘n paste stories and jingoism, has pressured a media critic into shutting down his blog by threatening to sue for libel (thanks, H.):
… when one of the few noted [Indian] media critics, Pradyuman Maheshwari, criticized the Times of India on his Mediaah Weblog recently, the Times looked to squash him with a seven-page legal threat for libel. The threat worked, and Maheshwari decided to close his site, as he has a day job running the daily Maharashtra Herald in Pune…“… if this goes where I think it’s going, it should go down in history as ‘The Great Indian Blog Mutiny,’” Gupta told me via e-mail. “The Times of India has simply shown how far they’ve come from being a respectable newspaper to being a common school bully…”
One of the ToI’s most criticized practices is selling front page space to PR firms for their clients’ publicity shots. The newspaper allegedly auctions off this space without disclosing that it’s pay-for-placement:
Maheshwari says much of what upset the Times was his criticism of its MediaNet initiative where businesses can actually buy photos and profile stories in the Times’ editorial section — what it calls “edvertorials.”
Here’s an example in the Bombay Times, a tabloidish paper owned by the ToI:
A McDonald’s spokesperson on the front page picture of Malaika Arora posing to announce McDonald’s home delivery service in Bombay Times dated April 12, 2004: “Yes, the photograph was paid for.”
Here’s a mirror of the offending posts and the ToI’s legal threat.
