Did the Editors...Sleep Well Last Night?

DID THE EDITORS WHO IGNORED KARAN THAPAR'S DUSHYANT DAVE 

INTERVIEW SLEEP WELL LAST NIGHT?

One of the opening lines in a cover story that has stayed with me all these years was from The Illustrated Weekly in 1988 or 89 on Mohinder Amarnath after the fearless (on and off the field) cricketer called the selectors "a bunch of jokers". The story began like this: "At 38, when someone breaks down, you don't know where to look."

The cover was about the heroic but agony-ridden cricketing career of Jimmy. (This is not to suggest overfamiliarity. I had logged out of cricket decades ago. I don't even know who captains -- should it be captain because I heard there are multiple skippers now? -- the BCCI international team now.)  

Decades later, Kapil Dev sobbed on TV while fielding questions on bribery. So did Hansie Cronje in the witness box.

In between, L.K. Advani shed a lot of tears. But as Sankarshan Thakur wrote in The Telegraph in 2008: 

"In Advani, tears get jerked by many... causes. ...Ayodhya and its aftermath and Gujarat 2002 evidently don’t qualify."

Narendra Modi, too, has had his tryst with tears -- with Mark Zuckerburg in attendance.

But nothing -- none of the events listed above -- had prepared me for what I saw last evening. 

CORRECTION: NOTHING HAD PREPARED ME FOR WHAT I SAW THIS MORNING.

What did I see last evening? A conversation between lawyer Dushyant Dave and journalist Karan Thapar on The Wire. The interview, as usual, was brilliant, informative, illuminating and thought-provoking. For law students, it is a must-watch: Dave refers to an untested question -- can a judge be held in contempt of his own order? 

Journalists, too busy following the developments in Maharashtra and Bangladesh, can frog-march the cursor to 33:16 on the time stamp on the video.

 

Throughout the video,  Dave builds a forceful case on how Justice DY Chandrachud had done an extremely damaging disservice to the country by agreeing to "ascertain the nature of a shrine" regardless of the law that made August 15, 1947, the cut-off.

Then, Dave chokes up: "I have sleepless nights thinking about it. My wife tells me every day 'why are you getting so involved."

By now, Dave is crying and tears are slurring his speech. "I am getting involved because I'm worried about my country. I'm worried about my lovely (inaudible)."

"You don't know how much it is impacting me. Just imagine how much it must be affecting those belonging to the minority community. It's really sad.. what is happening.

"I don't know why nobody in this country wants to stand up and fight this kind of nonsense."

Dave covers his face with both hands, wiping his tears. 

The normally unflappable Thapar, who has withstood with ease the gimlet stare of Modi who needed a drink break and the aggression of Jayalalithaa, looks stunned for a moment.

Thapar recovers and speaks: "I thank you for this very very powerful interview. The emotion in your voice... the tears in your eyes speak volumes."

Dave (shaking his head): "Sorry."

Thapar: "Thank you. No, don't apologise. It was your heart that was speaking...."

Why did I say nothing had prepared me for this? Because the way most of our public figures, media and my friends who grew up in relative prosperity and made use of the State's education subsidy seemed to care anymore. It's not that they would not speak up for Muslims. Many are actively taking part in swallowing and spreading unquestioningly the utter nonsense that is being dished out by the Right wing. 

Against such a backdrop, I was not expecting someone as successful and mainstreamed as Dave to shed tears for Muslims openly and on record. I am so glad that I have been proved wrong -- as Uttar Pradesh had done in the summer of 2024.

Thapar had uploaded the video and a media release around 5.30pm on Saturday. The media release had flagged the moving moment at the very outset itself. 

I realised that newsrooms have a problem. How will they cover the interview? What will they highlight? The temptation is to go with the breakdown. But Dave's arguments that preceded his tears were also very powerful. "Tonight, news editors will need two Page Ones. Two eight-column leads with a banner," I told myself, probably a bit relieved that I don't have to take that decision anymore.

On Sunday morning, I read nine newspapers. Do you want to know how the newsrooms resolved the problem of needing two Page Ones? I return to the correction I mentioned above: NOTHING HAD PREPARED ME FOR WHAT I SAW THIS MORNING.

None of the nine newspapers carried a single line about that explosive interview. Definitely not on Page 1. I felt insulted and did not proceed any further. If any of the nine newspapers (five English and four Malayalam) carried the story inside, it would have been better to kill the story. You can insult the reader, not their intelligence.

Of course, what to carry and where to carry is the sole decision of the editor. But let us look at the competing main stories that made Page 1 today:

1. Maharashtra: The story has been done to death. The "extremely reliable sources" have exhausted all angles in the past few days. We have been told "Shinde yields", "Shinde runs", "Shinde seeks", "Shinde finds" and "Shinde sulks". All that needs to be done is when the final decision is taken, mention the date of the report featuring that particular angle and brag: "We told you so" or "You read it here first".  

2. Bangladesh monks: Ha ha. We are lecturing Bangladesh on how to protect minorities. Cartoonists face a tough challenge from external affairs ministry reporters.

3. Chennai cyclone: Perhaps ok for Chennai papers.

4. Some Malayalam papers take the cake. From the Vatican, they have splashed on Page 1 the message of Sree Narayana Guru: We all are one family.  Evidently, they either were unaware of the Dave interview (highly unlikely because most editors are social media wizards) or they did not think that the one-family message extended to contemporary India and what has been happening to minorities.

Dave spoke of sleepless nights. I wonder what the editors who ignored the interview did last night. Did they sleep well?

I was so crestfallen by the legacy media's reaction that I did not want to write anything. Then, a former news editor I admire messaged me on Sunday morning: "Hope you have seen the Dushyant Dave interview on the Wire?"

Then, a former colleague from New Delhi forwarded a clip of the interview. I also noticed that 1.16 lakh people have viewed the Dave interview. I am reassured that I am not alone. I wrote this note for the former news editor and the former colleague.

This morning, I also saw Ravish Kumar's scathing takedown on the Great Indian Digging Project under mosques. It is an outstanding episode -- more powerful than anything I have read on the subject -- and packed with well-researched material. Ravish Kumar has used arresting visual techniques to rub the salt in. In a broadsheet, the impact of such devices would have been enormous. I wonder why no newspaper thought about it. Imagine a banner headline saying "DIG-ital INDIA".

Ravish Kumar's video had drawn till noon 25 lakh (2.5 million) viewers! That is more viewership than what any newspaper can command. Is there a lesson for newspapers?

Ends

*via social media.

Courtesy: https://thewire.in/video/by-permitting-survey-of-mosques-justice-chandrachud-did-a-great-disservice-to-india-dushyant-dave

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