Hindustan Times writes,

If those who committed the original sin of barging into Siras’s private space with the intention of ‘exposing’ him do not receive suitable punishment, many more ‘investigative’ journalists may deem it fit to bring private matters into the public domain merely for the sake of a ‘good’ story. This is unethical and criminal. No public good was served by the harassment of Siras. In fact, it has set the wrong precedent and given the media a bad name.

And I couldn’t agree more. The AMU committee shouldn’t be the only one to be punished for Dr. Siras’s ill treatment and untimely death. The 3 media persons who carried out the sting operation in order to produce a saleable story also have a price to pay. However, the accused are out on bail (now, there’s a shocker) and our judicial system is taking its own sweet time. It wouldn’t be a stretch of imagination to believe that by now even the bookies would have placed their bets on the number of years it will take Dr. Siras’s offenders behind bars.

This is a time to take closer look at the ‘sting operation’ being used as a tool for generating news? It is always done under the pretext of wanting to uncover the truth, expose corruption, dig up dirt and bringing it into the open. But a short glance into the history of sting operations carried out by the Indian Media will tell you that it is the deployment of dirty tactics and TRP cat-fights.

This applies to every operation done in the past, may it be the Shakti Kapoor – Casting Couch operation or Channel Live India – Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya episode. Not all fingers are socked in the pot of greed and there are those who rightly serve the society, for example ‘Operation Duryodhana’ carried out by Aaj Tak news channel. But one good deed doesn’t right all the wrongs, especially not with the intensity at which TRP battles are carried out these days by rivaling news channels.

And now we see the same bug infecting regular entertainment channels with the growing popularity of shows like Emotional Atyachar. The show’s anchor may time and time again emphasis– “Hum aapko bacha sakte hain aapke dhokebaaz girlfriend (boyfriend) se” – but the fact remains that they are doing no social service but instead are prying on personal lives for the sake of entertainment.

At this rate with time one can only expect the TRP carnage to claim more innocent lives unless the law decides to re-claim its authority and show who the real boss is.