Social media is like instant cricket or instant coffee—immediate impact and self-gratification. And if it is not used sensitively, it can lead to disasters. There have been instances in India when overzealous Twitterati posted half-true stories on issues they don’t even know about. At the same time, credibility of the fourth estate is also under immense scrutiny with US President Donald Trump repeatedly calling it ‘fake’. The recent instance of a mistaken identity ruining a player’s chance of landing an Indian Premier League contract reeks of naive and irresponsible reporting.
Harmeet Singh, a Mumbai cricketer who drove his car on to the platform of Andheri railway station, was mistaken as Harpreet Singh—a promising cricketer from Madhya Pradesh. Harpreet has been very successful, especially in the shorter format and yet no one bid for him. Though the names sound similar the spellings are completely different. Yet multiple national agencies, were quick to tweet that Harpreet (not Harmeet) was the culprit and was in police custody. The result: He was not picked up by any IPL franchise. Harpreet’s crime perhaps is that his name sounds similar with Harmeet and also that the two played for the Under-19 World Cup team.
There have been occasions when such grave errors led to serious implications, but Shobhaa De seems to be a habitual offender. As if not content with her insensitive tweet during Olympics, this time she mistook a heavy policeman to be a Mumbai cop and tweeted a picture of him saying, “Heavy police bandobast in Mumbai today!”. The cop, coincidentally also from MP, apparently is suffering from insulin imbalance. With media houses caught in the race of live-breaks like television, this is only going to increase. Also, relying on young talent with little experience too has compounded matters. With new age media evolving and competition getting stiffer, the scourge of irresponsible reporting will only increase.