Vijay Deverakonda: “We Are  looking At A Defamation Suit”

The Telugu film industry has  decided to take  on  fakenews and yellow journalism  on a massive scale. It all started when Vijay Deverakonda was accused of misusing funds raised by his charitable  organization by a website known  for its dubious writings. Vijay hit back with a  video where he  took on not only the  offending website  but all the portals and websites  publishing  false  scurrilous news. Soon after ,big names  from the Telugu  industry  like Mahesh Babu  joined hands with  Vijay against slanderous  journalism. In  an exclusive  interview with  Subhash K Jha  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 againt 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 energy.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 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 much 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.