Mumbai: Days after ThePrint published an article hinting that the transmission of the coronavirus through newspapers and currency notes was theoretically possible, Bennett Coleman and Co. Ltd., (Times Group) has sent a legal notice to the news website. The notice asks the website to pull down the article since it “disparages newspapers and their operations with malicious intent”.
In the article titled ‘Transmission of coronavirus through newspapers, currency possible but unlikely: Experts’, ThePrint had quoted several experts, explaining that there was a possibility of the virus reaching homes through paper products, including newspapers and currency notes.
The news of legal notice was reported on ThePrint‘s website.
Similar to the claims made in ThePrint article, the International News Media Association has also acknowledged research that says “it may be possible” for a person to get COVID-19 by touching surfaces with the virus on it. But it assures there has been no such reported incident and that such surfaces do carry “lowest potency for the shortest period of time”.
The Times Group has threatened to take both civil and criminal action against ThePrint if the news article is not pulled down, both from their website and social media handles.
The lockdown has severely hampered the distribution of newspapers in most states. In Maharashtra, the vendors association had unanimously decided to suspend distribution until the COVID-19 pandemic is brought under control. While the vendors have been clearly reluctant, large newspapers have been negotiating with the government and the association to try and pressure them to start the circulation again. In Maharashtra, most newspapers have switched to producing just e-papers and are expected to roll out prints on April 1.
Since the Times Group has several publications in multiple languages, the lockdown and the vendors’ association not to distribute papers will result in losses.
In its legal notice, the group has claimed that ThePrint, through a “doctored” view of the situation, has acted with knowledge “to make wrongful gains and to cause unjustifiable loss to others”. The Times Group has alleged that ThePrint had not approached them for their views.
ThePrint has stood by its report and has claimed that the legal notice actually counters the claims made its news report. “It (the article published in ThePrint quotes the World Health Organization (WHO) and America’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who have claimed the risk of contracting Covid-19 from newspapers is very low. This, the notice says, counters the claims made in ThePrint report published to ‘alter the perception of readers and make them stop newspaper subscriptions and deliveries’,” ThePrint claimed.
The report, ThePrint claims, is also fair and accurate. “ThePrint stands by it. We are also flattered that the venerable Times Group sees ThePrint, not three yet, as a ‘true competitor’,” says the article issued in response to the legal notice.