Raids on The Wire: Industry bodies condemn action but embarrassed by the 'propaganda'

Following the raids by Delhi police on the office of The Wire and the houses of its editors Siddharth Varadarajan, MK Venu, Sidharth Bhatia and Jahnavi Sen over ‘propaganda’ unleashed against the ruling BJP with fabricated documents, digital news publishers body Digipub has condemned the action.

Delhi police conducted searches on Monday after BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya filed an FIR against The Wire on the charges of cheating and dishonesty (Section 420), forgery (Section 468), forgery for purpose of harming reputation (Section 469), using a forged document or electronic record (Section 471), punishment for defamation (Section 500) r/w 120B and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.

Malviya’s complaint relates to a series of stories published by The Wire claiming he had special censorship privileges through an Instagram programme called X-Check. The Wire blamed a member of its investigative team for providing fabricated documents and retracted these articles on October 23, 2022.

Digipub strongly condemns in no uncertain terms the searches against the editors and reporter of The Wire, which mainly serve the purpose of criminalising and creating a chilling effect against the profession of journalism in India, the digital news publishers body said.

On the other hand, embarrassed by the expose of proven propaganda by The Wire, the Editors Guild of India (EGI) refrained from issuing any statement on the police raids.

However, EGI, in its October 28 statement, retracted its references made to the Tek Fog report by The Wire basis which the guild had issued a statement on January 11 expressing deep concern about the online harassment and targeting of women journalists.

Sensing the trouble, The Wire had removed Tek Fog stories along with Meta’s X-Check stories.

An embarrassed guild said, “The Guild is also disturbed by the recent turn of events with respect to the reports published by the Wire on Meta. The Guild is conscious of and emphasises the need for extra care in investigative journalism, and urges newsrooms to resist the temptation of moving fast on sensitive stories, circumventing due journalistic norms and checks.”

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