Prabhu Chawla, editorial director of The New Indian Express, in his “Ask Prabhu” column on the website of the South-based paper.
Vol I. No. V.
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What is the real motive in having “Ask Prabhu” forum in NIE? I am following your Q/A season from very beginning but sorry to say that 90% of questions are meaningless, and I guess it’s better to have editor’s choice!
I like feeling to indulge in debate and ask questions even if they sound meaningless to some of us. A live interaction with readers also provides ideas and feedback for us follow stories.
You pick, choose and answer questions according to your convenience and avoid answering tough questions. Can you publish those questions which remain unanswered by you or have guts to answer those?
I don’t omit any question. Most of them are answered except the ones which defame others.
Which of the English dailies do you think people in South India are more likely to read?
They are reading almost all of them which are published from South India. I feel people in the south still read much more than the people from other parts of the country.
Don’t you think the newspapers in India should be classified as aligned and non-aligned by a regulatory body based on their reporting?
We don’t need a regulatory mechanism. Our readers are much more qualified to classify their newspapers. Have trust in yourself and not in any government sponsored institution.
Where should one read “carefully” to see the serial number of the questions? Were you referring to the 1,2,3,4 at the bottom of the page?
Your question no is 1796. If I can see it, why can’t you? Let me get it examined.
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Prabhu Answers
Vol I. No.I: Straight drives from the man behind Seedhi Baat
Vol I. No II: Home truths from the man behind Sachchi Baat
Vol I. No. III: My greatest feat and my greatest failure
Vol I. No. IV: No one can destroy Ramnath Goenka‘s Express
IJR 
The answers are mostly trash but I picked a gem from the above:
“Most of them are answered except the ones which defame others”. This reveals how a media person’s gutless mind works. Instructive !
A media person should not only have some courage, but also a basic understanding of laws of defamation: what he is free to do without stepping on the rights of others.
It is simple: How can a question be defamatory ? His answer could potentially be defamatory… it can put him at risk of being targetted by legal threats (which the courageous resist legally and win!). Sometimes the media person just has to speak the truth ! But that is the whole business of the media and reporting, if not, what else ?
If a media person shirks his duty and blames it all on fear of defamation laws… Ah, is there a better definition of cowardice ? Hiding behind nanny’s pallu and blaming his cowardice on the law which gives him freedom to speak the truth and voice his opinions ! Hai Hai.
Many a times I have seen the media choose headlines to attract readers/viewers immediate attention in contrast with the report. This is wrong and unethical and calls for some regulatory mechanism and to hold the reporter and editor answerable to the public, if the headline mislead the whole report, intentionally or not. The heading of the article above says `media doesnt need regulatory mechanism’ by Prabhu Chawla whereas neither the question nor the reply was about `media’ as a whole but about `print media’ in particular the newspapers. The general reader who updates information reading the taglines, gets a feel that Mr Chawla said `media (all forms) doesnt need a regulatory mechanism of any kind’. This is wrong.