Former head of Video Production of Zee Media, Nasir Azmi cited Zee News Editor-in-Chief Sudhir Chaudhary’s coverage of Jamia violence as the kind of ‘one-sided reporting’ as one of the reasons he quit the channel.
According to Newslaundry, he also wrote a letter to Zee Group’s chairman, Subhash Chandra and pointed out the ongoing conflict between the organisation’s stance and its editorial decisions.
Speaking to Newslaundry, Nasir said:
Sudhir has become very powerful now. Nothing happens without him knowing. It is him and a few others who control the organisation right now.
In his resignation letter he had stated:
Now I feel Zee Media has failed its responsibilities of journalism, especially Zee News which I have given my golden time of life. Zee News failed…whether it was the matter of JNU and Kanhaiya Kumar, and recently AMU and Jamia Millia incident. The channel has tried to mislead the nation and its people, especially on Jamia, where students were beaten brutally after protesting against CAA and upcoming NRC. Therefore I have decided to discontinue my services on moral grounds, in the interest of the nation, and to save journalism.
He also said that Zee presented issues ‘out of context’ to mislead the audiences. Speaking about the 2016 protest at Jawaharlal Nehru University against the hanging of Afzal Guru, he said:
The ‘Pakistan zindabad’ slogan was never said by them. I haven’t been fighting for a day or two; it’s been two years since I started raising my concerns about the future of the organisation.
He also brought up a recent viral video claiming Aligarh Muslim University students had shouted ‘Hinduon se azaadi’. He said that the students were actually shouting, ‘In dono se azaadi’.
He also claimed that the channel had decided not to cover the police brutality inside Jamia’s campus.
Newslaundry also spoke to Purushottam Vaishnava, managing editor of Cluster 2 at Zee Media, where Nasir had been shifted to 3 months prior to his resignation.
The problems started much earlier… His work was not good enough and the discussion about removing him was going on. I intervened, considering he was a senior, and took him to Cluster 2. Even after the shift, all he did was complain and not work. And regarding our reportage on Jamia, he can’t take editorial calls, he is head of the video team.
Meanwhile, Nasir has also made a Facebook post regarding his resignation.
He has also stood his ground and has said that his concern is related to India and its constitution.