Sreenivasan Jain, a senior NDTV journalist and one of the network’s prime-time anchors, had to not only delete his factually incorrect tweet, but also apologize after claiming that Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin was found to be substandard and had made its way into the vaccination programme.
Jain made this callous statement, but he was forced to eat humble pie after netizens pointed out that his tweet was misleading because he forgot to clarify that the original batches of Covaxin were determined to be “substandard” were not distributed out.
Sreenivasan Jain has a history of biassed reporting, and when it became evident without a shadow of a doubt that he had tweeted false material on his social media account, the veteran NDTV journalist stated he should have framed it better and apologized, saying, “I am deleting the original Tweet. For any confusion caused as a result, apologies”.
I did clarify that in subsequent Tweets but the initial Tweet could have been worded much better. I am deleting the original Tweet. For any confusion caused as a result, apologies. 2/n
— Sreenivasan Jain (@SreenivasanJain) August 3, 2021
In a tweet sent out by Jain, he said, “These were my personal tweets. NDTV’s focus for months has been on promoting India’s vaccination campaign – which of course I support completely,”. This tweet was basically covering fire to protect his news organization from any damage.
These were my personal tweets. NDTV’s focus for months has been on promoting India’s vaccination campaign – which of course I support completely. – fin-
— Sreenivasan Jain (@SreenivasanJain) August 3, 2021
After he sent out his tweet criticizing Bharat Biotecc Covaxin, it went viral and received thousands of likes and retweets, prompting people to raise issues about the immunization programme.
What’s puzzling is that the tweets were based on a professional interview with Dr. NK Arora, and now he claims they’re his personal views, implying that instead of reporting news, Jain manufactured a report that caused anxiety for the public, who have been under a lot of stress for over a year due to the Wuhan virus, and could lead to vaccine hesitancy.
What is even more surprising is that Twitter did not even flag his tweet as ‘manipulated’ or ‘misleading’ like it does for a section of leaders and handles.
One thing is certain, Srinivasan Jain must clarify his tweet to the public, stating either that he did not understand what Dr. Arora said, implying incompetence, or that this was an intentional and malicious attempt to discredit a vaccine created in India by an Indian firm.
It’s worth noting that Twitter flagged his tweet, but he later erased it after the public called him out on his supposedly poor word choice.
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