This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, and Anand Vardhan are joined by The Hindu’s Dinakar Peri, who covers defense and strategic affairs.

The episode opens with a discussion on the India-Pakistan military escalation, focusing on both the media narrative and strategic implications of the recent strikes.

Critiquing Indian news media’s coverage of the conflict, Manisha says, “In the middle of operations… the Army… was putting out fact checks, contrary to what these channels were doing.”

She underscores how the media acted counter to national interest. “PSYOPs are directed at enemies. They're not directed at your own people drowning them down in misinformation.”

Responding to a few journalists' arguments that the ‘misinformation’ was part of India’s warfare, Abhinandan adds, “It suddenly appears that it is somehow a journalist's job… to become cheerleaders for the military.”

Dinakar, speaking as a defense journalist, emphasises how this hinders real reporting, “Nowadays, the bigger part of journalists is to actually defer the real news from the fake news… You spend a lot of time trying to find what is correct… because social media goes to a different level.”

Anand adds, “Even if you are pedaling falsehoods, you have to look serious… If you are doing it in a melodramatic tone… no one is going to take you seriously.”

The panel agrees that much of the media coverage undermined India's credibility. As Abhinandan puts it, “If you cannot trust them at war time, why should you trust them in peace time?”

The conversation then shifts to military strategy and diplomacy. Dinakar says, “From a military sense, it kind of sets up a threshold… a differential between the two countries in terms of military symmetry.”

Anand sees strategic gains for India, “One obvious gain… it has called out Pakistan’s nuclear bluff… and it’s a good advertisement for India’s weapons set.”

This and a lot more. Tune in!

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Timecodes

00:00:00 – Introductions

00:05:26 – Headlines

00:12:26 - Journalism and conflict

00:33:28 – Breaking down the 5 days of conflict

01:11:56 - Special AD break

01:14:06 – Letters

01:25:42– Recommendations

Check out previous Hafta recommendations, references, songs and letters

Produced and recorded by Priyali Dhingra and Ashish Anand.

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