M A Baby, a polit bureau member of the CPI(M) recently took to Facebook to express his unhappiness over the coverage of his speech by the Malayala Manorama newspaper at a book launch.
His criticism was so strong that he even asked people not to trust the paper’s reportage on the Communist Party, and especially their coverage about him.
But this probably led to confusion, as the Manorama TV channel later wrote a letter to the leader justifying its stories and pointing out to him that they had done no improper coverage.
M A Baby seems clearly dissatisfied with Manorama's response and took to Facebook again, and put up a post saying that he was talking about the Malayala Manorama newspaper and not the Manorama TV channel. Read the post here.
It all started when the leader shared a post put by a person called T Murali, pointing out the alleged distorted coverage of Baby’s speech by Manorama.
The article published in Malayala Manorama dated April 12, focuses on how the leader, during his speech, had said that the domestic lifestyle of some Communist leaders are not influenced by the ideals of Communism.
Murali, who was present at the book launch, blamed the paper for taking this part of the speech out of context, thus sensationalising the statement. The leader was simply explaining a chapter from the book, he said.
When Baby shared this post, along with his comment asking people not to trust Manorama’s stories, the coordinating editor of Manorama channel, Romy Mathew, sent a letter to the leader saying that they had carried only two stories about him- one was about his comment on JSS fighting the elections on its own, and the second one was about how he dismissed all the allegations of difference of opinion between the state party leadership and CPI (M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury on the issue of prohibition in the state. The editor also mentioned that his channel was ready to play out the entire recording to the leader or to any of his representative.
Baby's reply to Romy Mathew's letter said that though he appreciated the practice of media houses taking note of audience feedback, Baby clarified that he was talking about the newspaper and not the television channel. However, he also made a comment about how both the letter and the newspaper has failed to admit to the contorted coverage of his speech.