A battle royale has broken out between the two leading Kannada news channels over who broke the porn video scandal, involving ministers in the BJP’s “gateway to the south”, Karnataka.
Market leader TV9 ran a news item on its 9 pm primetime news show on Wednesday, complete with a visual of its head honcho, Mahendra Mishra. The news item contained an interview with its cameraman in the legislature who caught the ministers prying into their cellphones and who then sent off an SMS to the reporter, Laxman Hoogar.
Not to be outdone, the Rajeev Chandrasekhar owned Suvarna News claimed it was the first with the story. All evening it ran news of the scandal with mnemonics and a “super” shouting “Naave First” (we were first). Its news item had one of the errant ministers referring to a Suvarna News reporter by name, which the channel played in a loop as to validate its claim.
All this breast-beating comes a day ahead of the launch of another news channel, Public TV, to be edited by former Suvarna News head, H.R. Ranganath.
More importantly, The Times of India reports that one of the three ministers caught with his pants down, Laxman Savadi, ensured that visuals of his watching the porn visuals was blacked out in his constituency, Athani, by ordering that electricity be cut off.
No newspaper of any language reached the town as most bundles were booked and purchased by his supporters en route.
Image: courtesy The Times of India
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IJR 
… More importantly, The Times of India reports that … Laxman Savadi, ensured that visuals of his watching the porn visuals was blacked out in his constituency, Athani, by ordering that electricity be cut off …
Funny how, despite the headline, the more ‘important’ news is just relegated to a small paragraph at the bottom …