Karan asks one question... interrupts before Soni completes her answer. He rephrases the same question... again interrupts before she completes her answer. And this nuisance continues for the entire 5 mins, all this while he attempts to get an answer that he wanted to hear and not taking anything else in. In fact the very obvious eye rolling of the I&B minister was warranted for his childlike interview technique and she even went on to end the show stating that "you should change the format" of the show.
I have been bumping into Karan Thapar's interviews on the telly since quite sometime and I have to say the poor chap has only deteriorated with age.
Karan dude learn your basics.... an interviewer when asking a question needs to respect his interviewee and at the very least should listen and hear out his or her answer. If you can find faults with the answer or counter it with fact, do so. If there is backpeddling or display of uncertainty in the answers of your interviewee then sure, go in for the kill. But dude learn to listen. If you remember even the respected Mr. Jetmalani, who supposedly is your friend, nearly kicked you out of his house due to your distasteful interviewing technique. Some excerpts below - am suprised that complete sentences are attributed to Mr Jetmalani.. which Karan never allowed to happen
"Ram Jethmalani: Don’t expect me to calm down when you are crossing all limits of an interviewer."
"Ram Jethmalani: I am sorry, Karan. You are taking advantage of my hospitality. You are in my house that’s why I don’t want to tell you that. You are falling to low of every kind of standard of morals of an anchor and a television interviewer. You are taking advantage of the fact that you are in my house and that you are my guest. Otherwise, I would throw out somebody here."
And the ethical grandiosity of Karan
"Karan Thapar: Are you a man of character? Is this the behaviour of a man of character?
What I can't understand is how totally incompetent people as yourself are around for so long man? Are we that starved for good media professionals? Or does just placing two fingers on your chin and holding a pen while questioning make you a superstar on the news circuit?
OK, now I don't want you to crib and say that I'm only being critical. I will also offer you suggestions on how to improve:-
Start with the Larry King Live show. Amanpour, The Doha debates (watch the arbitrators manage the debaters) and any of the anchors on the BBC News channel. Being an aggressive interviewer is good but being too aggressive and inattentive to your guest is disrespectful and makes for a pathetic interview- hasn't anyone ever told you this? god! please!
If you are as wise are your age you will take this constructive criticism and do something about it. If not I hope I stop being so unlucky while channel surfing.
PS. Knowing Karan's technique if he ever reads this I am sure he would have read half of the first sentence and then have posted a question on my comments section waiting for a reply, which again he wouldn't read beyond the first half of the first sentence and question me again... you get the picture...
