Various journalist associations organised a protest at Valluvar Kottam on Thursday to denounce the “derogatory” comments made by BJP state president K Annamalai against journalist Karthigai Selvan of News 18 Tamil Nadu. The Hindu’s N Ram participated in it. Annamalai had criticised Selvan during a recent press meeting for an interview with Udhayanidhi Stalin. Despite facing criticism, Annamalai refused to apologise, claiming the term he used was taken out of context to target him. Annamalai labelled the protest as propaganda, accusing journalists of behaving like DMK spokespersons. He shared edited video clips of past interviews by the protesting journalists. Resolutions condemning Annamalai’s remarks were passed during the demonstration. Senior journalist Kavitha Muralidharan criticised Annamalai’s response, describing it as inappropriate troll behaviour, while Nakkheeran Gopal suggested media houses should boycott Annamalai for his comments.

Following this protest and the report of its coverage in The Hindu, former editor of The Hindu and the Director at Kastur & Sons Ltd., Malini Parthasarathy, wrote on her X handle, “As a major stakeholder @the_hindu, I am again compelled to call out the outrageous bias & prejudice that masquerade as news reports on our pages. The attack on the TN BJP chief @annamalai_k by a group of journalists in Chennai, especially the call to black out coverage of him, is totally unacceptable for any reputed news organisation. It will be a shocking violation of the right to freedom of expression if @the_hindu obeys this crude boycott call! The painful irony is that there’s no condemnation by the same journalists of the Madurai police booking the editor and publisher of @dinamalarweb for their report on the Ram Mandir. By no means is this a defence of the freedom of expression as claimed by these self appointed guardians of a free press!”

It is noteworthy that Dinamalar had published the report on how the Hindu devotees in Tamil Nadu were not permitted to carry out any celebration activities such as offering annadaan, singing bhajans, special pujas, etc or screening the Pran Prathishta proceedings on 22 January. This was later refuted by HRCE minister and also permission was granted by courts to carry on with the plan.

This is not the first instance of her openly challenging the newspaper. Malini Parthasarathy has previously criticised The Hindu for its bias against the BJP. During the Sengol controversy last year, The Hindu disputed the Union Government’s claim about Lord Mountbatten presenting ‘Sengol’ to Jawaharlal Nehru, alleging it wasn’t a symbol of power transfer. Editor of the Tamil weekly Thuglak, Gurumurthy contested these claims, prompting Malini to state that if proven true, The Hindu’s article would be corrected. Malini has a history of ideological disagreements within The Hindu, including with her cousin N Ram, the former Editor-in-Chief. In June 2023, Malini resigned from the board of The Hindu Group Publishing Private Limited.