 Very good morning to all of you, I know it's a cold day in Delhi but the roads are clearer than they have to be and I must confess that one of the things that struck me during the protest yesterday was the sheer creativity of the young mind, the posters that they put out, they are all budding advertising and marketing professionals out there. They knew how to make a good pitch and clearly this is what the new India is in a sense all about but I'm glad that today the streets are relatively open and therefore it was much easier for all of us to come here. Let me say at the very outset I deem it a great honor that I was asked to be the jury chair in the 10th year of these awards and we had an extremely interesting afternoon judging these awards. Let me also say and start off by saying is that when I told a colleague of mine that I was going to be the jury chair for the IPRCC awards the colleague turned to me and said what are you doing a senior journalist like you is going for a PR award ceremony surely so I said why what's the problem he said sir they represent the other side we're supposed to look at them as the dark side and I and my mind went back to two things it went back to that famous quote of George Orwell who said journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed everything else is public relations. Now Orwell of course saw therefore the battle much like my colleague had done as the dark side versus the light side us versus them. Polarization is not just in politics it's also between journalists and PR I guess then I thought of another story in my first month as a journalist way back in November 1988 I remember attending this editor's meeting editorial meeting at the Times of India Mumbai which was being chaired by Girilal Jain. Girilal Jain for those who are too young was supposed to be this join of journalism in his time a grisly old editor who believed that you know he had direct access to Rajiv Gandhi Indira Gandhi and all the leaders of the time and in the middle of the meeting his secretary comes and says sir someone wants to see you and he says who is it he says sir who advertising department Sikui and I distinctly remember Girilal Jain telling the editor when the editorial meeting is going on no one from advertising will come on the editorial floor this was Times of India before the Times of India had a response department and the advertorial took over can you imagine any editor today telling the person from the advertising department I'm too busy I have no time for you the world has changed from the base of Orwell and Girilal Jain I am a great believer in a sense in that wall that a Chinese wall needs to exist between editorial advertising cop com but I'm also a great believer that the conversation must begin for much too long we have not talked to each other we have talked at each other and that world of Orwell and Girilal Jain is over so I am delighted to be the jury chair for these awards because it's given me a sense of what your world is all about we all live otherwise in our silos in our echo chambers and today we cannot afford to do that not in this world this is as I've called it the media 360 world call it the multimedia age but it is a remarkable age where the media is constantly evolving where unless you change with the times you will be left behind and you can do it without compromising your ethics and integrity but for that you have to open up your mind and therefore I believe that for PR professionals for cop-com I don't know whether you like to be called PR or cop-com I don't know which is the stronger word I remember again to take the days and the times of India we used to sit in the in the newsroom in the late 80s early 90s and we used to always envy the business department during the Diwali week because whatever gifts were given were only went to the business department and they came from you know in those days they came with a reliance shirt piece occasionally a box of grapes if you were friend you've got a box of grapes but if you were in the news covering crying covering municipality no one gave us any gift there was no PR department handing the BMC it was another age and actually journalists perhaps and PR professionals thought that was okay that was the nature of the relationship that relationship in a complex world has become much more complex quite simply because information is gold what you really need is to be better informed in a more complex complicated world you need to tell a story and you need to tell the story well and frankly if you want an example of how that is done you don't need to look any further than Prime Minister Narendra Morgan as part of my marketing exercise I've learned the game of marketing I've even got my new book 2019 how Modi won India out there you must read it as PR professionals as marketing advertising professionals because I don't think anyone has understood this multimedia age better than Modi just look at that 2019 campaign office and even the 2014 campaign there wasn't an aspect of the media I've called him in the book prime time prime minister he has understood prime time better than any editor better than any editorial owner and better than any PR professional there wasn't an aspect of the entire media game that he had and he would do interviews on Fridays because he knew then it would be carried across the weekend he would choose the time at which he was going to speak in America so that it was prime time in India he would choose the kind of people that he would do interviews with including Akshay Kumar just before Mumbai is going to so the ability to understand every little aspect when do I tweet what do I tweet what do I put on Facebook it is a remarkable example of an individual who has no degree in PR marketing advertising but it's actually a PhD in it he should be Dr. Narendra Modi and Dr. Bhattra should be actually choosing him as the man of the year in the 10th year of the PR award he might even come and receive it trust me but honestly no one has understood this game better and that's because I think to his credit he has been able to open his mind to this new world there is the darker side of it of course fake news websites fake news narratives there's that darker side as well there is the ability to influence people in a manner that many will see is against the rules of the game where the ends only matter and the means simply don't do whatever it takes in a way to make sure that your message goes across even