Sushil Rao Chilkuri

A rooster was put in a police lock-up. This happened in 2021 in Jagtial district, Telangana. During the Sankranti festival, cockfights are organised. For one cockfight, the owner of a rooster tied a sharp, three-inch knife to its legs. An onlooker was severely injured and died. The rooster was caught and put in the lock-up as evidence. On the face of it, this is an amusing piece of information. But for the police, it was a job to be done. A case had to be investigated the way it had to be.

All stories that matter make it into the news columns. What matters need not be interesting. It can simply be dry. Or informative. That serves the purpose it is meant to.

Let me mention another case. During the lockdown in 2020, a woman from Kamareddy went on her two-wheeler to Ongole to bring back her son, who had gone there to visit the place. She travelled 1,400 kilometres on the journey there and back so that her son could return home. This revealed several aspects of her personality. She was not scared to drive alone during the day and night. It was the lockdown period, but she had to get her son back.

Did this story matter simply as information? It should not matter to the general public or readers. It is the interesting part that matters. Her resolve. And her determination. Finding the interesting in what matters, or should matter, is what matters.

Russia invaded Ukraine. Two countries distant from India were at war. Why then would Russia and Ukraine even appear on my radar? Curiosity got the better of me when I came to understand that some Indian youth were among those fighting in Ukraine, on behalf of Russia. Why would this happen? I felt there was more to it than met the eye.

Initially, I assumed the Indian youth were part of a private army. I investigated further. Probed deep. This is when I found that these youth were actually drafted into the Russian army officially, recruited through private persons publicising online the opportunity, with the promise of many benefits. Those acting as recruiters took money from the applicants to facilitate their recruitment. All such recruited persons were sent to the border to fight Ukraine. Their lives were at risk. Some died.

Eventually, the Government of India had talks with the Russian government, and many such Indians recruited into the Russian army were relieved of their duties and sent back home. This is not to say that this was a result of the news reports that only I wrote. But substantial evidence of how it was all happening appeared in my news reports.

I followed an instinct that told me something was going wrong. The sniffing continued. A journalist who has a nose for news should be able to pick up a scent and continue sniffing to unearth a hidden truth. Sometimes it may be a false alarm, but the important thing is to pick up a scent.

As much as it is a professional duty to give readers a complete picture of news developments, sometimes the decision may be not to publish something. I will not call it suppressing any information, but a decision has to be taken on what purpose that information, if given, would serve. These judgements mainly have to be made when dealing with news reports where there are communal clashes.

I understood this myself during the early years of the 1990s. Former Prime Minister V. P. Singh, before he became Prime Minister, visited Hyderabad to visit some areas where a curfew had been imposed. Accompanying him, I learnt much about what had been happening there. When writing the news report, I asked myself: if I write this, even though it is only quoting people as having said that, will it contribute to restoring peace or create an even more disturbing situation?

I left unwritten many of the things that I had learnt. Peace was a priority. Feeling and being responsible was what was needed. The decision not to write anything that would aggravate the situation was taken. So no one got to know what I had got to know and what I was not writing.

This was in the early 2000s. A man had got into the tiger enclosure in the Nehru Zoological Park in Hyderabad. In the morning, the zoo staff found the carcass of the tiger, its skin removed. It was a mysterious case.

The editorial decision that had to be taken was whether a photograph of the carcass, with its skin removed, should be published. All the other newspapers too had access to the same photograph. If we did not have it, it would be considered a "miss".

My viewpoint was that we should publish it. I did not want my newspaper to look like we had missed something the others had. I understood the reasoning behind the editorial decision not to publish it. The photograph would only serve the purpose of putting off the reader. There was no need to convince the reader that the act had taken place. The officials said it. There was no denying the fact.

Having something to publish is not, by itself, a reason to publish it.

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam and I were at a reception hosted by the visiting President of India at Rashtrapati Nilayam in Secunderabad in 1989. Hardly anyone knew who Kalam was then. I recognised the well-known defence scientist he was, but that was not the time or occasion for an interview.

Years later, after he had stepped down as Chief Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister, I got to sit down with him for a chat. In 2002, at a school in Hyderabad, he told me why he asked children the same question wherever he went: "What do you want to become?" "I ask them that question so that they start thinking," he told me. So I asked him the same question. His dream, he told me, was to reach and talk to children across the country. Within a couple of weeks of our conversation, he was called for a higher national duty. He became the President of India.

Interviewing someone means you have to hear him without interrupting him. It also means listening to him by paying attention to what he may actually be wanting to convey, and asking whether they would like to say something if I had not asked a question they were expecting.

