‘We may file for defamation’: Vijay Deverakonda tells TNM on ‘kill fake news’ campaign

Great Andhra has responded to the allegations saying that it always crosschecks the authenticity of news reports and does not have any personal grouse against the actor.
Vijay Deverakonda
Vijay Deverakonda
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The Telugu film industry says it has decided to take on ‘fake news and yellow journalism’ on a massive scale. It all started when Vijay Deverakonda was accused of misusing funds raised by his charitable organisation.

Vijay hit back with a video where he took on the portal named ‘Great Andhra’, and other portals and websites, that he alleges are publishing false scurrilous news. Soon after, big names from the Telugu industry like Mahesh Babu joined hands with Vijay against slanderous journalism.

In this exclusive interview, Vijay Deverakonda talks about the need for the Telugu film industry to finally take a stand against defamatory writing, and yes, he is suing.

Vijay, why doesn’t the entertainment industry take a strong stand against scurrilous writing? Are you ready to bell the cat?

We have for long let them be, being patient, overlooking, not wanting to waste energy on negative people. And each and everyone in the Telugu film industry has been a victim. Since I put out the video, I have had actors, directors, producers all call me up passionately. You could hear voices of people wronged, maligned, hurt, for a long time. Everything bottled up came out and now it’s time to take on the scurrilous mafia.

Have you personally been a victim of scurrilous writing?

I cannot even count the number of times when I’ve just let it go, out of a sense of decency or laziness, I don’t know.

Are you suing the offending portal?

It’s being looked into now.

Do you see the current outrage in the Telugu film industry growing into a movement against muck writing?

The Telugu film industry is ready. And we are taking that stand now. I don’t know if we can change this but we will no longer sit quietly and let them leech on us.

Do you see the momentum against yellow journalism being sustained in an industry known to have a notoriously short attention span?

We need to clean up the environment we work in and wake up to everyday. The biggest worrying factor is more journalists are being forced to lower their standards to survive in a market flooded with clickbait fake news. Imagine if we continue to let this happen. Because in the end everything is a business, and everyone needs money to keep their business concerns going, keep paying their employees. You’ll just bend to whatever seems to be working. So this needs to stop now. Collectively as a society we need to make it stop.

Meanwhile, Great Andhra has responded to the allegations stating that it always “crosschecks the authenticity of news” reports published. Adding that the website does not “have any personal grouse against the actor”, the editor Venkat Arikatla said: “With regard to the news report that Vijay had invited the poor people to register on his portal for help, it is true we had written that he had backtracked on his original promise after seeing 75,000 registrations and said he would donate only for 2,000 people. We only wanted to convey the message that if only 2,000 people receive the help, it would cause disappointment to 73,000 others who registered their names.

I understand this report has hurt Vijay very much. We would have been happy to carry his version, had he given it in the form of a rejoinder or clarification. There is no reason to suspect that we should have any personal grouse against the actor.”

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