'No critical word on Modi or Yogi, bring in Hindu-Muslim’: News Nation reporter quits

Anil Yadav, a former journalist with News Nation in Lucknow, says the TV news channel has standing instructions for reporters not to say a critical word about BJP governments, prime minister Narendra Modi, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, or any other BJP leader.

In a video published to social media not long after he reportedly resigned from News Nation, which he had joined in 2012, Yadav says, "The situation for the last five years has been very frightening. I feel ashamed calling myself a journalist. I am a servant.”

“If you want to criticise some leader or their policy, then there's Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, Mayawati, and Akhilesh Yadav,” he says.

Referring to Sampadaks or editors as “Champadaks”, he goes on to say, “They also express happiness and say ‘What a great reporter, he is screwing up the opposition’.”

Yadav claims News Nation gets "Rs 17-18 crore a year" in revenue from the government. That's why News Nation as well as its regional channel News State "can't say anything against them", meaning the BJP. "If you do," he adds, "then we’ll get a mail or our jobs will be endangered.”

At the same time, he says, News Nation has a “Hindu-Muslim agenda”. “If we say there has been a scam in government or a minister has said something, they say we must not do anything about it. They say, ‘say something else, bring in Hindu-Muslim’.”

According to Bhadas4Media, in his resignation letter, Yadav alleged that News Nation reporters were told that there was pressure on the channel to "bring a story related to a Muslim. Find the controversy related to Muslims, instigate Muslims, get them to make controversial statements".

“Journalists at the channel neither have the freedom to think, nor speak, nor write or say anything from their mind. Even on social media, he cannot write a single word,” Yadav reportedly said in the letter.