Did Barkha & Rajdeep Really Humiliate Kalam? No, They Didn’t

The fake story relates to a 2007 event, during which Kalam sat on the floor while having a debate with journalists.

The fake story relates to a 2007 event, during which Kalam sat on the floor while having a debate with the journalists. 

(Photo: PTI/Altered by The Quint)

A recent story posted by fake news website Postcard News has trained its guns on journalists Rajdeep Sardesai and Barkha Dutt for allegedly "humiliating" and "disrespecting" former Indian President APJ Abdul Kalam. The premise for ‘Postcard News' statements is a 2007 event – the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards – where Kalam was the chief guest. While engaging in a debate with the panelists on media ethics and nation-building, the former President sat on the floor of the stage.

Postcard News has misleadingly shared a photo of Kalam sitting on the floor, while Sardesai and Dutt, the moderators at the event, look on. The language of the post clearly intends to cause disrepute to the senior journalists.

Slamming the “ego” of these journalists and calling them "lame brains", the website erroneously describes what happened during the event:

These sold so called journalists had no regard for the honour of President. They were sitting on a chair like “Maharajas”. They pushed their conversation forward, they did not feel the necessity that they should also sit down with him or stand in his honor and ask him to sit on a chair. 

Postcard News story

Resorting to the usual 'nationalistic' bombast, the website calls the "insult of the President an insult of the whole nation". It goes as far as urging the Supreme Court to take "appropriate against these journalists".

Barkha Calls Out ‘Fake News’, Shekhar Gupta Says ‘It Was an Endearing Moment’

Responding to the story, Barkha Dutt called it "fake news", saying that President Kalam mandated the seating arrangement in question "in his own inimitable way".

Shekhar Gupta, who was seated at the event as editor-in-chief of The Indian Express, the organiser, further sought to debunk the story. Narrating the sequence of events, he called the debate with Kalam "a high point" for the journalists seated there.

Speaking to The Quint, Gupta said:

What happened during the 2007 event was the most endearing moment, even as it was very surprising. It was a high-point for us... in fact, President Kalam was such an informal president.

Shekhar Gupta to The Quint

In fact, Gupta had written about the event in a blog tited 'Rememebering Kalam, A Most Beloved Public Figure' on Huffington Post. The piece was published shortly after Kalam's death in July 2015.

As chief guest at the Ramnath Goenka Awards, he not only surprised us, pleasantly, by staying on for the annual state of journalism debate rather than leaving after giving his speech and the awards... He got involved in the debate, on media ethics, from the front row. And then he got so animated, he hauled himself on the stage and carried on arguing and intervening sitting on the floor! Barkha still has that picture...

Shekhar Gupta in his blog

But the Misleading Story Still Finds Traction

Nevertheless, Postcard News' misleading story has found considerable traction on social media. The website's Facebook post linking the story has been shared more than 260 times.

In fact, another website called 'Viral In India' had posted a story on the same lines on 14 June 2017, titled 'Rajdeep & Barkha Were Sitting on Chairs When APJ Abdul Kalam Sat on The Floor & Answered Awesomely!'

On social media, the story has been shared intermittently since 2015.

The website Postcard News has had a history of partaking in fake news. Here are some of its stories that have been debunked:

• In January 2018, the website wrongly attributed a communal statement on Kasganj violence to Bollywood actor Farhan Akhtar.
• In December 2017, the website had made the death of a man in Karnataka into a communal issue, even though the cause of death was yet to be ascertained.
• The website posted a fake story on Arundhati Roy that led Bollywood actor Paresh Rawal to outrage against her.
• In June 2017, the website had drawn AR Rahman into the cattle slaughter debate, wrongly attributing a quote to him.