Ethics Newsline®

NEW DELHI
Journalism ethics is the topic of the week in India, and it’s a high-stakes affair involving a woman beaten by a mob apparently enraged by a false TV report.

The Associated Press reports that a television “sting” report claimed that a New Delhi math teacher had turned her classroom into a brothel, forcing her students into prostitution. A television reporter allegedly taped a conversation in which he posed as a customer. After the report aired, a mob dragged the teacher outside and beat her.

She was later arrested on the basis of the TV report.

But there’s a problem, reports the AP: Police think the whole event was made up, a stunt to garner ratings in the hypercompetitive world of Indian media, where there are more than a hundred 24-hour news channels.

One young woman, who herself is an aspiring journalist, initially said she was a student forced into prostitution by the teacher, but later told the Hindu newspaper that she lied after being threatened by the reporter if she refused to cooperate with the fabricated story. She claimed the reporter promised she could be credited as “an associate crime reporter” if she fabricated the details, but would be portrayed as a villain if she did not cooperate.

The woman, Rashmi Singh, told the Times of India that the reporter who constructed the piece “trapped me by threatening to air footage portraying me as a prostitute.”

“He told me that the sting was being done for a greater social cause,” Singh told the Times. “After a while, I started having my doubts so I recorded my conversations with him. I have given these recordings to the police.”

The reporter who allegedly fabricated the story, along with Singh, have been charged with criminal conspiracy, according to the AP. The teacher has been released from jail.