When Everyone’s a Journalist

When the Indian portal Rediff.com decided to give a chance to all its visitors to ask questions to Resul Pookutty, the Oscar Award Winner, I thought they will do it a nice manner. But everything went wrong from the first moment itself. The chat was dead slow, Rasul could answer a very limited number of questions. But the worst part was rediff never tried to censor the questions ! I will call it as a terrible mistake from their side. Everyone’s NOT a journalist. And some do not know what to ask or how to ask questions in a civilized manner. I was shocked to see some very offending and irritating questions and Resul could see all that. I am pretty sure he was hurt after the chat session, even though he didn’t talk much on that. He ignored most of such questions, but sometimes he had to answer.

Chat with Resul Pookutty

Chat with Resul Pookutty

Blame the people ? Wait, It was rediff’s responsibility to censor / filter out the questions. The people who ask questions were not journalists by profession and the age group varies from a school student to veteran. And it was possible technically to do the filtering. Above all such an action was never expected from a company like rediff who are in the news business for long.

Chat with Resul Pookutty

Chat with Resul Pookutty

I can’t post the most irritating / offending ones as it will not be nice, but posting some screen shots so that for those who missed it can see how it went.

Asking questions is ok, but insulting an Oscar Winner (ok, forget the Oscar part, lets say insulting a Gentle Man) in the name of chat or interview can’t be justified.

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