 And hearing them all one by one, you suddenly feel that being in journalism is being a bit of a minefield. Challenges before journalism. Challenges facing journalism. This is a subject that we have discussed for many, many days, forget just the half and half of it. But before we jump into that, I must compliment Mr. Murad Baklar's team for identifying 40 journalists under the age of 40 and giving this country a hope for the future of journalism. How many of us are aware of who was the first Indian journalist to win the famous Pulitzer Prize? Anybody in the audience? We have all heard the Pulitzer Prize? Can anybody tell me who was the first Indian to win the Pulitzer Prize? Well, 1937, when he was still going by the British, an Indian called Gopin Vihaila working in America who was a freedom fighter and had gone to jail in California for the Indian freedom movement was the first Indian to win the Pulitzer Prize. Was he related to it? Any chance? Unfortunately, I am not related to how I wish I was. Just that. There will be a lot of love in this country starting with your heart now. I don't really care about that. So let's get back to the problem. We have with us some of the finest minds working in our business. They have been on television. They have been behind the screen. They have been training people to obey the television and fight. For me, journalism is primarily the search for truth and in the search, creating credibility. Aren't we doing that? In 2020, when Twitter is being acquired by Tesla, you all are the challengers for a nation. I would like to start with Dr. Zurobi. You are teaching at a student. What are you telling your students? What is happening in others? There will be a lot of love for having me here in this town. When I teach my students, we try and be very, very objective. When I teach objectivity and news, there are some students who ask me about the business side of the news. So I also add all the classes related to media management and business side of the news and how business models are changing or how D2C model is now going on. There are so many challenges that we see in the industry today, beginning from job security to wage boards. The flood of media is at fake news in the media. We try to deal with misinformation and inform our students, teach our students, deliberate on topics like how to combat fake news. We try and also include the technological part where we teach them artificial intelligence and what Vikram Chandra was just talking about. I always tell them that you should be a one-man army if you have to work with an Indian media company. What do you deal with them? Same, one-man army. One person army? One woman army. We have India. What do you deal with them? We just challenge facing a modern journalist. Nobody is stepping into this room. I have a great afternoon to all of you and thank you Anurag and the entire team for putting up such a great show. What you have said in your introduction kind of sums up the real crisis in journalism today. If anyone says there is no crisis in journalism, they are lying. They are completely lying. The very fact today that it has become an us-versus-them journalism is extremely sorry. We have never been taught that in a journalism school. I studied at the Lady Sri Yogi. We have never been told that it is going to be us-versus-them. Truth is true. You cannot have different versions of truth. You can have facts. You talk about objectivity. But I think it is again unfair just to point a finger at the TV crew there. I have been a television journalist for over 18 years now. One-eight. I will have the good fortune of working across the best news grants with the best editors. You know everywhere you get to learn, you get to invite a lot of things. But I have not been told or say anywhere that you need to say this, you need to do that. I think that is completely and completely up to an individual journalist. Because at the end of the day, it is about your and everyone's. You know, I worked with any TV, I worked with Einstein, I worked with the public. So, you know, I have learned most of the English media of Jonah to understand. And the very fact of the day that TV is held guilty of putting forward its fires, its opinion, yes, it has. You know, we were just listening to Rahul Shiv Shankar and he is not here right now. But I would disagree with so much he said. He is an ideal world to come and sit here and say that you know it should be this, that definitely should be that. But I think each one of us today is responsible for what we do in whatever field we are coming from. I mean, I cannot blame a particular editor for behaving in a certain manner. No, there are so many times that, you know, you might just see that something is happening on some other channel, you know, they are reporting in a particular fashion or whatever. You might just be pressed to say, oh, you also have to do this because you have to complete. But then I told my editor, I am not doing this. I was told just Rahul Shiv Shankar, put this your piece and it is your and no matter what we are doing in life, I said no, there is no need to do that. I will decide being on the field what is important for me to do at that particular time. If I think the situation merits that I need to run after him, I need to chase him, I will do that. But if it was not required and it is just the kind of, you know, for the sound effects, the sound system, I am not doing that. But likewise, now, what we see is there was an independent media. And I think all of us should be independent because that is what journalism is. We all should be independent. You can have opinions by it, but I think a journalist cannot put my opinion or throw my opinion, push my opinion, anyone. That is being unfair. That is completely being unfair. But the last point that I want to say before I toss it back to you is there is still a lot of movement in the social media. But I think also in the social media, now you see this tendency of speaking sides, speaking and choosing sides. And I think that is again very, very important. Because the moment you start distracting your viewer, the moment you start putting in conspiracy theories, the moment you start compromising with facts and the moment you start creating a surround system, there is something that you want to hide. Wow. You are a brave person to be able to say all that. A lot of people I know in this business don't have that net. They don't appreciate that. There's a movie called Citizen Game, considered one of the finest films ever made. And there's a line there. There's no war in Cuba. That's what the journalist told the editor. If there's no war in Cuba, it went on. So are we inventing you rather than making you? That's my question. Swathi. Swathi, one second. I just want to say one little thing. If it's not about being brave or being courageous, I think every one of us is going on. Any journalist that I know, my friends, a lot of them are sitting here right now, they're doing far better than what we know. But the tragedy is that we start identifying news with just say five to ten people. That is wrong. Every journalist throughout the field is doing tremendous work. I mean, we really