 So yeah, it's my pleasure when I can't skip that line, it's a privilege to be sitting with you today. You know, you've been in this industry for almost 30 years. First question that I would want to ask you is, how have things changed for us in the last 10-15 years? And do you believe that there is a lot of polarization and misinformation around us now? Thanks Nazia and thanks Samarag, it's great to be here. I just wanted to create a bit of KD production because this year is 30 years in journalism for me, so that's fantastic. Just why I'm not asking is a bit older, so he's a bit older than me. And I think the biggest achievement, if I look back, was not just of course the interviews or the stories I did, because I started as a journalist, but the fact that I think I was the first woman editor of a major TV channel. And I think that was a major class ceiling which I broke. And I'm very happy that that is something which I think young journalists should be most proud of today, that I think journalism is the only profession which is very gender neutral. In the terms of if you're good enough, you make it to the top every editor. The sky is really the limit and more. So as an editor, because that really for me is the key component because as an editor it is your job to make sure that you represent the editorial values of the group you are an editor of. So I think what has made me proudest in the last say 10-15 years is that any TV has stood apart. I often don't like to use the word brand or I don't like to use the word profession where you only talk about journalism. Because for me journalism has always been a fashion and I believe all young journalists, you can't get into journalism because you think you're going to make good money or you're going to have a good life because you're going to have neither of that. And if a young person ever comes to me and says I want to be an anchor, just a pick you probably won't get the job. Because anchoring is for us, I wouldn't say the lowest run, but not what you should be as a journalist. First you should be a journalist. You can be a journalist on the news desk. You can be a journalist as a news producer. I'm very happy that these awards actually looked at producers, directors, graphic designers. Because I believe there are journalists who are telling the story. So I think as editor what is key is that NDTV created, I wouldn't say created. I think NDTV is the flag bearer of journalism which sadly is extremely regimented. I think a young journalist asked Rajeev that what happens if I don't want to do a story for PRPs. I mean I don't know how many of you know it, but NDTV actually existed. We don't, even though it's a decision which would cost us both advertisers, right now I'm writing it, it cost us cross a revenue. NDTV said we don't believe in ratings. We don't think journalism should be measured by what PRPs are. And we think PRPs are bad for journalism. So we've exited. So if you don't do PRP journalism, you can apply to NDTV. And I think they're just sorry. They're coming back to the Webster. Yeah, I'll put the right information in this information. In the context of that, I think a large, I mean I just had to ask the room, when did we ever, before the last, I said forget, 10, it's been 7 years, ever see so many Maulanas and Maldives and Sadhus on prime time television? Why would you ever interview Maulana or what he feels on anything to do with news? You may want to interview him if you're a religious channel, or you may want to interview a Sadhu if you're some Sadhana TV. But why wouldn't NDTV or India today or public TV want the Sadhu or Maulana on obviously to be polarized, they have, we know what their views are, where the people who you look up to, where the inspirational voices. That's what I hope that NDTV stands for. We believe in people who make news and whatever that may be, maybe a politician, maybe a sports person, maybe a business icon, maybe as I said, somebody who's led a movement to talk against the young girl who's been gang raped when it's decided to fight. That's the newsmaker for you. So you agree that there's a lot of polarization and misinformation around those news teams? I think it's horrifying. In fact, for the first time, I don't know if you'll know, but the last week the INV Ministry is interviewing, they actually said to Indian news channels that you can't, that the news you're reporting is actually angering our family companies because I mean, I don't even want to call it news, but it's gone so crazy. And you just look at the list of it, the nuclear bomb, hub, Hoga, the Ukraine, they completely made up stuff. For any journalist, it's the biggest insight when the government is your watchdog. Journalists are government's watchdogs. When and how do you think this deterioration happened? You know, I mean, it's easy to blame it on PRPs, but I don't think that's the only fact. The PRPs have been there for quite a while. I think that's one of the factors only. So I don't think it's really only on PRPs, but I think, you know, often it was perhaps, if you look back at the industry, first there's Brutal, then you had very few, TV was the first private TV