At Raj Bhavan during the Dalai Lama's visit to Hyderabad in the early 1990s, I did an interview just standing with him in the corridor. If a little time is what you get, you make the best use of it by going prepared.

I once interviewed former Union Minister George Fernandes. "It is my nap time. You have come late," he told me. "You can still take a nap, sir," I told him. "You can close your eyes and give me the answers," I said. That interview was done with George Fernandes with his eyes shut!

Interviewing a person also means really understanding a person rather than merely going by his words. For all you know, he may not have found the right word to express himself, but when publishing the interview, the person's views and opinions have to be conveyed in the right context, even if they had not used the right word to express themselves.

A heroine from Mumbai got assaulted by a Telugu film producer and actor in Hyderabad, in broad daylight, in front of everyone. She was pulled by the hair and dragged in a film studio. The next day, no publication had the news report. Only I wrote it.

I waited until evening. When she landed in Mumbai, I called her. She gave me a blow-by-blow account. I asked why she did not lodge a police complaint. She said the producer was "powerful" in the film industry and had threatened her career. She had a request: "You seem to know everything and I have also confirmed the incident to you. But please do not write it in the newspaper."

I called the producer. "We are not interested in giving our version. You write whatever you want to. We will then decide what we want to do," the person who answered told me.

Neither the victim nor the alleged culprit wanted to talk about the incident publicly. A journalist does not take sides. Every effort is made to take the versions of everyone involved, if that is possible.

I went ahead and wrote the news report. Caution had to be exercised. I did not take the name of the victim or the alleged culprit. I reported just the incident. No names were mentioned. The place where it happened was not mentioned. I believed to some extent that it served a purpose. Even if names were not mentioned, this was on record that this had happened.

I should not have been rash with Manmohan Singh. I regretted it. I told him as much. He was kind to understand.

In the early 1990s, when Manmohan Singh was Union Finance Minister, I learnt he was visiting Hyderabad and staying at the Lake View Guest House. I made several calls to the staff to speak to him before he left for a meeting, but they politely informed me he had not yet come. When I called again, the person at the other end appeared to disconnect the phone, but had not.

"Put me to Manmohan Singh," I asked. "Who is speaking?" the person asked. I repeated myself, my voice becoming more impatient, rash and brash, because I thought the staff were not facilitating the call at just the right time. It happened a third time.

"I am Manmohan Singh speaking," the person at the other end said.

I felt bad that my voice had been harsh. The staff had actually immediately connected me because they knew it was I who was calling. Manmohan Singh explained he had come to attend a meeting and would not be able to meet me, and regretted it. Manmohan Singh later went on to serve as India's Prime Minister for two terms. The politeness with which he spoke made me realise that, despite the pressure I was subjecting myself to, I should not lose control of myself in the way I spoke.

"Aashiqui", starring Rahul Roy and Anu Agarwal, was released in 1990. I was impressed with Kumar Sanu's voice. A few years later, Kumar Sanu came to perform in Hyderabad. I planned to interview him, found out which hotel they were staying in, and went there in the morning. The receptionist called up a room and told me I could see him in half an hour.

I was called in. I began my questions. He looked a bit lost. I followed up. He did not seem to understand. I asked a third question: "Why did you sing only a few songs last night? Most of the songs were sung by Sudesh Bhosle."

"Do you know who you are speaking with?" he asked me. "It is you. And I have come to meet you," I answered. "My name is not Kumar Sanu. My name is Sudesh Bhosle," he said. "Kumar Sanu is in the next room."

How could I not have recognised that I was not speaking with Kumar Sanu? It was embarrassing. Very embarrassing. I do not know how the receptionist got the room number wrong, but even if it was her mistake, I should have at least been able to recognise the person I went to interview.

Eventually, I did interview Kumar Sanu. But I should not have been so blinded as not to recognise Sudesh Bhosle and take it for granted that I was talking to Kumar Sanu.

I sat in front of Central Prison, Chanchalguda, and made a note of the names of all visitors paying a visit to a VVIP prisoner. In the previous days, I would call up one official I trusted and ask who had come to meet the VVIP. He would always say no one.

On this occasion, I trusted him again. To my shock, the other newspapers reported who all had been allowed into the jail. The official I had believed, I felt, had let me down. For this reason, I went and sat in front of the jail building. From morning till evening, I counted the number of people being allowed to visit. I even went and spoke to some of them. I did not contact the official on whom I had relied. I wrote in the newspaper what I saw.

I got a call from him. "I did not expect you to do that," he said. "I expected you to give me information and I trusted you," I told him. "You should not have done that," he said. "It was my duty," I replied.