need to identify that. We need to appreciate that. It is not easy to do this. It is not. And the news is just not limited to the five, six anchors that you see on crime time every day. News is so much more. As these anchors and your people how many times do they really go out with you? They don't do that. I mean, I can just tell you one little thing. A lot of them cannot go out without their security to provide their security. It's that bad in a lot of areas. The moment you start being inside, that becomes dangerous. Because you are putting your opinion on to other people. And I think that needs to be called out right away. What is the biggest challenge that you face? Swatiji. Sure. Thank you for this panel. I think the important question that everybody is talking about is the challenges that we face. And I agree 100% there are tons of it. And more so now because of the way the world has changed, the way we consume news, the way the youngsters now look at television, or print, or social media as mediums to take news back with them. Let me be very candid to tell you that these youngsters in fact, they don't depend on any of the television news that they see, or to that extent they believe in it. A lot of these young college-going kids have their own opinions on things. And they do know the darker side of the media much more than what we perhaps when we were going up understood. So I guess the challenges are finally and to point out one being the biggest in my mind is the information overload and the ability to identify, address the issue in the most objective manner is the challenge that we face. And when you said to be invent news or to be presented as news. Well, frankly, as they say, a good story is not a story. And unfortunately, unfortunately, we are told and we tell our teams to find out things that people are not aware of. Now, it need not be negative always. As I say, it has to be something that people should know and feel that this piece of news is giving them something more than what they are doing. So I think information overload has to come down in whatever way it can. And I think accuracy and speed has to be given as much importance with the credibility of the information. So the checks that we do at our organization is something that we need to also continue the social media world because a lot of fake news stuff and people are talking about it in the previous balance. That has to be addressed. I think some kind of regulation and self-regulation also becomes a critical and important issue. So I think obviously this is a challenge in my mind. Thank you, Om Swadji. Dharon, you have a legal background and she is talking about regulation. Do you think external regulation is required in the journalism? Especially television. Thank you, Dr. Bhuvanlal. Bhuvanlal was the instigator with an NFC which I would like to share with all of you. You can have a problem, generally try to break it into the smallest to make it easier to understand and tell you how much. There was a channel and a prominent editor. He was writing a story of illegal parking. Now parking is a big issue in all cities of India because nobody follows the development plan. The development plan is what is made for each city. So every printing needs to have a parking. He had a huge campaign, illegal parking in every venue and near my office there is nothing about it. The campaign ran for a while. I saw the campaign and since I do permanently a legal show I called him. I said, sir, I have visited your office many times. Your ground floor and your basement you don't have a basement parking. The ground floor which should be used as a parking you are using it as an office. The second floor should have a refuge area for fire safety. You don't have a refuge area. You have a studio on the 7th floor. So what reality is that you are talking of, you are commenting yourself. So the first notice from the municipality or the authority should come to your office. The campaign was discontinued within the next 10 minutes. The problem is there we don't read and then we try to, in a sense give huge summons. That's the problem with editors. You are not read. So it is important that if you are doing journalism you go to your BPMC Act which is the Government Provincial Municipal Corporation Act which if I should tell all of you is applicable in Delhi because it was co-opted for all other municipalities in India. It is important for us to read these basic documents. Of course you can discuss the duty issues which of course a lot of people in here won't read about. But what you see is day to day is more important. And for that you have to read your basic law. In the absence of basic reading so I tell you because I give you this example I was sitting with an industrialist and he told me one thing. A lot of your news anchors and a lot of your presenters looked like they just come out from the rank into the studio. There is a lot of form. There is no substance. They talk absolute rubbish for 25 minutes and so I don't watch TV anymore because it doesn't seem that this chap has read anything. He speaks very good English. The English is very slick. Looks very good. But when he talks it makes no sense. So in a sense we are alienating our core audience. Of course as we pointed out you know there are some issues which are taken up by the media on a day to day basis which have got a lot of people watching them popular issues. If it is a technical issue people will watch. If it is you know some other popular issues on the dates of politics we give a lot of value to statements even by important people. For example anytime anybody is made a minister you make him a chief guest and he knows about the topic or more. Just go back in time but you invite that person if he was not in the chain so I remember a health minister who I won't like to name. He came on the dais once in one of the functions we used to speak about health and just recited movie dialogues and everybody was laughing at him of course. So I mean there are many things to correct here but what we have gone on as media because today is not media not politicians. Is that we stopped reading and started sermonizing simply because we have a mic in our hands. So if we just go back to reading the books and then talk maybe we start to make better sense and coming back to your question now you said about external regulation see anywhere in the world especially in democracies no external regulation works because any form of external regulation and because I planning our media and law office will be mandated by bureaucrats judges. There will be no media guys sitting there. They will sit in judgment paying payout on what editors do and that will be a big problem because then everything that you read or what is written about will be scrutinized from the point of law. It will become very difficult to work so no external regulation for media can ever work with any democracy and I think we should we should not even talk about these things but we have censorship of films but that is censoring itself is a wrong word censoring in my view shouldn't be there of course for some if you are inciting hatred there should be censorship but why should there be