We Need a Larger Dialogue Around Journalists: Vinay Shukla at MOG
Renowned Indian documentary filmmaker Vinay Shukla screened his film ‘While We Watched’ at the Museum of Goa, Pilerne.
“I deeply respect journalists for their efforts and the emotional labor they undergo,” says Vinay Shukla.
Panaji, December 2024: Journalism needs structural resolutions, according to renowned Indian documentary filmmaker Vinay Shukla, whose recent documentary ‘While We Watched,’ based on senior journalist Ravish Kumar, ex-editor of NDTV India, made waves internationally. Shukla also pointed out that journalists have very poor rights, protection, pay, and contracts within and outside organizations.
Shukla screened his film ‘While We Watched’ at the Museum of Goa, as part of its interactive series ‘MoG Sundays.’ The film navigates his resolution of journalistic independence in the backdrop of general media bias in India.
“We need a larger dialogue around journalists and what is happening to them,” said Shukla, who, despite covering an issue that showcased the disintegration of press freedom in India, went a step ahead and tried to examine the larger journalism ecosystem in India.
Shukla, who spent two years alongside Ravish Kumar and closely documenting his life as a journalist, gained an inside view of the pulse of India, witnessing firsthand how a wide range of news, including every national tragedy, made its way through the media newsroom.
“I am deeply respectful of journalists, honestly. Their job is very, very hard. We don’t quite understand the emotional labor and the emotional toll that it takes on journalists to be able to witness tragedy every day, narrativize it, and try to find some justice for those who are affected by it and build a larger and better society every day. I think it’s a tremendous moral and emotional cost that journalists pay, and I am deeply in awe of them,” said Shukla.
“This film is an emotional experience of a journalist who is in his late 40s and dealing with a mainstream current that is absolutely against everything that he believes in. It’s reflective of so much more in the sense that this is exactly how we fight for our ideals,” supported Shukla.
Speaking about what kind of impact he hopes his film will create, Shukla responded, “I hope it makes all of us worry a little more about where we are going and find a little more solace in each other’s company, those who are like us and those who are unlike us.
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