channel, so I guess in a sense it was a monopoly. Then you had other channels break away, except people, which was good. But I think they realized that then to catch up, you had to create a Dhamaka. So first the Dhamaka was used to Dhamaka, then the Dhamaka came over, that's boring. So what is the next Dhamaka? Then you look at Acha Mesa on site. And then when new governments came to power, it became about the very same people who would be running after one group in power, now shifted to the next group in power. So then it became about, you know, we keep saying at least that journalism is the voice of the voiceless. But sadly, journalism has become the voice of power. And that's happening much more on TV news, that's a very dangerous trend. And I hope, I mean, I was actually very, very happy because it's so soon we don't write journalists who are fighting against that. And I think really the people who have let down television journalism is not journalists. But I think really it's often been management and corporate influences which have very let down journalism and what everyone has to fight against. So because I know we are short on time, I just asked two more questions. One, how at NDTV do you think that is an issue? You know, what kind of training are you giving to your young journalists? How do you, or here we have a lot of young journalists, you know, how do you tell them to be truthful, stick to facts, do justice to the journalism and yet, you know, be smart or, you know, just how do you manage your way, you know, that you don't have a situation case against you next morning. You're not struggling that, you know, many journalists' careers are at stake right now because, you know, they're trying to report things that... We have many situation cases against us. So you're a big group, like you can fight it. You know, you can't. It's not a very big group or a small group. It's a very tough thing to fight the legal process. I mean, you all know what it's like in India. It's not easy. But it is something I think you have to, as I said, journalism is not an easy job. So you have to believe that you have to resort in court. So you have to believe that India is still the greatest democracy in the world, that times may be tough for now, but things will change and we will see that. We see the election after election. No government is there forever or no viewpoint is there forever. I think for young journalists, I would say it was just that... You tell the truth, you report what you see. And I think if you're reporting what you see, you will automatically find that you don't have to make up the kind of stories you see on there. Like, every day there's some yatra. We see so many yatras happening. These are yatras that are just being covered to create some kind of disharmony. I think that at the end of the day, news is what matters. If you focus on that thing, you don't have to get diverted by other things. And I think that's one of the reasons perhaps that in this 40 under 14, you will see that many energy young journalists are there. Do you think as MIB or IVF are doing enough to tackle this issue and give more confidence to young journalists? See, I think it's not really... I mean, we don't want ministries or governments interfering with news. We have an industry body. We have an industry body also. We do have an ethics issue which comes to them. But I think if it becomes an everyday issue, they can't deal with every complaint. When it comes to start of an editorial policy, they can't deal with every complaint. I think actually the power lies in the hands of the viewer. It's the viewers you should find that will start rejecting TV news. We went through a crisis of credibility just a few years ago where you found that people weren't trusting what television news. I think what's happening is trust has become a differentiator. So, as I said, when you ask about with any TV existing ratings, how do we do that? Because we believe that advertisers feel that people watch us for trust. And they come to us because that's something you can't put a rating on. But isn't it true that there's also too much polarization in that, you know, that if you vote for a particular party, you want a political channel. And if you vote for another political party, you watch another political channel, and you have too much exchange of news articles that are happening on WhatsApp, then this is the view and this is the right view. No, so if you're saying that only people who vote powerless watch NDTV, I'm not sure that's a valid clue because that's the claim that people who do not watch NDTV make. But then you have very few viewers right now, and I can show you my YouTube ratings. I'm not reflecting that at all, which is... No, but how do you tackle this kind of polarization? I watch NDTV, but... No, sir, I think of it, I think that at the end of the day, your journalism has been out, and that people can spread rumors. I can tell you, the BJP social media watches us very closely, and we have to... We welcome them, and I think if you often would see also that in most offices, whether this is the government or Airports or whatever else, or even Cafe Coffee