Times Group wanted an interview - they swore by journalism ethics🔗

13 March 2010 : Secretaries of His Divine Holiness were apprehensive. However, The Times Media Group, promised that the live video would ensure that His Divine Holiness’s words reached the public without any editing. They assured to follow the utmost journalistic ethics and present the interview as it is LIVE, without any editing or tampering. With their promises, the secretaries felt that the interview might end the saga of deadly, negative, fake media coverage going across the nation against His Divine Holiness. They were convinced that this would be the necessary platform for His Divine Holiness to directly reach out to the nation and establish the truth.

Dhanya cites technical fault, promises to air uncensored recording When the interview started, Times Now reporter, Dhanya Rajendran, convinced His Divine Holiness that they had technical issues in telecasting and recorded the interview committing to telecast the interview as it is.

The interview was the first public clarification of His Divine Holiness on the subject of the fabricated obscene video. The entire nation was waiting to hear. Clinching its huge captive audience, Times Now executed its true agenda, shocking the secretaries beyond words.

“Times Now” promised to telecast the live interview with His Divine Holiness but the telecast was completely edited, twisted and fabricated into a FAKE confession. It was a maliciously engineered news item. The headlines screamed: “TIMES NOW MANAGED TO TRACK DOWN SWAMI NITHYANAND IN HARIDWAR.” His facial dimensions were visually skewed and changed by the channel’s video morphing techniques to make His face look cartoonish.

He was maliciously portrayed as a ‘criminal on the run’. It maintained silence about the violence done to His Divine Holiness. The expectation was that Times Now will reach the truth to the people. With the opening headline, the expectation collapsed.

In the original footage, His Divine Holiness explained that the video was not real, it was completely fabricated, and said it needed to be analyzed (by a forensic agency) to understand how it was created. He even expressed His surprise why channels were broadcasting the fabricated obscene videos.

Times Now twisted the whole thing and displayed a foxy bold headline posing to be a quote: “YES IT’S ME IN VIDEO!” - a completely fabricated line that incited more mob hatred and more violence against His Divine Holiness.

Media's 'Justification Propaganda' Techniques Times Now used several propaganda techniques in order to tactfully execute its heinous plan against His Divine Holiness:

Classical Conditioning Falsely leveraging and aligning the known reactions (based on research in fields of evolution and psychology) of the news audience, to a target person, in a derogatory way.

Appeal to prejudice People have a certain pre-existing bias towards various aspects. Presenting content which is leveraging that to appeal to the audience and thus convincing them on the false idea being presented by the channel.

Agenda setting Irrespective of the actual fact, inserting the 'planned' agenda and presenting the agenda with the news being just an excuse to present the agenda.

Beautiful people Leveraging the bias that people have, that they believe what is said by people with good appearance, and have bias for people with a distorted facial composure.

The non-'beautiful people' seem less than human and unworthy of protection The footage of His Divine Holiness Paramahamsa Nithyananda broadcasted live on television compared to the footage taken by one of the secretaries of Paramahamsa Nithyananda shows that there was deliberate manipulation in the video of His Divine Holiness's skin and proportions. The manipulation also started from the deliberate setting of the camera at an inappropriate angle on the face of His Divine Holiness. Further, in the footage from Times Now, the lighting you can see is centered around His Divine Holiness' head, done by video manipulation technology. The angle of the video shows his facial proportions more wide in the forehead and in the jaw. The combination of lighting corrections and changes to the proportion of His Divine Holiness' face makes His figure cartoonish. Tampering with the visuals of the footage is clearly done with very specific agenda.

(Left) Actual footage of His Divine Holiness during interview with Dhanya, recorded by camera of a mobile phone of a disciple. (Right) Skewed and cartoonified, doctored footage by Times Now. Times now applied the non-‘Beautiful people’ propaganda technique to make Him appear less than human and unworthy of protection.

The first photo is of His Divine Holiness taken from the a mobile camera of His Divine Holiness’ secretary in which his proportions are normal and the lighting is distributed evenly across his face and in the background. It became obvious that no media was looking for the truth. It only wanted ‘footage’ to cover its already conspired prepaid headlines.