Pal: Hindu nationalist groups threaten the lives and reputations of journalists
Wednesday, 02/15/2023
In 2017, journalist Gauri Lankesh was assassinated in India by Hindu nationalists days before she was set to release a powerful article on disinformation.
Investigative reporting network Forbidden Stories covered the murder, Lankesh’s life and the aftermath of the assassination.
University of Michigan associate professor Joyojeet Pal, an expert on the role of technology in democracy and labor, talked to Forbidden Stories about the impacts of disinformation campaigns in India against prominent journalists.
“There is a certain kind of casting of aspersion on their character or motive based on who they are and what they have covered in the past, and the discrediting happens through that association,” Pal says.
This causes a “chilling effect on journalists who then don’t want to engage online” he adds.
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Learn more about associate professor of information Joyojeet Pal by visiting his UMSI faculty profile.
Read “In the age of false news: a journalist, a murder, and the pursuit of an unfinished investigation in India” at Forbidden Stories.