Newslaundry Podcast

How should readers, viewers and journalists interpret the sudden ending of a scheduled interview and the interviewee’s midway departure, in the face of uncomfortable questions posed by the interviewer?There are two possible ways in which people could look at the situation at hand. And this, in turn, depends upon two factors: the gravitas of the questions asked and the sincerity of the journalist.While it is possible that the questions posed were either sensational or inconsequential leading to the interviewee’s frustration and her/his inadvertent departure, it is also possible that the questions posed were so blunt and to the point that the inability of the interviewee to come up with the correct answer forced her/him to flee.Newslaundry had scheduled an interview with senior RSS functionary and Muslim Rashtriya Manch chief Indresh Kumar on Wednesday, July 12. The interview began at the scheduled time. By the third question of the interview, things got a little out of hand. The question asked was, “Why was co