Day, or even other interesting, you'll find the channels due to NDTV. So I do think that just YouTube is one great way of seeing what people are watching. I often... Ravi shows one of our most popular journalists. His TRPs used to be zero, and we just expand. We all know that his TRPs are not zero, because our YouTube views are millions. But we have come into this strange society that we just believe what I told you. So the same way we talk about polarization, I absolutely don't believe that people watch NDTV or only believe in one certain... This is how we see people debating. So does that affect you? If you debate a lie, doesn't make it any more truthful. So the same thing with polarization, you can repeat a hundred times that these people hate each other. But that's the sad reality of our gay business. Well, again, I wouldn't generalize that only NDTV does that. I don't think just NDTV, I think of course many other... So you can choose what to watch. You can choose whether I should put on X-Channel or Y-Channel, you know what I'm trying to say is that why do we have to choose the channels? I mean, why can't we have most channels talking the same thing? I mean, why do we have such extreme views or extreme point of views on different channels? Well, I think that is a debate. It's also going to a freedom of speech issue because you're free to broadcast if it doesn't violate the Indian law, what you want. The point is of course that you can't that's why you need courts and police that if you does violate it that people will step in. You can't have say X-TV say something and not get away with it. But I think that the more people speak out against this rubbish, I mean, it started as a Shansi Rajput case to get a polarization, but the more people speak out against this I think it will definitely change. But I would, I mean, again use this platform or use every platform that every TV journalist should make sure that they don't forget about making India better, making it important that you may be just a reporter within the P2C on the ground but what your P2C says matters and you need to be true to your conscience for that and just to again tell people that I mean, you know, you think that this is, I want to get a TV so I'll do it in any way possible. When you go to other organization and they see that you've come from X-Channel or Y-Channel you're going to have many people thinking whether they take you seriously or not. So it's not just getting into television in any way possible because it matters extremely a lot. So I'll just briefly ask to one last question. So there was this PID fact check which was launched. Do you think it has helped or do you think it has been counterproductive? That's the last question. I'm not asking your questions. Well, the PID fact check it is in our case, we fact check the fact checks and we got back. See, in journalism everyone will make a mistake. I'm not saying of course the TV also has made mistakes, we hopefully learn from our mistakes and everyone will make a mistake. The point is I'm making the mistake to forward a particular agenda whether it be communal, whether it be political. That's the issue. Are you an honest journalist or not? You can never find any on a journalist's mistake and so fact checks are welcome everywhere. Why PID? We see so many people on Twitter doing fact checks if they're right good for them and hopefully any organization of any credibility will do their own fact checking if they can get it on so often. Thank you, Sonia. I think I finished it exactly in 15 minutes. I've been sent in hope that it has to be finished in 15 minutes. So, you want to take more questions? You have time? Should we ask somebody in the audience? Just one, we only have one. Since you all are absolutely excited about the questions. Yes, just one. Thank you. No, I don't think so at all because I mean as I said in fact I've seen our viewership whether it's on YouTube we don't have these anymore about but we have seen our digital viewership and our television viewership go up a lot so I don't think at all and I think most of the names you mentioned whereas there's often competition other newspapers just coming into there which may perhaps be the reason but I don't think these YouTube channels or something, people may have watched the sensation they may have watched the painting but I think we'll see that any news story whether it's COVID whether it's a war whether it's what happened in Balakot people will switch to credibility and this has saved all young people eventually what will be if you're thinking of the long game it will be your individual credibility that will stand out so you know so people will say okay I'll just do this for now and no one will look at it and disappear nothing disappears so you need to build on your credibility along with your CV and look at even the organizations you look for organizations which you respect don't disappear on edge which you yourself respect which you would read for information other organizations that you should look at and I don't think I think very credibility will be the biggest differentiator in the years to come Thank you Sonia, thanks a lot Thank you