FAKE NEWS must be rooted out by news organisations, veteran journalist and former BBC India correspondent Mark Tully said at the Red Ink Awards function in Mumbai on Friday. “In today’s day and age, it is absolutely essential to root out and expose fake news,” Tully said after accepting the Lifetime Achievement Award at the event organised by the Mumbai Press Club. The Indian Express journalists Santosh Singh and Shalini Nair also received awards for best story under the crime reporting category, and the women empowerment and gender equity category, respectively. While Shalini received the award for her story titled, ‘Meet Anam— One of the three petitioners seeking criminalisation of marital rape’, Santosh won it for a four-part series on the Srijan scam in Bihar. The awards were preceded by a panel discussion on the subject ‘Is there a business in news media?’, with panelists agreeing that there is a rise in demand for news. Contending that news organisations need time to figure out what structures will bring in profits, Samir Patil, founder of Scroll, said, “Somebody is making money out of news, it’s just not news organisations.” Anant Goenka, Executive Director of The Indian Express Pvt Ltd, said news remains a good business but would probably not be a “great business” in terms of profitability. “We have proved time and again that it is possible to be financially independent and do good journalism.” Also on the panel were Vijay Darda, chairman of Lokmat Media and Raghav Bhel, founder and chairman of Quintillion Media.
