For the first time in India a private news channel was taken off air by a group of cops without authorization. My story on Kannada news outlet Power TV which took on @CMofKarnataka and triggered the Congress into moving a no-confidence motion against the government https://twitter.com/newslaundry/status/1315644740570771457

Power TV's managing director Rakesh Shetty has been absconding since the police action against his channel started. He is Covid +ve. Cops have booked him under NDMA and Epidemics Act for not being in quarantine. Where is Shetty? Is his life in danger?

Observers say that Power TV and Rakesh Shetty did not follow proper journalistic processes while exposing alleged scam involving @BYVijayendra
Others ask why the rest of the media couldn't pick up the same documents and do a story by following 'process'

Personally, I found it very interesting that @BlrCityPolice , which enthusiastically pulled the channel down without any authorisation, also started their much-publicised drug raids exactly when first news broke of the alleged scam in the @BSYBJP government. Distraction tactic?

The manner in which powerTV handled the expose made me cringe and long for the days of the previous Yeddy government when the lead to expose corruption was taken by the print media. Those investigations went after the issue and not the man, the focus was on documents & not drama

Congratulations to @IndianExpress for being the only news outlets to have the guts to call the bluff on the so-called court injunction restraining journalists from reporting on the alleged scam. The court only ordered that there shouldn't be any false and malicious reporting

Just like they did during the emergency in the 1970s, the media crawled when they were asked to 'solpa adjust'. They made the court injunction an excuse to not ask tough questions of the @CMofKarnataka

This Rakesh Shetty, though, is super interesting. @newslaundry should consider inviting him to Hafta to defend his channel's treatment of the story ;)
Shetty being a dubious character doesn't explain why the other media outlets didn't follow-up the way @IndianExpress did

Thanks to @MnshaP for commissioning this story. I also had the privilege to work with the very talented @mehrajdlone who edited this story. If it weren't for him, some very embarrassing factual errors would have slipped through. Thanks goodness for good newsroom gatekeepers!

Thanks also to my dear friend and fellow journo @abhirrvp for helping me with the reporting