at times there I say tell a lie and that's in a way where I would advise a word of caution both to Mr. Modi and indeed to PR professionals and journalists the number of competing fake news narratives that come out have led to this new word that I'm still not able to understand called alternate facts for every fact there's an alternate fact so if you watch Arnav Goswami's program on Republic channel yesterday you think all of India was burning as a result of protests as you want if you watched another channel possibly mine you would realize that there are large parts of India where people are protesting extremely peacefully and many of these young people have come out with creative ways of protesting now which fact is true yes it is true that parts of India did burn yesterday but it is also true that an overwhelming number of people came out particularly cities like Mumbai and protested peacefully whose story do you tell as a journalist my job is to tell both stories and tell them with credibility and with concern that in every story there could be two sides as PR professionals you will probably have to tell the story that your client has told you to tell so if you are the PR agent for the BJP you will probably focus only on the protests turning violent if you were a PR agency for someone who was organizing the protests to send out a message that they're against the anti-CAA then you would tell the story of the peaceful protest the challenge for us in a way is to tell our story with credibility to tell our story with authenticity because in all these lovely words these buzzwords that I use today disruption synergy multimedia the one word that I find is spoken of less and less is credibility and frankly to my mind that is gold dust when we were judging many of the entries one of the facts that we looked at was your ability to tell that story with credibility and innovativeness and creativity creativity is critical to whatever we do as creative professionals but credibility is much more difficult and credibility is not just about one campaign it's not just about one day it's the ability to sustain over a period of time the work you do to give a journalist parallel you know we work as journalists in a way or many TV journalists our work week to week based on TRPs what are my TRPs of a week in a sense decide almost my self esteem I want to redefine TRPs I believe TRPs must stand for television respect points not television rating points we need to earn respect we need to find ways in which we can earn the respect based on the quality of the work that we do we are not box office now a PR agency may have targets your client may push you to sort of pump up his image or the company's brand image but trust me beyond the point if that brand image has hollowed out because of the reality on the ground you will be caught up at some stage or the other that gap between perception and reality can sting you as it can sting us in the media as well we might want to tell a story but if we don't tell the story well enough or accurately enough it comes back to bite us so in a sense I want to make use this address and obviously you know far more about your business than I do I do believe that the time has come to ensure that whatever information you put out is done with a complete commitment to the notion that the means matter as much as the ends that you try whatever way possible to tell the story as credibly as possible because I think when you do that over a period of time your audience your target audience learns to respect you more and I think if we can find a way that we respect each other also we respect each other's domain expertise you have information that I need to know and I may not know that sitting in an office today let's be honest today's news is tomorrow's history I tell a lot of PR professionals they're very worried about one story which has come out one little news item what do we do how do we contain the damage I say look it's out there now it's on Twitter it's on Facebook it's on TV it's gonna get blown up but today's news is tomorrow's history your challenge therefore is rather than get panic is to actually find ways in which you can build your your brand value and your brand equity in such a manner that that one story is not going to affect the big picture just as I cannot get swayed by one week's TRP you can't get swayed by that one headline it's critical that therefore you build a kind of equity that goes beyond this today's news is tomorrow's history syndrome I want to wish all of you Merry Christmas Happy New Year Santa Claus is a great brand he's the ultimate good news brand I've never heard anyone ever say anything negative about Santa I've heard something said about Diwali because of noise pollution nowadays and cracker bang but somehow Christmas tends to bring out the best in us and I really hope that that same Christmas spirit is the spirit that we take into the next decade it's going to be an exciting time we don't know what next will come I mean if I had when I joined journalism 31 or 32 years ago now sorry it's 30 30 years ago last month if I had 31 years ago if I had 88 November so if I had joined the profession and now I've known that you know I would not only have to do a story but I have to tweet about it put it out on Facebook do it for digital and also now as I've realized have an Instagram account I remember my kids finally drawing the line the other day when I told them I'm on Instagram they said whatever you do please don't put a public Instagram account surely whatever Instagram account you have is has to be private I said look as a media professional I have no choice I have to put what I say out in the public domain so we don't know what this next decade will bring what new joys and turbulence it will create but I think it's an exciting time for all of us and a time where as I said we need to celebrate in a way good news there's too much of bad news on TV what are the things and this is my final thought that I leave and maybe some PR professionals can take it forward with your clients the time has come for a good news channel in this country a channel that dedicates itself to positive news about health education environment science and technology so if you have any client out there who wants to actually pitch and sponsor such a channel please let us know we will try and find a way to create a good news today channel in the 20 in 2020 and beyond all the very best thank you very much