Media Watch: A former player from Mumbai was busy yesterday. The disgraced former coach called hockey covering journalists he knows, and planted a story.

His feed was, how the Indian team for the Argentina tour traveled on rickshaw to catch the flight and how the team got the visa so late, so on and henceforth.

Every newspaper in India ignored the planted news item knowing well getting visa in the last minute has become our work ethics of sort!

Since the story is carried out by a leading newspaper and it was accorded prominence against almost nil space for India winning Australia in the AYOF in Sydney, it becomes imperative to get to the bottom of the truth.

The news item opens thus: The team went to the airport in auto-rickshaws from their Karol bag hotel . The story leads to something else subsequently contrary to this beginning.

The distance between Karolbagh to the airport will be roughly 15 km, involving at least five major road over bridges, where rickshaws are forbidden, not easy to pedal such high rises.

Therefore, it is virtually impossible and impracticable to travel to airport by an auto-rickshaw. The team has indeed left by a specially arranged bus.

Why a non-issue has got such a prominence? Because, a section in the media for whom objectivity is often a casualty, consider former players can never be wrong. It is indeed media who knows it is because of most former players, selfish and virtual frogs in the well, that our hockey has been brought to this level decadence.

Still, some buy their planted stories. The Mumbai-based former player called a dozen journalists, and only one – unfortunately belonging to most circulated paper- bought the falsehood.