Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy on Friday said during an event that he “feels like slapping young journalists”. The video of Reddy has surfaced on social media and is being widely circulated.
In the clip, the Chief Minister can be heard saying, “Young journalists don’t even know how to respect senior journalists. They sit in the front rows during press conferences and look at me as if I should greet them. Sometimes, I feel like slapping them. But circumstances and position come in between.”
Speaking at an event marking 10 years of ‘Nava Telangana’, Reddy said earlier he used to greet journalists politely and even sought their feedback after press conferences. However, he claimed that the nature of journalism has changed, alleging that “many journalists are now working for different people instead of showing just one truth”, which, he added, has eroded respect for the profession.
Political parties running media outlets
At the same event, Chief Minister Reddy also took aim at political parties for running media outlets to serve their vested interests. He called the practice a blow to journalism. He noted that while newspapers were once established by parties to spread their ideology among the masses, today many are launched “to cover up irregularities, protect wealth and malign those who question them”.
Reddy claimed that it was often easy to tell if a reporter at a press conference was a genuine journalist or merely a political activist posing as one. He urged media professionals to draw a clear line between themselves and individuals tied to party-run outlets.
“Today, somebody who does not even know the alphabet says, ‘I am a journalist’. If we ask him further, he replies, ‘I am a social media journalist’. And just like that, he identifies himself as one,” Reddy said.
Telangana CM vs journalists
This is not the first time Reddy has faced criticism for his confrontational approach toward the press. In March this year, two women journalists were arrested for publishing content critical of the Chief Minister and his family. At the time, he had warned that individuals “pretending to be journalists” would face punishment.
