When a little-known YouTube channel posted a video on February 11 calling for some of India’s most prominent journalists to “be hanged”, it marked a new danger for India’s free press. The video was shared by a host of right-wing figures despite its call to execute at least five senior journalists, all from India’s clutch of independent online news media.
Among those named in the video, which claimed to reveal a “money trail” between journalists and an “anti-India conspiracy” to draw attention to protests by thousands of farmers, were Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair, Washington Post columnist Rana Ayyub, independent journalist Faye D’Souza, television anchor and owner of Mojo Story Barkha Dutt, senior editor of The Wire Arfa Khanum Sherwani, transparency activist and former journalist Saket Gokhale, YouTuber Dhruv Rathee and several news organisations, including The NewsMinute.
The claims in the video were soon found to be fake, but that did not…