By Niraj Sharma

New Delhi: Much before The Wire apologised to its readers for its allegedly fabricated and motivated stories against BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya, a viral headline “Why a Botched Story About Facebook Is a Huge Blow to Indian Journalism” by a New York-based digital platform slate.com caught attention of Indian readers.

Dated October 18, the story was about the journey of The Wire from a flag-bearer of independent journalism to being called a huge blow to Indian journalism.

Days later, the raids on The Wire and its top editors by Delhi police acting on a complaint and subsequent FIR filed by the BJP’s IT cell head Amit Malviya have attracted extreme reactions from people on both sides.

Delhi police conducted searches on Monday, October 31, 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.

The FIR named the editors Siddharth Varadarajan, MK Venu, Sidharth Bhatia and Jahnavi Sen and unknown persons.

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, Devesh Kumar, for providing fabricated documents and retracted these articles on October 23, 2022.

Complaint against Devesh Kumar

Reacting to the complaint filed against Devesh Kumar by The Wire, an industry veteran said that it was Varadarajan who took a joint byline with Jahnavi Sen in the story published on October 11 claiming that Meta was lying and The Wire has several documentary and video evidence to back their stories.

"What is the moral stand for lodging an FIR against Devesh Kumar? In fact, any organisation will defend the reporter even if he/she is not there with the organisation anymore. How can you run away from your responsibility like this?” the industry veteran asked who has had a long career in top media houses.

Read full story https://www.newsdrum.in/analysis/will-the-meta-story-