Firstpost Runs ‘Fact-Check’ On Whether PM Modi’s News Nation Interview Was Scripted, Immediately Deletes It
One can only wonder why it did so.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s interview with News Nation has, perhaps, been his most controversial one. From “cloudy” war strategies to claims of using digital cameras and emails long before they reached India or even the idea that the entire interview was scripted, the questions keep piling up.
Alt News founder Pratik Sinha even tried to substantiate the “scripted” allegation. On Twitter, Sinha shared screenshots of the interview where the camera zooms in on a bunch of papers PM Modi is holding. One of those papers has a question written on it — the same one that anchor Deepak Chaurasia had asked him.
PM Modi is asked to recite a recent poetry of his in the @NewsNationTV intvw. He asks for HIS file which is duly handed over, and he starts fiddling with a bunch of papers. The paper on which there’s a printed copy of a poetry also has a printed question on the top.
1/3 pic.twitter.com/S5TEffE60F
— Pratik Sinha (@free_thinker) May 13, 2019
A few seconds ago, the anchor had asked the following question as seen in the video below.
“में कवी नरेंद्र मोदी से जानना चाहता हूँ की क्या आपने पिछले पांच सालों में कुछ लिखा है?”
(I want to know from poet Narendra Modi if he’s written anything in the past five years?)
2/3 pic.twitter.com/IGyfl5HD1P
— Pratik Sinha (@free_thinker) May 13, 2019
The part question that is visible in the papers held by PM @narendramodi matches word-to-word to the question asked by the anchor Deepak Chaursaia.
3/3 pic.twitter.com/rQdFg0RDhv
— Pratik Sinha (@free_thinker) May 13, 2019
Here’s a slowed down version of the video (sans audio) in which PM @narendramodi is flipping through the papers which were present in HIS file. pic.twitter.com/deg3JWksFz
— Pratik Sinha (@free_thinker) May 13, 2019
Soon afterwards, Firstpost ran a “Fact-check” on this. Strangely enough, however, the fact-check that said the same things as Sinha was nowhere to be found. Firstpost had deleted it.
.@firstpost did a fact-check whether @narendramodi's interview to @NewsNationTV was scripted or not, based on the thread I created this morning, and then deleted their article. Probably, the first man to use email and digital camera in India sent a colour photo of Haren Pandya. pic.twitter.com/nZYdW8BESU
— Pratik Sinha (@free_thinker) May 13, 2019
One can only wonder why Firstpost deleted this article in such a hurry.