K Venkateshwarlu
Hyderabad
Irrespective of political parties, politicians are finding fault with the media. They used to say time and again that the media had distorted their statements. Recently, the BJP’s Dubbak MLA M. Raghunandan Rao and others said that the media distorted their statements.
Some politicians are also threatening media persons stating that they will file defamation cases instead of fighting their political opponents and the injustices the people are facing.
Interestingly, on Friday, two political leaders, BRS Working President IT Minister KT Ramarao and the BJP’s Nizamabad MP Dharmapuri Arvind, criticised the media.
Speaking at the Abhay Tripathi Memorial Lecture at the MCRHRD Centre on Friday, KTR took a class for journalists.
Targeting media personnel, KTR said, “The media has lost its spine. Are they newspapers or viewspapers? You are not writing fact as fact and news as news. We, politicians, take a lot of beating. You, journalists, should be able to take the criticism and stand by us. There is no way the media is able to question the Prime Minister. There is a heavy information vacuum in the country. I have to read at least four or five newspapers to get information. They have become viewspapers than newspapers. The only instrument I depend on is social media. Social media has become more democratic.”
Dharmapuri Arvind said that the media has been publishing reports saying that everyone is quitting the BJP and joining the Congress, he said. “The media is sending everyone out from the BJP. The media left out only one man, that is, me. The media must confine itself to reporting news and not create news,” he said. BJP National Executive Committee Member Vijayashanthi tweeted on Friday to express her uneasiness over attending a function with former Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy who is currently a BJP National Executive Committee Member. She tweeted, “Journalist friends asked me why I left in the middle of Kishan Reddy’s oath-taking function. That is not correct. I left the programme only after extending my greetings to Kishan Reddy. However, some things made me uneasy and it was not possible for me to stay there. So I left as a leader who opposed Telangana and who tried to suppress the Telangana movement with an iron hand was also there.”