Reporter's diary: Dear CoP, are you a Thala fan or Thalapathy fan?

CHENNAI: The mainstream media won’t tell you this” is a favourite phrase of both the well-meaning group who place fair criticism on the media’s functioning and those who subscribe to the ‘WhatsApp university’. We’d like to contribute to that section. Context: a recent interview of City Commissioner of Police (CoP) Shankar Jiwal by a popular YouTube channel.

YouTube channels are aplenty, but only a couple are the cream among them, hosting their awards with the State’s who’s who from the world of film and politics registering their presence.

Used to sing paeans while introducing cinema stars, the interviewer’s sycophancy towards the police commissioner was jarring.

“I am good too. You are the reason for that,” the interviewer told the Commissioner, inferring that the city is a safe haven. That’s a “mainstream media won’t tell you this” moment right there. While there were no posers to the Commissioner in the interview, to be fair, the awareness on cyber-crime frauds which the Commissioner addressed in that interview is likely to reach more people.

It is only poetic justice that the word made popular by the Tamil YouTube world is used to refer to the interview: ‘Cringe’. It is a relief that the standard question from the playbook of YouTube interviewers, “Are you a Thala fan or Thalapathy fan?” was not posed to the Commissioner.

However, it would have been amazing had they got the Commissioner to say, “Like, Share and Subscribe”.