How This Sensationalised Journalism is Affecting Sridevi's Image

Legendary actress Sridevi's untimely demise was a huge shock to her family, industry members and the people of the nation. She was an icon to the world, a doting mother towards her daughters - Jhanvi Kapoor and Khushi Kapoor and a caring wife to her husband, Boney Kapoor.

While most of us were asleep when the news of Sridevi's demise broke; by the next morning, the world couldn't stop mourning over this tragic news. Social media were flooded with images of the late actress with celebrities and her fans offering their condolences through words.

Amidst the various posts, the one piece of news that was startling was that of Sridevi's death being linked to Boney's ex-wife and Arjun Kapoor's mother Mona Kapoor's demise. The piece read somewhat like, 'Sridevi, Mona's demise is a bizarre twist of fate - Both of them died before the debut of their children - Jhanvi and Arjun respectively'. This was unnecessary to next level!

After this post and of course media's speculations about the cause and manner of Sridevi's death; convinced me that more such blatant lies and opinions are on their way.

After this, what shook me were statements like 'Side effects of her lip job', 'her death is a result of drug overdose' etc. While comments like this brought unwanted thoughts in the minds of the viewers, this all is slowly affecting Sridevi's image.

Here's an incident, 'I was traveling in a local today where a group of female seated beside me were busy sharing their piece of mind over this incident. One said, why did Boney go to surprise her? Are they newly married that he will surprise like this? While the other went on stating, Sridevi died because of her own causalities. She must have been consuming all these fat burners and excessive alcohol that took her life'.

I uprightly blame the media for exaggeration of false claims and putting these sensationalised thoughts in the minds of the people.

Yesterday, later in the day, forensic reports of Sridevi were out and the reason for her death was different from the initial cause of death. It was confusing for us all as the report stated, Cause of death - Accidental Drowning.

https://twitter.com/gulf_news/status/968089917485182976

What followed was a stoop level of Journalism on the screens of the Indian media channels on the basis of the forensic report. The headline read, 'Last 15 minutes of Sridevi's life' with a picturisation of a hotel bathroom where the late Sridevi's cut out face with a body is bloated in the bathtub while husband Boney is standing opposite to the tub.' SERIOUSLY? Further, Hashtags like 'Maut Ka Tub' or 'The Bathtub of Death' were telecasted in bold letters on the screens. Today, a hashtag like 'News Ki Maut' trending on Twitter was a befitting reply to such nonsensical hashtags.

This kind of coverage on an actress's death is tarnishing the image of the entertainment industry for the years to come.

I personally do not know how Sridevi died but will patiently wait till the Dubai police conclude their prosecution process and issues a statement from their side.

Even Bollywood celebrities couldn't stop but react to this bizarre reporting. 

https://twitter.com/FarOutAkhtar/status/968171750302285825

https://twitter.com/vidya_balan/status/968163385148928002

https://twitter.com/suchitrak/status/968152437432442881

https://twitter.com/MasabaG/status/968161935584739329

https://twitter.com/SonuSood/status/968185690906398720

https://twitter.com/SonuSood/status/968190439068225537