After giving an exclusive, in the true sense of the word, to Times Now Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met a group of journalists — nine to be precise — ahead of the Cabinet reshuffle on July 4.

The next day, on July 5, The Indian Express, Hindustan Times, Business Standard, The Economic Times, The Daily Pioneer and Dainik Jagran carried an interview with the PM along with excerpts from the media interaction on its front pages. The Hindu, The Times of India and Dainik Bhaskar were notable exceptions. (TOI, which had a small report on the media session minus an interview, perhaps decided that Times Now’s interview was enough, given the play it had received across Times Group’s platforms.)

For now on, no one can accuse the PM of not engaging with journalists. What we can question, however, is if the media-spree tells us anything about the man in the spotlight. And also that when it comes to Modi, perhaps it’s wise to take everything he says with a pinch of salt. Or that he likes a little laugh at the expense of the media.

But, first, a little on how the interviews took place.

Here’s what we were told on condition of anonymity, of course: Jagdish Thakkar, public relations officer to the Prime Minister’s Office, reached out to the selected newspapers and asked them to send emailed questionnaires for the PM. These organisations then sent a maximum of six questions almost a week ago and were informed that there would be an interaction with the PM at the time of handing over the answers – both a hard and soft copy of the answers were apparently given to journalists. It wasn’t made certain how long the interaction would go on, but as it was reported later, the nine journalists present spoke to the PM for a little over an hour at 7 Race Course Road.

Given that the timing was before the cabinet reshuffle, the conversation naturally veered towards getting an indication on the expected changes.

From ET to IE to HT, all newspapers that got the interview led with the news point of the PM stating that the cabinet will only be expanded and not reshuffled. All of them quote him saying so in no uncertain terms.

We now know that wasn’t the plan. Despite the “exclusive” newspapers managed to get, none of them got a whiff of Smriti Irani’s demotion from the human resources development ministry to the textile ministry till it was announced early last night. Neither is there any indication in the interviews that Arun Jaitley would lose the Information and Broadcasting Ministry or get a new Minister of State for Finance.

What the interviews tell us is that the PM doesn’t quite feel accountable to the media. He could have kept his answer noncommittal, but instead chose to negate ideas of a major reshuffle knowing well that some key changes were on their way.

So, what did the media achieve apart from printing inaccurate information as the lead copy on the front page a day before the cabinet reshuffle?

Considering the flak Goswami received for his interview, you’d think the PM’s second interaction with the media to be stuff that, well, headlines are made of. You’d expect it to be less softballish and include questions on Dadri in the context of statements made by the BJP ‘fringe’, the defeat in Bihar, the win in Assam and PM’s deliberate absence from the campaign trail there, BJP’s loss of face in Uttarakhand, drought, dal prices and so on. Basically all the questions the nation was itching to know and Goswami did not ask.

No such luck.

Let’s begin with IE, which is usually combative in its reportage on the government, but was hardly so in the questions it posed to the PM. The paper put out the emailed query separately along with edited excerpts from the interaction. IE’s questions address issues like jobless growth, Brexit, Bangladesh, federalism, China and working with the Opposition.

In an edit piece, titled “The PM Speaks”, on the Times Now interview, IE had earlier noted that the PM’s response to Goswami’s questions on “hotheads making extreme comments” was “dissatisfying”:

Who must be held accountable when at the party’s national executive in Allahabad, BJP president Amit Shah seems to legitimise reports of a Hindu “exodus” from Kairana, that have been revealed on closer look, including by this paper, to be based only on unabashed spectre-mongering by local BJP leaders?

This is an edit that elucidates the newspaper’s line. What then explains the absence of a question along similar lines in IE’s bland list of questions to the PM? Did the paper feels that it can be aggressive all year round with its reporting and allow PM some easy time in a one-on-one, which will be hard to come by again if they continue to ask difficult questions?

Contrast this to The Hindustan Times, which let’s just say is far from anti-establishment. The paper, too, carried two pieces: A copy on the media interaction and QnA with the PM. In one of the most direct questions, HT asked the PM what he would like to tell Muslims in the country who are disillusioned by “elements who talk about Muslim free India”. HT probably knows it can’t appear too soft after its first interview with the PM.

This point is illustrated better with The Daily Pioneer’s interview, a decidedly Right-leaning and pro-government newspaper. Pioneer gets away with asking some pretty tough questions that would have had the PM walking away in a huff had the interviewer perhaps been a Karan Thapar.

Sample these: “In the slogan quoted by your Government as ‘Do saal- Bemisaal’, have you ever realised that the ground execution of your plans and ideas have not come up to the mark?” Or, “Why the financial sector reforms did not take off as desired?” What the newspaper may not do in reporting, it made up for with these “tough” questions.

Dainik Jagran persisted with the question on the cabinet reshuffle that Modi tactfully dodged. The journalist asked the PM if some ministers would be removed, to which, the PM smiled and said that’s a detail he wouldn’t get into. Perhaps this was the reason why Jagran’s headline focused on PM’s commitment to development and not cabinet reshuffle.

The Business Standard and The Economic Times by and large kept the focus on policy initiatives, efforts and path ahead. In response to BS’s a question on targeted subsidy and whether the government should leave out underserving people in a transparent way, the PM said, “It is sad that in India, many intellectuals have adopted the thought process of those economists from rich countries who dislike subsidies, regardless of their nature. In a poor country, it is a primary responsibility of government to look after the poor and handhold them.”

Evidently, the paper saw the value of this quote and used it for its headline on its web edition.

The handicap of print interviews, especially ones that are sent by emails beforehand, is that you don’t have much of a chance to rebut, counter-question. Something Goswami could have done in a conversation, but that shouldn’t stop journalists from articulating some pointed questions in the first place, instead of sticking to slam-book ones like your biggest regret or your hopes for the future.

Times Now’s interview gave us headline material in terms of the snub to Subramanian Swamy, even as a large part of it worked as PM’s I-Day speech. From these print interviews, all we got was some incorrect information and a bunch of homilies on development and reform.

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