Reporters Without Orders Ep 132: Inside the #JusticeForSSR cult and Uttar Pradesh’s failing healthcare system

In this edition, host Snigdha Sharma is joined by Newslaundry’s Nidhi Suresh and Basant Kumar.

The trio begins with the most bizarre headlines they came across this week. Basant and Nidhi think the tussle between Shiv Sena and BJP via Kangana Ranaut is quite strange while Snigdha can’t get over ‘Faux-Bama.’

The discussion moves to Nidhi’s report on #JusticeforSSR groups online. “People on these groups want the worst for Rhea Chakraborty, they want her to be arrested, dead and hanged,” says Nidhi. But what drives them and why have they taken the actor’s death so personally? “The answers I got were surprising, yet very human,” says Nidhi.

The panel also discuss the role of the TV news media and the brutal race for TRPs. The conversation then switches to an issue that has been conspicuously absent from TV news for a while: the novel coronavirus. Basant relates the details of his report on the dismal healthcare infrastructure in Uttar Pradesh. “Every day we watch new channels and newspapers reporting how the UP government is handling the coronavirus really well, but the reality on the ground is very different,” he says. From false test results to the lack of hospital beds and doctors refusing to treat non-Covid patients, Basant’s story paints a worrying picture of the pandemic in the fifth-worst affected state in India.

All this and a lot more as they talk about what made news this week, what didn’t, and what shouldn’t have. Tune in!

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