Prannoy Roy received a lifetime achievement award at the Redink awards function. In a politically lively and polarised climate where a resurgent and re-invigorated Hindu right is a potent force, this was met with as much sneering as with nods of respect. Here, it is also worth mentioning another aspect of the current discourse around news media: not just content consumers but more so headline makers and chasers are trashing newswalas as Presstitutes, Bazaaru and Supari journalists like never before. This is true across parties. Indian news media needs hope. And yes, Prannoy Roy does provide it.

We started Newslaundry to encourage a culture of unapologetically and unselfconsciously critiquing, criticising, applauding, mocking, trashing and appreciating our peers. It’s because everyone who is capable of great work can also deliver crap. Calling it out is the best “regulation” of the profession. It’s healthy and breaks the conspiracy of silence, which was the status quo. This is very different from the virulent and bile-laden hate that also comes journalists’ way.

Prannoy Roy has inspired a whole generation in the most important cycle of evolution of news in India. News has changed more between 2000 and 2015 than in the previous four decades. Video and television did that. Most people who are anyone in TV news have worked for NDTV or Newstrack at some point in their lives. Prannoy and Radhika Roy started one and Madhu Trehan the other. The first exposure for a young and clueless TV professional is key to the standards he or she sets for himself or herself through their professional life.

In the year 2005, when I was working with Arvind Kejriwal on Right To Information (RTI) awareness, I had a glimpse into a Prannoy Roy that I think is important to share because news media needs more such moments. Not all our life decisions, actions and outcomes will make us look great. But some do. And those moments can inspire many. And inspiration is needed now more than ever in a horribly cynical environment.

In 2005, Arvind Kejriwal was a nobody – a random RTI activist. Hell, he hadn’t even got the Magsaysay that made him a minor celebrity in nerdy activist circles. As a friend who was inspired and moved by his work, I had just made an RTI awareness film for Parivartan (Arvind’s non-governmental organisation) shot in the Sundernagri slum resettlement. Around this time, Manmohan Singh and his merry men decided that the Right To Information Act is too troublesome for them and to bury it they came up with a list of amendments. A government as corrupt as the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) needed the RTI eliminated. Arvind figured the best way to save the RTI act would be a nationwide campaign with as many media houses as possible to make our citizens aware of what the RTI Act had achieved and the potential it had of making governments accountable and governance transparent. But where does one start? Who would listen to us?

Today Arvind is somebody. Hell, he is the Chief Minister of Delhi who is loved and hated with equal passion- and both reactions can be justified – but I’m talking about a time when he and Parivartan were too irrelevant to be liked or hated or even heard. There was no AAP, Jan Lokpal, Anna, TV drama, dharnas or the fame and notoriety that came in 2011. Arvind was nobody from nowhere (which in my view is why the older generation of feudal-minded access journalists hate him so much). We spoke to many editors, MPs and heavyweights of the news and political world to try and explain why the RTI was important and why it needed attention and a nationwide campaign.

The idea was to hold RTI camps across the country where volunteers would help people file RTI applications as a substitute to giving bribes to get work done. This included getting ration cards, pension, passports, Below Poverty Line (BPL) cards, rations at Public Distribution Systems (PDS) shops, streetlights and roads fixed, civil works, etc. While camps would do the filing on-ground, information about this would be disseminated through reports and shows across TV channels and newspapers. It was very ambitious. We met many people from the Hindu Right to the far Left and everyone in the between. This includes Rahul Gandhi and KS Sudarshan, the sarsanghachalak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) at the time.

It was important that people across party lines strengthened RTI because it was (and still is) in everyone’s interest and a totally non-partisan issue. Long story short, no one had time for any real work or commitments (unless there was a monetary or political reward) but lots of time to give ignorant lectures. In fact, Rahul Gandhi heard Arvind out for three or four minutes before giving Arvind a fifteen-minute lecture on how Arvind doesn’t understand politics and governance and this is not practical. Which is why when after AAP’s first Delhi victory (2013) when Rahul said we have so much to learn from AAP, I almost choked on my coffee. When he had the chance, he was delivering the lecture instead of listening.

Anyway, moving on.

At the time I used to write political satire shows for NDTV – Gustakhi Maaf and The Great Indian Tamasha. I requested Prannoy to meet this guy called Arvind Kejriwal who has an idea to make sure the RTI doesn’t get killed by the UPA. Prannoy Roy gave us time and heard us out. Patiently, without hurrying us or lecturing us or making us feel like we’re idiots even though there was nothing in it for him. This was so different from anyone else we had spoken to. He said he liked the idea and will back it. A particular individual, who was also listening in, had the predictable, “We won’t get any sponsors for this Prannoy, let’s not do this.”

It wasn’t sexy, it was RTI! It would probably not be a profit-generator and logistically was too much of a hassle. Prannoy said sponsors or not, this must be done because it’s important and in public interest. Ideals like these are necessary. To see decisions like these being made in front of you is important and inspiring. It gives us hope. Moments like these are important. This is why Prannoy Roy is important.

After Prannoy Roy put his weight behind the campaign, many other media partners from across India came on board too – Deshonnati, Prabhat Khabar, Dharitri, Andhra Jyothi, Raj Express, Loksatta, Hindustan Times and The Hindu. Once on air, many other regional TV channels and newspapers also joined. Prannoy Roy had that kind of credibility. The Drive Against Bribes and Ghoos Ko Ghoonsa campaigns breached traditional competitive boundaries and broke the “we’ll only do it if we are exclusive media partners” mindset. Prannoy Roy could do that and make it happen.  In 48 cities, 1500 volunteers worked on the ground and for fifteen days a fifteen-minute segment devoted to how RTI can fight corruption was carried by NDTV. It was historic and it was the right thing to do because it was in public interest and spoke truth to power.

There is much wrong with the media and there are many ugly moments that stand out which we ourselves at Newslaundry call out. But there are some amazing moments as well. They don’t stand out. They often get lost and forgotten in the news din. They need to be remembered and re-remembered because they can inspire another generation to do what is right, not only what is profitable.

Which is also why when politicians in their enthusiasm get carried away with their attacks painting everyone with the same brush stroke, it’s not correct or smart. The same media has stood its ground and done amazing things too. To curse it blindly without remembering the other side is small-minded.

Why I write this now is because we need a generation of news professionals to be inspired. Many of my generation were lucky enough to have our first exposure to people like Madhu Trehan and Prannoy Roy whom we saw take some difficult calls and decisions that reinforced our faith in the news media. Which is why I worry for those whose first exposure are the Sudhir Chaudharys of the world. That becomes the standard you will set for the rest of your life.

Prannoy Roy has provided inspired moments for a generation and no matter how much criticism is poured now and in the future, there is a whole crop, which based on first-hand experience, believes in what journalism can and should do. We’ve seen the sun shine at its brightest even as pretenders bask in the reflected glory of its golden glow as the sky becomes more crowded and noisy. Sometimes in life an opportunity comes along that gives you the choice of putting your money where your mouth is. How you act at that moment matters. And that’s what legacies are about.