India Needs Fake-Check and Media Accountability Now!
By Gajanan Khergamker
The recent, widespread fake news of veteran actor Dharmendra's death, coupled with the utterly deplorable conduct of certain paparazzi and media outlets towards his grieving family, underscores a severe and mounting crisis of ethics in the modern news ecosystem.
This event is a stark illustration of how the relentless pursuit of sensationalism and clicks has fundamentally eroded the principles of journalistic integrity and basic human decency.
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| Image for representational purpose only |
The rumour of Dharmendra's demise, circulated rapidly across social media and even reported by some prominent personalities and channels before being officially debunked by his family, is a classic case of disinformation for profit.
It weaponised the actor's hospitalisation, transforming a private family health crisis into a public spectacle that inflicted profound emotional pain on his immediate family who were already under immense pressure.
The failure of several media entities to verify the claim with official family or hospital sources—a basic tenet of journalism—before amplifying it demonstrates a breakdown in editorial gatekeeping.
Hema Malini's statement, calling the conduct "extremely disrespectful and irresponsible" and "unforgivable," highlights the severity of this professional transgression.
Equally egregious were the alleged attempts by paparazzi and media persons to besiege the family, even attempting to photograph them in or near the ICU. A hospital, particularly an ICU, is a sacred, private space of vulnerability, illness, and potential grief.
Aggressively shooting family members in such a setting is an unforgivable violation of their right to privacy and human dignity; this is not "reporting," it is harassment and voyeurism. The pervasive, toxic assumption that public figures forfeit their right to privacy, especially during moments of distress, fuels this predatory behaviour.
The anguish of the family was clear when his son, Sunny Deol, was captured on video visibly losing his cool at the swarm of photographers outside his home, a reaction that reflects the emotional strain of being watched while a parent is in frail health.
This incident is not isolated; it echoes a global pattern of aggressive media intrusion and sensationalism, highlighting a worldwide ethical decay.
The most infamous case remains the tragic death of Princess Diana in 1997, whose car crashed in a Paris tunnel while being aggressively pursued by paparazzi.
The subsequent public outcry led to a significant, though often incomplete, reckoning for the global press. In the UK, the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) revised its Editors' Code of Practice to include a crucial clause:
"Journalists must not engage in intimidation, harassment, or persistent pursuit" and must desist once asked. They also explicitly defined "private places" to include areas where there is a "reasonable expectation of privacy."
A key achievement was a deal brokered with the press to ensure her sons, Princes William and Harry, could grow up without being constantly hounded.
Across the Atlantic, the US state of California, the hub of celebrity culture, passed the nation's first anti-paparazzi law in 1998, criminalising trespassing on private property for photos. This law was later strengthened to prohibit physical contact and, in 2010, to prevent reckless driving in pursuit of a photo, a change directly inspired by the fatal chase in Paris.
Even closer to home, the media’s "insensitive" coverage before actor Sidharth Shukla's funeral drew sharp condemnation from celebrities who slammed the paparazzi for shoving cameras into the face of his visibly devastated partner, Shehnaaz Gill, in her most vulnerable time.
These global parallels demonstrate that the exploitation of suffering for profit, whether it’s a death hoax, an ICU siege, or funeral intrusion, is a systemic ethical failure that legal reforms have tried, but often failed, to fully curb.
The deplorable events surrounding Dharmendra's hospitalisation lend immediate and critical relevance to the two initiatives recently launched by DraftCraft International: EthiCALL and Fake-Check.
EthiCALL is a call for professionals to reconnect the divide between ethics and law, directly confronting the industry's quiet compromises and demanding that "credibility matters more than clout."
The media's conduct here was fundamentally unethical, and EthiCALL provides a framework for industry-wide dialogue and self-regulation to prevent such violations of human dignity.
Meanwhile, Fake-Check is a dual-front offensive against pervasive Fake News and malicious Fake Litigations. Its focus on media literacy initiatives can arm the public and media houses with the tools to inoculate themselves against sophisticated disinformation tactics, thus making it harder for clickbait hoaxes, like the one about Dharmendra's death, to gain traction.
The complexity of the Dharmendra hoax is magnified by the role of social media influencers who operate outside the traditional media's minimal constraints. They create havoc "as a rule" by leveraging their massive reach without ethical checks.
This leads to a critical question: how can laws be created to curb these unregulated entities without violating the fundamental right to freedom of speech?
The key challenge lies in the definitional ambiguity of "fake news" itself.
Globally, legislators struggle with Intent vs. Mistake. The law must distinguish between misinformation (false information spread unintentionally) and disinformation (false information spread with malicious intent, often for economic or political gain, as in a death hoax). Penalising a genuine, if careless, error chills all speech. The focus must be on malice and calculated public harm.
Also, there are mixed views with regard to 'the chilling effect'. Vague or overly broad laws, often seen in various MDM (Misinformation, Disinformation, and Mal-information) legislation internationally, can be misused by governments to suppress legitimate dissent, satire, or criticism. This leads to a "chilling effect" where people self-censor for fear of punishment, thus undermining the open democratic discourse that freedom of speech is meant to protect.
Defining the "Influencer": Unlike a formal journalist, an influencer's "speech" often blurs the line between personal opinion, commentary, and commercial speech (e.g., paid promotions or content designed solely for revenue).
Legal systems, particularly in places like the EU and the US, are increasingly treating commercial speech as having a lower threshold for regulation, focusing on transparency and consumer protection (e.g., mandated use of #ad or #paidpromotion). However, applying this to a death hoax remains complex.
To navigate this, any effective legal framework, in line with the spirit of DraftCraft’s Fake-Check and EthiCALL, must be transparent, proportionate, and precise.
It must:
Target Harm, Not Falsity: Focus on punishing the creation and dissemination of content that leads to specific, demonstrable public harm (e.g., incitement to violence, financial fraud, or the severe emotional distress caused by a malicious death hoax) rather than simply being "false."
Establish a High Threshold for Malice: Require proof of actual knowledge of the falsity or reckless disregard for the truth—a standard often used in defamation law involving public figures.
Encourage Self-Regulation (EthiCALL): Complement legal statutes with industry-led codes of conduct for digital creators, making ethical behaviour the first line of defence.
The Dharmendra hoax is a painful reminder that the digital age has democratised publishing but not responsibility. The events, mirrored by similar disgraces around the world that sparked legal and self-regulatory reforms, are a chilling testament to the need for a cultural shift in the media landscape.
Without robust ethical compliance (the spirit of EthiCALL) and aggressive, coordinated efforts to combat disinformation (the mission of Fake-Check), the cycle of sensationalism, emotional exploitation, and the destruction of human dignity will only intensify.
The industry must move beyond reactive apologies and embrace proactive accountability. Celebrities and their families, especially in times of illness or grief, deserve the most fundamental of human rights: respect and privacy.
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