New Delhi: The head of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s IT cell, Amit Malviya, said on Thursday that he would be filing civil and criminal cases against The Wire for allegedly “forging” documents to “tarnish [his] reputation.”
If an employee of the Wire forged documents to tarnish the reputation of a named person, then the Wire itself is guilty. Moreover, in their response to the complaint, if the Wire admits this happened then it should apologize and try to settle out of court because the thing is no longer an allegation. It is a fact admitted by the guilty party.
On October 10, The Wire had published the first of four articles (all now retracted) claiming that Meta, the parent company of Instagram, had granted Malviya the ability to take down posts he objected to by not subjecting complaints he filed to review by the company.
This was a prima facie absurd claim. Why would an international company give such power to someone in a distant land? Is the Wire aware of any person to whom Meta has given this power? Surely, if such a thing had happened, the American or European press would be all over the story? Why did the Wire, which has a vendetta against Amit Malviya, print such an absurd story and then back it up with fabrications written in Indian English yet supposedly sent by an American executive? Either the Wire ordered the forgery or it, very conveniently, employed a lunatic who would fabricate anything they needed to lend plausibility to a wholly ridiculous claim.
The story was based on a purported Instagram incident report that Meta says “appears to have been fabricated”.
Because it was fabricated. Moreover, the appearance alone was enough to show this must be the case. Suppose I believe Rishi Sunak is actually my long lost pet cat Billi. MI5 kidnapped Billi and have installed him in Number 10 Downing Street. The Police aren't taking my complaint seriously. I speak of my woes to a 'tech expert' who sits at his laptop for 5 minutes and then gives me a copy of an email sent by 'Billi the Cat who is pretending to be Rishi Sunak' which alerts the CIA to put me on a watchlist because I might give away the secret that Rishi is actually a cat. It turns out, Biden is going to use Billi to go sit on Putin's lap and urinate on him. Chairman Xi will think Putin has pissed himself. He will angrily order Putin to give up Ukraine.
Would I be justified in relying upon this 'tech expert' who so kindly confirmed my worst fears? If I were a lunatic- sure. But not if I were the editor of a magazine. No reasonable person would rely on fabrications provided by a lunatic which confirm a bizarre and outlandish theory.
In its apology to readers on Wednesday night, The Wire acknowledged “that the internal editorial processes which preceded publication of its Meta stories did not meet the standards that we set for ourselves and our readers expect from us” but also noted that a member of its Meta investigation team had deceived the publication with inauthentic material.
So a member of the Wire's own staff, or a person they relied on for an 'in-house' service, deceitfully presented false material. The Wire isn't saying this deceiver fabricated it himself. But it is enough for there to be deceit on the part of an employee or a provider of an 'in-house' service, for both a criminal and civil suit to succeed against them. Why not come clean and apologize? If readers are owed an apology, surely the victim is owed one too?
Malviya on October 27 released a statement o Twitter saying he will sue The Wire for allegedly “forging documents” for a story to “malign and tarnish my reputation”.
The Wire admits it has 'inauthentic' material. Such material must have been forged. It is not admitting that the person who deceived it, also did the forging. But that is irrelevant. It is unreasonable to entertain a prima facie absurd allegation and accept corroborative evidence which conveniently surfaces. The question is whether the forgery was suborned or otherwise expected of the employee or 'team-member'. The editor has to take responsibility for the wrong doing. It is not the case that material was received from a third party. It was received from a 'team-member'. Section 501 of the IPC applies.
Asked for its reaction to Malviya’s tweet, The Wire issued a short statement, the text of which is appended below.
Statement by The Wire
October 27, 2022
“Journalists rely on sources for stories and do their best to verify material they receive.
The editor was involved in this. It was not reasonable to suppose that only one person in the world, that too a person you have a vendetta against, is provably invested with a power, that too by an international company, of a wholly unique and sinister kind. The aim was to malign a stated individual for a partisan political purpose. Were forgeries suborned or otherwise elicited in a negligent manner from a 'team member'? Even if this were not the case, the Wire is pointing a finger at a team-member of its own. Thus, the editor has to take responsibility for the whole thing. The simplest solution is to apologize and clear the air.
Technological evidence is more complicated and the usual due diligence may not always reveal the fraud perpetrated upon a publication.
No. Technological evidence is easier to fake. Anybody can print up something on the computer which looks like an email from 'Billi the cat currently pretending to be Rishi Sunak'.
The fundamental problem here, as with Tek Fog, is that no reasonable person, let alone the editor of a magazine, would believe that, very conveniently, evidence exists that your enemies are receiving secret help from a global organization for some sinister reason. This is paranoia. It is not journalism.
This is what happened to us.
What happened to Siddhartha Varadarajan was that he stopped wanting to do journalism. He lost interest in uncovering facts. He was fired from the Hindu because of his bigotry. He got money from various sources to pose as a champion of free speech in his own little outfit. But stupid lies, even if supplied for free, are counter-productive. We think the BJP must be clean and competent because the only thing that the Wire can accuse it of is having been given super-powers by Meta or some other such International Corporation.
“In the life of any publication, an occasion may come when it is misinformed.
But the life of the Wire has consisted in nothing but bias and misinformation. It may be that there have been good articles uncovering corruption or malfeasance. But those are the cases on which the Wire does not double down because it simply doesn't have the bandwidth. Yet, it chose to double down on this issue and now its credibility is shot.
More importantly, Indians have turned against it. We don't care how much or how absurdly you slag off other Indians- everyone is at it. But, the Wire made us look like fools to the Americans. That's bad for us. Indians are supposed to be good at tech. We export IT services. Vardarajan, an American citizen, has let us down very badly.
The moral test is whether the publication persists or speaks the truth.
The Wire lies. It is not interested in the truth. If it were, it would have a market. It would not need hand-outs.
We chose the latter when we realised we had been given fraudulent information.
A member of the Wire's team had, by its own admission, a deceptive intent. Moreover, the content of the article was clearly defamatory. This means the Wire put out fraudulent information. The editor may say that he is not a reasonable person. He is too stupid to understand that what he had was an absurd allegation backed by forged evidence of very very poor quality. But who will believe him? If he was stupid, it was because it paid him to be stupid.
“Whether the person who brought all the material to The Wire deceived us at anyone’ else’s behest or acted on his own is a matter that will be subjected to judicial process in due course.
But that person, by the Wire's own admission, was a 'team-member'. There have been previous press reports dating back to 2019 suggesting that the likely culprit was already wackadoodle. Perhaps, that's why he was useful to Varadarajan.
The malintent to discredit The Wire is obvious.
What is obvious is that the Wire has a shitty editor and a paranoid staff.
“Other than this, we have nothing to say.”
So no apology then. Nothing is Varadarajan's fault. Billi the Cat, disguised as Rishi Sunak, is using Mind-Rays to control the Internet. High level CIA whistle-blowers have secretly given me a copy of an Email from President Biden to Prime Minister Modi where he explains the whole dastardly plan to entrap Varadarajan. Sadly, Billi the Cat pissed on it, mistaking it for Putin's lap. This shows how Hindutva is totally corrupting our society and turning pussy cats into pissy cats. Mind it kindly. Aiyayyo.
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