What was your first job as a journalist?
I started writing for Indian publications 30 years ago. My first articles appeared in the Economic and Political Weekly.
Have you ever used a typewriter?
Yes, I am from the generation where typewriters were common!
How is social media changing news?
In some ways, we don't really even know what's "news" anymore. in a post-truth universe, accepted definitions have been overturned.
Who's your favorite fictional journalist?
Tintin
What does it mean to be a journalist?
In principle, to probe something deeper, to go behind appearances, to discomfort truthfully people in power.
What's the funniest news-related #hashtag you've seen?
How do you prefer to be pitched on stories?
As a thinker, critical analyst, and someone who commonly goes outside the widely accepted framework of the story being described.
What tools and software do you use to do your job?
Mainly Word on Macs to create documents, sometimes Adobe and Photoshop.
What's your favorite social network?
Can't say that I have a favorite.
Who do you wish followed you?
People who read and think for themselves.
Why did you become a journalist?
I'm not a full-time journalist but am firmly of the view that scholars should write for a wider public.
Did you work for your high school newspaper? If so, what did you do there?
No.
What story are you most proud of writing or working on?
On the politics of the coronavirus
What advice can you offer to aspiring journalists?
Be relentless in serving the public, question those in power, expose institutional ills, and be dismissive of common pieties.
When's the best time to pitch you?
In the late afternoons; or, to put it differently, shortly after a story first breaks and one's had an hour or so to reflect on it.
What's the best pitch you ever got?
From a religious fundamentalist who said that he could make me famous if I allowed him to use excerpts from my book on his site.
What's the worst pitch you ever got?
Some troll in Open Magazine who said that as a professor of history I evidently knew no history!
What's your favorite drink?
Single malt scotch whisky
When you're not at a computer, where are you most likely to be?
Investigating the matter out in the field.
Aside from your own, what's your favorite publication to read?
The Guardian (UK)
What's the most common misperception about your beat?
That journalists are fundamentally lazy.
