HERALD, THE 'VOICE OF GOA' NOW STRANGULATES WHISTLE-BLOWERS After its paid news and shady advertising tactics were exposed thanks to the #JackpotJournalism story, Herald has now filed a complaint with the Goa Police Crime Branch Cyber Cell, in which they have tried to implicate me in a data theft and hacking case. >From a media organisation which uses terror unleashed by negative reportage as an advertising strategy, I did expect a shady turn of events like this. The last time I exposed a paid news network at the Herald ahead of the 2012 state assembly elections, where paid political interviews were masked as news and sold for over Rs. 80,000 a piece, they had responded by filing a defamation suit against me. Anyway, facing this expected backlash is a rite of passage and must be weathered and I am willing to fully co-operate with the police as and when they choose to probe the case. But my fear is that the real motive of the Herald's complaint is to track down my sources there who have provided me vital clues and information which helped to execute the #JackpotJournalism story. While the bosses run riot at the Herald, there are several folks who have worked in the organisation and are not happy with the unethical practices adopted as routine there, as brought out in the story #JackpotJournalism. The leak of an internal memo written by Herald's deputy sales manager Adwait Desai, where he admits that news articles published in the newspaper have to be cleared by the sales department, seems to have particularly irked the Herald (pls read the story attached). My sources tell me, that Herald wants to identify and punish these unsung heroes and whistleblowers in their own set up, who have shown their dissent against such unfair journalistic practices in their organisation by sharing information with me. I am completely committed to protect the identity of these sources of this vital information precisely the information they shared with me is in public interest. It is in public interest to know what backend deals eventually end up defining media coverage, which is unsuspectingly lapped up by thousands of readers of a newspaper. It is ironical that the newspaper management has taken no action against its own staffers who walk into casinos and demand advertising to the tune of Rs. 25 lakh per casino per month in return for "positive reportage" of the industry. I once again unequivocally state that I have not unethically or illegally hacked any data for procurement of the information used in the #JackpotJournalism story or any media-related story filed by me in the past.
Best Mayabhushan P.S. The entire paid news story sequence can be accessed on FB by searching the #JackpotJournalism hashtag -- Sent from Gmail Mobile
