Ranchi: External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha on February 12 stressed that media reports should be based on facts.

"Once wrong facts are circulated, the damage is already done…as the common man takes newspaper reports to be true," Sinha told a gathering in Ranchi on the launch of Hindi daily 'Dainik Jagaran', simultaneously in Ranchi, Jamshedpur and Dhanbad.

Sinha said he would not mind if anybody wrote against him that he was "unfit for my ministry, but if one writes that I am 5 feet 4 inches tall, I will protest. Because that is not the fact".

He said, "After taking over as External Affairs Minister, I went to London. A journalist of a reputed newspaper fixed an appointment for an interview with me. He interviewed me and published it with 100 per cent accuracy.

"My interview appeared, but Union Finance Minister Jaswant Singh's photograph was carried with it," he said.

He regretted that reports based on wrong facts were prominently displayed, while rebuttals were not.

He also gave an example how sometimes the common man was least interested in news reports.

"When I was the party's spokesman, I got front page coverage along with my photograph one day. On the same day, I happened to fly and found a co-passenger with the same paper.

"I thought I would attract the person's attention. But he simply switched over to the second page, hardly noticing my presence," the Minister said.

PTI