Bollywood Sues Lapdog Media Channels for Filthy Reporting
By RMN News Service
Leading Bollywood filmmakers have filed a lawsuit in the Delhi High Court against “irresponsible reporting by certain media houses”.
According to reports, the suit has been filed against Republic TV, and Arnab Goswami and Pradeep Bhandari of the channel; and Times Now and its anchors Rahul Shivshankar and Navika Kumar.
Those who have filed the case include Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Ajay Devgn, Karan Johar, Aditya Chopra and Farhan Akhtar. According to the lawsuit, these TV channels – usually known as the lapdog media channels (a.k.a. Godi Media) – have been using highly derogatory words and expressions such as “dirt”, “filth”, “scum” and “druggies” for Bollywood for the past few months.
The so-called journalists in these TV channels behave as the untamed mouthpieces of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) headed by Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi. They use an extremely uncivil and loud rhetoric to divert public attention from the real issues that the Modi government fails to address.
The Bollywood (loose term for Hindi film industry based in Mumbai) has demanded that these channels as well as the related social media platforms must refrain from making or publishing irresponsible, derogatory, and defamatory remarks against Bollywood and its members.
They also expect these channels to stop holding media trials and infringing upon the privacy of members of the film industry. Their petition urges the court to issue directions to these channels to withdraw, recall, and remove all the defamatory content published by them against Bollywood.
Those in the industry who have filed the case include the Producers Guild of India, the Cine and TV Artiste Association, Ad-Labs Films, Ajay Devgn Films, Anil Kapoor Film and Communication Network, Arbaaz Khan Productions, Ashutosh Gowarikaer Productions, Excel Entertainment, Kabir Khan Films, Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra Pictures, Reliance Big Entertainment, Rohit Shetty Pictures, Roy Kapur Productions, Vinod Chopra Films, and Vishal Bhardwaj Films.
Bollywood celebrities complain that these channels are holding parallel private investigations in frivolous cases and virtually acting as courts to condemn Bollywood professionals as guilty based on what they claim is ‘evidence’ found by them. Thus, they are trying to make a mockery of the criminal justice system.
