NewsClick has been in the spotlight after a New York Times report claimed that the news portal was part of a global network that received funding from American billionaire Neville Roy Singham, who allegedly works closely with the Chinese government media machine.
The letter said that the recent probe exposing the news portal “is the cause at the centre of our pain and anguish.”
In the four-page letter, the citizens said that we are giving “too wide a leverage to all kinds of inimical forces under the garb of ‘free press’.”
“What such immunity which is not founded upon any law does is that it not only harms the national interest but also opens the door for tarring those legitimate organs of media who should unquestionably be free,” the citizens wrote.
” … should we not check such forces which are spreading misinformation and trying to interfere with our democratic processes at the behest of foreign powers? Can we allow such forces to let the voice of reason, of patriotism, of integrity be muffled for petty agendas,” the letter by 255 citizens asked.
The letter pointed out that Indian taxpayers are being manipulated by fake news and subterfuge manufactured in China.
“The fact that a website based in India is actively working for China makes us concerned, distressed and angry,” it said.
The citizens said that the issues on which these forces were getting paid to build a media narrative in India are similar to the agenda of saving China’s reputation when questions were asked of it in wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“They are akin to the agenda of making China look good and India look bad with regard to how these countries managed the aftermath of the pandemic,” they wrote.
The letter also targeted the “propaganda machinery comprising a predictable nexus of some journalists, select media houses, some businesses, and NGOs” for defending the portal.
They said that it’s high time that “this manufactured consensus of anti-national, antidemocratic, and ironically anti-free press agenda is exposed and redressed.”