In a thread on X, formerly Twitter, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor called out The Indian Express for doing “two somewhat shameless things”.
For context, Tharoor was already in the eye of a storm after he wrote an opinion piece for The New Indian Express that praised Kerala’s industrial growth. His party criticised him in Kerala.
Days later, Tharoor appeared on a Malayalam podcast for Indian Express. Indian Express swiftly reported in English that Tharoor said during the podcast that he has “other options” if his party no longer needs him.
In the podcast itself, Tharoor indicated that he wasn’t talking about political options. In Malayalam, he said, “Don’t think I don’t have options to spend my time. Options are always there. I have writing, books, speeches, invitations from around the world. There are so many conferences I’m invited to that I can’t attend because of politics and Parliament.”
However, media houses leapt onto the angle that Tharoor was exploring other “political options”. Politicians like the BJP’s Amit Malviya also offered opinions to anyone who was listening.
So, on X today, Tharoor criticised the Indian Express, saying it “took an innocuous statement…and made a headline out of it in English” and left him “dealing with the mess”.
He also accused the newspaper of running a “fake news story claiming I had decried the absence of a leader” in the Kerala Congress. Tharoor wrote that multiple news organisations ran with the story and when he “challenged this claim”, he was “provided an English ‘translation’ of my Malayalam interview” even though he asked for the original video clip.
Express later published a correction saying it had inaccurately translated Tharoor’s remarks on there being an absence of leaders in the Kerala Congress.
Tharoor wrote that while the newspaper got a “huge amount of attention”, “no one spares a thought for the days of abuse, insult, calumny” that came his way over something he hadn’t actually said.
Tharoor said the episode “has merely added to my profound scepticism about Indian journalism altogether, which has again maintained its usual standards of utter unreliability”.
"I write this thread in sorrow, not in anger. You cannot blame anyone for being themselves. This is sadly what our journalistic culture has become: scant regard for accuracy or veracity, lust for clickbait headlines, breathless obsession with the speculative and the trivial,” he said.
This report was republished from Newslaundry as part of The News Minute-Newslaundry alliance. Read more about our partnership here.