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The complete story turned out to be pretend information.
Famed Indian journalist Nidhi Razdan mentioned on Friday the Harvard job supply that she bought some months in the past was pretend and she or he was a sufferer in an elaborate phishing assault.
On June 13, 2020, Nidhi Razdan, 43, one in every of Indian broadcast media’s well-known anchors, introduced that she can be quitting NDTV, maybe the most-respected Indian TV channel, after a 21-year stint, as she was “changing direction” to affix Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences as an affiliate professor. The celebrated Indian media story of final yr amid the Covid-inflicted doom and gloom within the occupation, the place hundreds of jobs had been misplaced, got here full circle on Friday.
The complete story turned out to be pretend information. A shocked Razdan issued a press release on Twitter, claiming she had been the sufferer of a classy phishing assault through which she was given a suggestion to show at Harvard University. Razdan mentioned she has filed a police grievance to “get to the bottom of this attack”.
According to her assertion, she was supposed to affix the college in September 2020 however was advised her lessons would solely begin in January 2021 because of the pandemic.
“Along with these delays, I began noticing a number of administrative anomalies in the process being described to me,” Razdan wrote.
“At first, I had dismissed these anomalies as being reflective of the new normal being dictated by the pandemic, but recently the representations being made to me were of an even more disquieting nature.”
Razdan mentioned she reached out to “senior authorities” at Harvard and shared correspondence she thought she’d acquired from the college.
“After hearing from the university, I have now learned that I have been the victim of a sophisticated and coordinated phishing attack,” she wrote.
“I did not, in fact, receive an offer by Harvard University to join their faculty. The perpetrators of this attack used clever forgeries and misrepresentation to obtain access to my personal data and communications and may have also gained access to my devices and my email/social media accounts.”
The former anchor of the favored NDTV primetime present, Left, Right and Centre, nonetheless, has a number of explaining to do.
Was she naive, or pulling a quick one on the unsuspecting public? The jury continues to be out on this, as her candid admissions additional polarised the Indian media, torn between right-wing supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the bleeding coronary heart Left Liberals.
Razdan has been getting it from all sides as she maintains radio silence.
But for the document, Joshua Benton, founder and director of the Nieman Journalism Lab of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, joined the problem on Razdan ‘phishing attack’.
He has clarified that Harvard University doesn’t have a faculty of journalism or division of journalism and has no full-time college both.
The Nieman Foundation, which Benton has referred to in his tweet, solely provides fellowships associated to journalism.
According to its web site, the fellowship is for “individuals with a specific project to enhance journalism who would like to spend up to 12 weeks at Harvard advancing their idea”.
“Following their work on campus, our fellows have gone on to assume senior leadership positions in newsrooms, produce ground-breaking journalism in every medium, launch entrepreneurial projects, and win the industry’s top honors,” it provides
Is a bachelor’s diploma from Delhi’s Lady Shri Ram College for Women and a diploma from the Indian capital’s Indian Institute of Mass Communication adequate to make the grade at Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences as an affiliate professor?
Shashi Tharoor, Indian parliamentarian, former undersecretary-general of the United Nations, had congratulated Razdan on Twitter on June 13, 2020, whereas taking a potshot at commando comedian Indian TV channels.
He had tweeted: “Will miss you, @Nidhi. At a time when the credibility of Indian TV has never been lower, will miss your responsible voice, penetrating questions & sharp reporting. A loss for all Indians who truly ‘want to know’. Good luck & may you train better journalists than those you’re escaping!”
Was Tharoor, an creator of twenty-two books and former Indian minister of state in the course of the Congress regime, had no clue about Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences?
Or, is it what American creator Mark Twain had mentioned: “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”
joydeep@khaleejtimes.com
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