#MeToo: Mainstream media keeps mum over accused journalists

As social media movement #MeToo gains momentum in India, the moments of truth and reckoning seems to have arrived for several, who have influenced their position of power — real or perceived — to commit sexual harassment, abuse and persecute women.

The campaign #MeToo was started in October 2017 as a hashtag on social media. Since then, through this campaign, women have shared the assault and harassment they had undergone. Over the period of time, this campaign has gained some serious momentum in India and has become a movement not just for the harassment against women but also men.

In India, #MeToo campaign was triggered by Bollywood actress Tanushree Dutta, who accused veteran actor Nana Patekar of sexually harassing her a decade ago on the film sets of Horn Ok Pleassss. The #MeToo movement has so far witnessed over half a dozen cases in India, including directors, actors, comedians, journalists, authors, and many others being named on social media.

There is no doubt that Tanushree Dutta’s ordeal and all the allegations against MJ Akbar, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs, was widely covered by all mainstream media. But when it comes to one of the world’s biggest media house, whose editors and journalists have also been accused of the same crime, no mainstream media has time to show it on television and space to mention it in their newspaper.

Under #MeToo Campaign, there are several female journalists speaking up about their co-male journalists, who have sexually harassed them in the past. Taking to microblogging site Twitter, an Indian journalist Sandhya Menon shared a list of men who had harassed her at the workplace.

She started with an incident, which took place in the year 2005 and accused Hindustan Times journalist Manoj Ramchandaran. In a tweet, she wrote: “Back in 2005, I was 25, and taking shelter from the flood in Bombay at a colleague’s house, @manojanthikad sent me a text, “I want to fuck you.” He took my number from a mutual friend and decided to charm me when Bombay was drowning with that approach.”

Menon then went ahead and spoke about Bangalore Mirror colleague KR Sreenivas, who is now a resident editor of Times of India in Hyderabad. She accused him of making a non-consensual physical relationship and wrote on Twitter:

“After a trial print run, late at night, he offered to drop a few of us. I was living the farthest so I was dropped last. I get to my house, we’re chatting. He lays his hand on my thigh and goes, “my wife and I have grown apart. She doesn’t understand me,” she tweeted.

Menon has accused three journalists of sexual harassment, the last one in her list is Gautam Adhikari, who was the editor in Chief of DNA Bombay.

On Twitter, Gautam Adhikari was accused of kissing at least three women without their consent. In one, he was the editor-in-chief of DNA Mumbai, which he co-founded in 2005. The second one took place when he was serving as the executive editor of the Times of India. In another, a journalist recounted an incident from 2006 with Gautam Adhikari in the DNA office when she was just 22 years old.

On Saturday, a former Times of India journalist, Sonora Jha, who worked in the newspaper’s Bangalore bureau, recounted an incident from 1995 involving Adhikari when he was TOI’s executive editor. Sonora wrote on Menon’s Twitter timeline that he “called me to his hotel room to discuss flexible hours and then the same assault you described”:

Sandhya – Thank you for exposing Gautam Adhikari. He sexually harassed me when I was Chief Of Metro Bureau at Times Of India Bangalore. He was Executive Editor. Called me to his hotel room to discuss flexible hours and then the same assault you described – sick kiss from a toad.

— Sonora Jha (@ProfSonoraJha) October 6, 2018

Sonora —  now a professor of journalism at Seattle in the United States – added that when she complained to her immediate supervisor, he told her that Adhikari had asked that she be ‘sidelined’.

He tried to push me into his hotel bed but I pushed him away and managed to run out the door. Later, when I told my resident editor, I was told that Adhikari had asked him to “sideline” me on the job. The Times Of India asked him to leave but I believe they brought him back.

— Sonora Jha (@ProfSonoraJha) October 6, 2018

Another Indian journalist Nasreen Khan, in an article, alleged sexual harassment by Satadru Ojha, the editor of Calcutta Times.

Nasreen Khan has alleged that when she refused to give in to his demands to keep him ‘pleased’ and ‘happy’, Ojha tried to sabotage her work by mishandling her articles.

She also mentioned in a piece that on an occasion, a sexist article, which was actually not written by her was still published under her byline, causing even international news organisations to call her out.

Meanwhile, Satadru Ojha tweeted on Tuesday that the allegations made against him are false and that Khan’s charges were found to be false by TOI’s ICC and then dismissed by ‘police and court’.

All these accusations sum up to a simple question: Why have the stories against these journalists, all of whom have been accused of sexual harassment, not covered by the mainstream media?

That too at a time, when they have been tirelessly covering the #MeToo stories of Tanushree Dutta, MJ Akbar and Alok Nath and others. These gut-wrenching stories, which are doing rounds on social media are sending chills down our spine, who knew all these years, a journalist from one of the biggest media house was taking undue advantage of his experience.

You must have read a quote by the Father of Nation Mahatma Gandhi, “There is no god higher than truth.” He also said, “Truth alone will endure, all the rest will be swept away before the tide of time.”

Also read: #MeToo: MJ Akbar may resign over sexual harassment allegations