Let us say that he simply did not give me the correct information. I relied not on him but verified my information on the ground. There was never a time that I spoke with the official again. If I could not trust him, I should not rely on him. The hot sun took a toll on me, and I continued to sit in front of the jail for several days to get my facts right. I fell sick. I was even hospitalised.

It is not necessary to have courage. Are we going to battle? There is no need to sound courageous or fearless. In simple words, journalism is about highlighting people's issues. Everything one wants to say can be said using temperate language.

One of my reports was interpreted as mudslinging. I had written a series of reports on an issue, and for one report, the aggrieved party went to court. I admitted to the court that I had indeed written the news report. The court took a view that the evidence I had put forth was not substantial. The headline, especially, was objectionable. As a matter of fact, even I felt so, but there was no point telling the court that a headline is not given by the reporter but by a sub-editor. I approached a higher court, challenging the judgment. The court upheld the judgment and still found me guilty, but said there was no need for the jail punishment imposed by the lower court.

I would not describe myself as a 'fearless journalist' or a 'fearless writer'. It is enough if one is a responsible journalist. The words 'fearless' and 'brave' are best suited for soldiers who go to war.

In another instance, I just had to make up my mind to report a news development, even though someone I knew very well would be upset about it. It is not being fearless; it is doing a job, a duty, and being responsible as a journalist.

A journalist who is accountable to his organisation and who professes to be a professional should go about his job following all the principles of journalism. Publish news that is properly verified. It takes time to verify information, and it should be understood that a journalist is taking that time to get his facts right.

The question really is: when others seem to have got those facts and have already made them public, does one still need to take time until a complete and thorough verification is done? In the digital age, one may be pushed to first publish the information, even if it is half-baked. Somebody else's speed should not determine your own pace.

Something can be understood as misinformation when someone shares it in the public domain, feeling or believing that it is true, without taking responsibility for it. Well-established news organisations largely adhere to verification, and these should be trusted rather than information shared by outlets that would rather be 'me first' in the game and later retract their report. Accuracy should determine the pace of journalism, not the competition.

AI can produce false information. It cooks up information, gets things out of context, imagines things and conjures up so-called facts. Everything that AI can do reliably and to the fullest satisfaction should be something we make use of. It saves a lot of time.

AI cannot go out there as a person to have conversations with people to gather ground truth and facts. The reporter will still need to go out there in the field, be on the spot, and do the reporting. AI is still not fully reliable in providing context. Relying completely on AI even for preparing background material, at this stage, is not advisable.

I particularly like the fact that AI presenters can be used for news presentation. It is getting better and better. I have noticed that even for translation, we have not arrived at a point where we can say that AI can translate a news report as it is meant to.

By all means, for every purpose possible, making use of AI is good, but it should be used as an assistant to deliver what exactly one wants. A journalist or the media should capture reality as it is. And only the media person can do that.

The one good thing about AI, like ChatGPT, is that it does not hesitate to apologise if it is pointed out that it has made a mistake. But then, the human or the journalist should know what the mistake is and point it out. AI should help me get my journalism right, not take responsibility for getting it right.

In the biblical book of Exodus, the first verse of chapter 23 says: "You shall not spread a false report; you shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness." In other words, stick to the truth. Stay with the facts. If you do not know, do not jump to false conclusions. And most importantly, do not allow yourself to be used by someone who has malicious intentions in getting some news published.

My first and only choice was journalism. Some who may stray into journalism as a means to an end may not quite understand why the basic principle is important. You are answerable to your conscience.

Leviticus 19:16 reads: "You shall not go about as a slanderer among your people; and you are not to jeopardize the life of your neighbor." Proverbs 20:19 reads: "He who goes about as a slanderer reveals secrets; therefore, do not associate with a gossip."

It is ultimately not your writing skills. Not your ability to be adept at gathering information. Every skill and talent is needed, but there can be no compromise on the genuine calling to be a journalist.

Presidents, prime ministers, chief ministers, royalty, film stars, sports heroes, business tycoons, Nobel laureates, scientists, judges, police officers, ambassadors, and everyone whom we know to be a celebrity or an esteemed person in society, I have met them all.

At every such meeting, I told myself over and over again that it is because of the job that I do that I happen to be meeting them. I made sure that, at every interaction, it played out in the back of my mind that we are all interacting at a professional level. Yes, sometimes one could breach the professional barrier and have interactions on a personal level, but remember always not to succumb to the temptation that information shared at a personal level should be used for professional purposes.

People should trust you enough to talk about certain things "off the record" and be comfortable that you will not write what they said and that you will not talk about these things elsewhere. This is building credibility. Do not take a professional relationship for granted and, as a journalist, do nothing by which you will be taken for granted.

A journalist should never forget that... you are the voice of the people.