Thank you. you In a deliberate change with our usual practice, today we focus on the Indian media. How effectively or how deplorably has it covered the student protests? Which are the newspapers and channels that have distinguished themselves? Which are the ones that have been And what is it that the media should have done? Those are some of the issues I should raise with two most highly regarded journalist. the Indian Express columnist and author Savleen Singh, and the editor of The Wire and the former editor of The Hindu, Siddharth Vajrayan. Sivleen Singh, today is the sixth day since the present crisis started on the 20th of July. In your opinion, how effectively has the media covered this developing story? Are you impressed or are you disappointed? Not just disappointed, but very angry actually. Because, you know, right from the first... when they suddenly became a social media phenomenon. I was on a show with Barkha and there was a guy there. many names who said this they've just bought this stuff they bought you can buy followers you can do that because you know they overnight they had more followers than the bjp and the together. Anyway, I did, I think, probably the first column saying, take them seriously. This is something that could develop. And so I've actually been... them quite closely and until the march went all wrong I noticed that almost nobody in the in the main noticed that they were there. Nobody, literally, I mean, I could be wrong, but I didn't actually see anything. So I stopped looking at the television channels for news of them and, you know, depended on social media. And with the newspapers as well, I didn't see much coverage. Siddhartha Rajan, let me put the same question to you. In covering the student protest over the last six days, or has it let itself down? So, Tavleen began with big media's decision to ignore the CGP protest, the Jantar Mantar movement, as it were, when it was at its initial stages and when it was apparent to any serious observer of Indian politics that something actually was happening. My initial response to your question would be to zero in on how after the story became so huge that it simply couldn't be ignored by big media, in other words, from the 20th onwards, how the media has, you know, very, very poorly handled this. And you've had, if you just look at the violence of the 20th, and I'll focus on just one. alone, which is the use of pellet guns. by The rapid action. There's now ample evidence. You have four victims. You have... You have medical reports from her. identify the visually telltale injury signs as pellet injuries. And yet, the kind of coverage that ought to be there, and the kind of outrage that ought to be seen on evening talk shows and anchors and so on, So the sort of complete free pass that the big media has given to the authorities. of the excessive, grotesquely excessive use of force on the 20th, I think is going to go down in the sort of history of Indian media as a terrible, terrible period of poor performance and infamy. And I would say things haven't improved. You've had some channels, some newspapers being forced to devote more time to covering this as a story. they realize that's what But in the main, they have completely missed what is happening. And I would say, in fact, they are, some of them, working overtime. misrepresent what is happening and to play the government's role. you know, storyline. spoke about what he called the complete free pass that the papers and channels gave the worst aspects of the story. The one thing that I didn't find either on television or in print was questioning of the people in authority about the way they were handling the protests. I don't recall seeing or reading interviews. given the Indian situation that prevails, is that understandable or was it a serious lapse in failing? It's not understandable under any circumstances. what Siddharth said about the pellet injuries. I mean, it is outrageous that you would shoot at children, at students. But instead of discussing that on the talk shows, or actually even in the editorials, there have been very few. But what you have instead is, I was watching a program just accidentally this morning, where the justification... of doing the protest is being, you know, the onus is being put on and saying, should you not have done that? Where were you on the 20th? Why weren't you leading the protest? Where was Deep K? You guys are not leading and that's why there's chaos. And what is worse is the attention that has been given to the prime minister's midnight selfie is just, you know, you don't know whether to laugh or cry. Social media is full at the moment of, you know, how it's been seen by more people. than ever in the history of mankind and he himself has taken this up and said i thank you very much if there were I actually am really, really ashamed at the moment of the Indian media. Newspapers and the thing. This is a major, major protest. It's spread across the country. And what do we have? We have people trying to question the protesters instead of... ministers, nobody has even tried to question them as far as I can see. Let's focus for a moment on the pellets. Siddhartha Rajan, my impression is that with one or two exceptions, the Honourable One being your former paper, The Hindu, which actually broke the story of Vijayata Singh, gets a lot of credit for that. it better did Was that the right way of responding? I can understand the requirement that you want to corroborate. when news or information began circulating on social media from the 20th evening itself, but particularly 21st, of pellet injuries. And there was this one person, one young lad in hospital in particular, whose friends were speaking of the fact that he'd been hit with pellets. But the doctors were refusing to confirm. So I can understand some degree of circumspection in not rushing to cover the story. I know that in our newsroom at The Wire, we grappled with trying to assemble as much corroborative evidence something out because the police responded to social media accounts with a very firm denial. And you know so but once evidence mounted, once video footage emerged of a chap in blue uniform literally firing his gun and reporter Vipul Kumar was able to triangulate where that video was shot with where the with Ishaad's injuries you know where he sustained his injuries it became obvious to us that this was not a story that could be held back and this is something ought to have come to a conclusion they ought to have come to a hats off to Vijay Dutta and the Hindu I think Hindu has led from the front as far as the newspapers are concerned because they have not flinched back from and even in terms of their positioning of stories the kind of headlines you know and I would say some some Hindi newspapers have been like I think Denik Bhaskar's you know first first day headline where they correctly called this the largest protest Delhi has seen in 14 years whereas a lot of other papers focused on the sort of chaos and violence and being very I'm about what exactly was unfolding. But I think, you know, there is no excuse. Today, on the sixth day, when there is evidence, when you have four victims, when you have medical reports from reputed hospitals identifying the injuries as pellet injuries, why don't we have the media asking questions of the Home Ministry? I mean, the men in blue, the Rapid Action Force, report to the CRPF, who report to the Home Ministry. They report to Amit Shah. Questions should be asked of Mr. Amit Shah. a weapon that was used to such a devastating... in Kashmir. to get in Delhi. You know, Tavleen Singh, if a story like the pellet shooting had happened in the West, I take Britain as example, journalists would have doorstopped politicians and demanded answers. They would have shouted the questions across the road and shown politicians walking away, refusing to answer. They had that opportunity.
