It appears even reputed news publications like Economic Times are prone to disrepute at times. In recent weeks, a series of articles appearing on Economic Times under bylines of reporters Sonali Krishna and Omkar Sapre, had falsely reported on the lack of interest from endorsement companies for Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan respectively.

In fact, in an article dated Feb 28, 2008; Omkar Sapre in Economic Times reported that LG wasn't keen on signing Abhishek Bachchan and was planning to 'drop' him due to box office .

However the truth it appears is something else. Not only were the Korean company representatives keen on signing Abhishek Bachchan, they sought to contract Bachchan to endorse LG's entire line of products highlighting their cellphone brand. However since that conflicted with the Motorola endorsement Abhishek Bachchan already was committed to, he decided to opt out of the conflict of interest.

It appears the Economic Times reporter didn't bother to contact the relevant authorities at LG and mischaracterized the terms of parting for Abhishek Bachchan from LG, and published the article stating LG was 'dropping' Jr. Bachchan.

This prompted a troubled Managing Director of LG himself to write a letter of apology directly to Abhishek Bachchan, rebuking the ET article reporter for false journalism in a national newspaper. The letter has been obtained by our sources and reproduced below. 

However such gap between the reporting and facts seem to affirm what sources in the industry claim; that newspapers like Mumbai Mirror, Mid-Day and a few online newsportals have certain writers who may be deliberately planting such negative and false stories on the Bachchans in recent months.