Zahid Wani
Srinagar: In a revealing twist to the now-exposed coaching scam in Kashmir, several local media outlets have come under scrutiny, not for investigating the fraud, but for blindly amplifying it before turning around to condemn the very institution they had earlier celebrated.
Just a day before the scam surfaced, these platforms ran glowing features on a student from ‘SKIE Classes,’ a private coaching centre in Srinagar, claiming she had scored an “incredible” 99.84 percentile in the JE (Joint Entrance) examination.
Lavish headlines, congratulatory posts, and even influencer shoutouts followed, painting the student as a rare achiever and the coaching centre as an academic powerhouse.But reality had other plans.
Soon, sharp-eyed social media users scanned the QR code embedded in the student’s scorecard shared proudly by the coaching centre online, and discovered that the actual score was only 73.2 percentile.
Not only was this far below the claimed number, it also fell short of the 94 percentile qualification threshold. The scorecard had been digitally tampered with, exposing a deliberate act of deception.
What followed was not just outrage against the coaching centre, but also against the media.
The same outlets that had declared the student a “topper” now ran stories condemning the coaching centre, calling it out for “manipulation,” “exploitation,” and “public betrayal.”Observers and media critics have pointed out the glaring ethical failure on part of these outlets.
“This incident lays bare the hollow standards of some local media platforms that don’t verify claims before publishing. They were quick to celebrate for clicks, and then just as quick to condemn to protect their credibility,” said a journalist who asked not to be named.
Even those who claim to train journalists in four months, dismissing university-level theory as unnecessary, shared the fake success without verifying the facts.
The episode has sparked a broader debate about the role of the media in Kashmir’s education landscape.
Are newsrooms verifying information before broadcasting success stories? Or are they becoming mouthpieces for institutions seeking cheap publicity during peak admission seasons? “This flip-flop reporting shows how shallow the news cycle has become. It’s less about facts and more about fast content,” said a concerned educator. “Unfortunately, it’s the public that ends up misled.”
