A few months ago, Zee News journalist Sudhir Chaudhary had made headlines after his show on the various types of jihad, armed with a flow chart, went viral. And while the scribe might consider it his Pulitzer Prize for "reporting the truth", the News Broadcasting Standards Authority seems unconvinced.
As per a LiveLaw report from Thursday, the NBSA has ruled that prima facie, the channel had violated the fundamental principles of the Code of Ethics by broadcasting the controversial programme. Acting on the complaint filed by activist Saket Gokhale, the NSBA has now summoned Zee News to appear for a hearing on November 26 via video conferencing.
Reacting to the news, Gokhale too tweeted out the details of the NBSA letter.
"There'll be a final hearing next month where the verdict and probable punishment will be pronounced. I filed the complaint in February. The @MIB_India sat on it for 3 months only to forward it to NBSA. @cjpindia pursued the matter VERY diligently & in detail. Finally, some justice," he tweeted.
For those who have not followed this particular discussion, allow us to take you back to a March 11 monologue by the Zee News Editor-in-chief. With a graphic on hand, he proceeded to explain his "Jihad Flowchart" at length. On a day when most media organisations were dedicated to reportage about Jyotiraditya Scindia's exit from the Congress, Chaudhary introduced us to hitherto unknown concepts such as "Zameen Jihad", "Victim Jihad" "History Jihad" and more.
But while the hour-long episode had triggered massive backlash, the journalist was undaunted. And after an FIR was filed against him in Kerala over his problematic monologue, Chaudhary simply shared it on Twitter and claimed that this was his Pulitzer Prize for "reporting the truth" and "exposing inconvenient facts".
At the time of publishing this article, he is yet to comment on the latest development.