censorship for hooting movies. There is no case even the OTTs came in. OTT showed all kinds of conflicts. Was it bad conflict? No. But you have censorship for films but no censorship for OTT and OTTs will be perfectly fine so that is my limited answer to your question which is all of you are saying very important things. I wish we had more time but I am going to continue till I stop because these are the issues we are facing there is an issue of celebrity culture for example and you invite people to speak on subjects with who have no relationship so just because somebody gave me an orderly doctorate I go to the channel calling me and they said we are going to talk about vaccination doctors now can you speak I said what kind of doctors are you think I am you know this is no relationship between me and the medical profession he was so insistent you know there is just the way the research is done today about various subjects and limited time they get to put together a panel maybe a few of them start calling you for a 10 of a panel so they get 2 hours are we creating a society in which celebrities are more important than the real issue of the country's facing a marriage of two individuals becomes a subject of national importance and not the life of a javan who is serving in the border right now and how his family is doing are we going in that direction? sadly yes so what should be a priority of a country that is now celebrating its 70 year of independence? I completely agree and I say that it is us who are making that happen I mean all of us with the views that we give to such all the attention and all the importance to be friends to make it a grand event right I mean I think we want to watch it it's like seeing that the more likes and the more followers you get out that's how you are by the way these days evaluated so you know so the marriage of the two stars become a big talking point because people want to watch every move that they can get to know of that so it's really about how the society is reciprocating to that news and how we are then forced and also I mean in many ways wishing to you look at the paparazzi and the kind of stress that it creates for all of us to the extent of the safety of these people and how we just do everything to get them one shot right of this idea and what does it give it will be it's just an improvement and as you said the real issues are getting completely straight away and I said the good news never serves it's just the tougher situation that one talks about is one that's everyone's attention in this case entertainment obviously the biggest form of news setting at this stage and that's why we have the opening of celebrations but we are at deeper civilization we have been around for thousands of years why do we get into fabulous issues why do we get into fabulous debates evening after evening and you get some of the most obnoxious people you know we don't really need to watch they become celebrities because television and the journalists are giving them time whose data is this that people are watching you when you are in the studio you see people watching people don't watch you they go out on the street and ask people watch you and you are most of the times they just see over the kind of actions and the kind of theatrics they don't listen to you at all they are silent they are passive in your Netflix it's not that I was talking to a Gujarati investment sometime back in Delhi I said in your news what am I like why am I good to make it with the step back step back so in the end what happens is it's all good to speak in clip accent but in that they care when this chap pays to the cable owner what are you giving him if you are now giving him or watching you you have been sitting in the studio and nobody is watching you I think that being given in the class we don't know the world like anybody but we take two questions let me just ask two questions yes sir just two questions I have a question why don't we ask the question to the audience I think I think we have a lot of students I think in the back I don't know what your opinion today of news it is it was very fashionable I remember during our time when we studied there was so much of glamour to be a journalist you had a completely different outlook of what being a journalist is still you were thrown into the real field you were told to go and get coffee for people going to your faves and I am like shit is this why I studied I mean I want to do something different I want to think about a change you are going to bring a change you are going to do a story you are going to do this production we all had now young journalism students or anyone who studied I mean why don't you spend time watching news on television what is the kind of news you really watch this us versus them doesn't happen close to your society your peer group is it becoming a power of our lives us versus them is an empty room empty dining table in this country probably around the world I see the young ones in the back and some of them are raising their hands in the meantime a mic reaches you your voice will reach us please go ahead my question is oh they need a mic in the meantime I also consider myself from the same age group and to be fair and honest I grew up watching some of the journalists that I adored and admired and honestly kept I mean their words meant more to me than my own fathers and I actually lost all of that admiration and love and all the adjectives that you can add on while I saw people competing not for the fact but for the PRPs and of course for the eyeballs and the attention and honestly some of the castors out there are not really competing with each other they are competing with each other it's all about getting the attention but anyways, yes please you haven't got the mic you haven't got the mic, wow please stop that's why we do that a lot so my question is with respect to sensationalism recently there was this Rajaswara debate in which one of the BU professors has given this theory with respect to sensationalism and news is that because we live in this capitalist society competitiveness is requisite as a bike product we have the social anxiety and in order to specify social anxiety we refer to something which is relevant to us and that is sensationalism so if sensationalism is providing tranquility for somebody why is it available that sensationalism provide you tranquility really? recently there was this report to who was judging and telling me we just discussed this after the debate yes so this is a good point sensationalism again credibility and truth, facts sensationalism I mean we know the problem the best part is much like the congress party we know what the problem is but then we do not want to solve it it is someone who will come and solve this for you because we all consider model judgements or platforms that make our observations but when it comes to watching these channels I don't know what they give to you and we will also have a new point they are so bad they are dividing this society so I don't know the circle keeps going on and on thank you for being sensational speakers sensational battle and we will continue the sensational conversation thank you