Soon after coming out of a screening of Noor, a journalist friend of mine started a hashtag, #IamnotNoor and tagged me on it. Both of us have been underpaid reporters in Mumbai, but in the two-odd hours that unspooled as we watched Noor Roy Choudhury be a journalist in Maximum City, we struggled to recognise the reality in which she lived. By the end of the film, my friend had found one point of resonance — needing hot water showers despite Mumbai’s sweltering heat — while I felt Noor’s pain at being the curve as opposed to being ahead of the curve. And that was it.

There was nothing else that either of us found relatable about either the journalism or journalists that we saw on screen. (However, we were, and continue to be, swamped with envy at Noor’s wardrobe. Full marks to costume designer Fabeha.) Oh, and we’ve both gone to far-flung, low-income suburbs like Mankhurd for our stories. Neither of us drove there in our cars. We took trains and autos. #IamnotNoor

Directed by Sunhil Sippy and written by Sippy, Althea Kaushal and Shikhaa Sharma, Noor claims to be based on the novel Karachi You’re Killing Me by Saba Imtiaz. While it’s good to know 21st-century Bollywood has the grace to acquire rights, there’s so little of the book’s original sensibility in Noor that the producers really needn’t have bothered.

Aside from offering a portrait of Karachi with its little beauties and terrible anxieties, Imtiaz’s novel gives the reader a sense of what it’s like to be a journalist in Pakistan. From women journalists’ struggle to do ‘hard’ stories, to print losing ground to broadcast and online journalism; how stories are ‘stolen’, the triumph of scoring a job with a foreign news agency, and the support system that good journalists provide one another, Imtiaz touches upon all this without losing her sense of humour. All Noor has in common with Karachi You’re Killing Me is a woman journalist as the protagonist. In the film, Noor says she wants to be the “Barkha” of her generation, but if what Noor does in the film is what the Indian public thinks is journalism, then STOP PRESS.

The first signs of Noor (Sonakshi Sinha) being both a bad journalist and an unprofessional one are evident when she is sent to interview Sunny Leone. Noor has her own show and one that she’s practically ashamed of because it’s too silly and sensationalist. If her show is indeed the forgettable capsule of crap that it appears to be, you’d think Noor would jump at interviewing Leone. After all, Leone’s experiences could easily be the starting point for a number of excellent feature stories about the entertainment industry.

Instead, Noor throws a little tantrum and when she finally appears for the (video) interview, she’s ill-prepared and an embarrassment. Worst of all, she manages to make the interview about herself rather than Leone. When Noor is taken to task for her wretched display, she channels her inner Bhupendra Chaubey and is flatly judgemental about Leone. Not only does she roll her eyes at her editor (played by Manish Chaudhary) who isn’t amused by her antics, she actually takes a random personal call during their meeting. The last time we saw this kind of contempt shown to an editor was in yet another Bollywood newsroom, this one imagined by Karan Johar in Bombay Talkies and headed by Rani Mukerji. It really makes you wonder whether this is reflective of how hierarchy operates in Bollywood or if this is what the film industry’s writers think of editors.

To prove that there is a “Barkha” lurking within her, Noor repeatedly makes vague claims of submitting pitches for stories that need to be told. The few snippets we get of the stories are hackneyed and overdone. Noor wants to change the world, we’re told, but what precisely she’s interested in reporting on is a detail that no one associated with Noor cares to illuminate. When she does land upon a story that has potential, it is entirely by chance.

That Noor is the opposite of a newshound becomes evident when she goes to interview a good samaritan named Dr Shinde, and doesn’t realise there’s anything suspicious about his operations. Malti (Smita Tambe), who works in Noor’s home as domestic help, happens to catch a glimpse of Noor’s unedited interview with Dr Shinde and almost collapses with shock. She tells Noor that this man took out her brother’s kidney under false pretexts.

Noor immediately asks Malti to take her to meet the ailing brother. Here, in one of the most disquieting moments in the film, Noor films Malti and her brother despite Malti’s obvious lack of consent. “Turn off this camera,” Malti finally begs, but even that isn’t enough to stop Noor. She bulldozes Malti into recording her testimony against Dr Shinde on camera. It’s an uncomfortable look at how much more social capital a journalist — particularly one who enjoys the privilege of belonging to the upper middle class — enjoys and can use to manipulate a subject. Noor does not once ask Malti for her permission to film or record their interaction, which is a basic question that every journalist must ask unless they’re conducting a sting operation.

She gives Malti assurances that she is in no position to fulfil, but spouts anyway because she wants Malti and her brother to go on record. Noor uses her position as Malti’s employer to coerce her into taking a stand that Malti doesn’t feel confident taking. If anything, this episode is a lesson on how not to conduct a journalistic interview. Considering the lack of nuance in Noor, it’s unlikely that the trio of screenwriters realised what they were exposing, but we’ll give them the benefit of doubt. But is this really what the Indian public thinks a reporter does when they get people to speak on record? If that’s true, that’s horrifying and the exact opposite of what you’d hope would be the image of a journalist in the popular imagination.

On the basis of this single allegation by Malti, Noor concludes that Dr Shinde is running an organ harvesting racket. Her story, apparently, is done and dusted. Exit this generation’s Barkha; enter eye candy in the form of Purab Kohli. Noor forgets journalism and decides it’s time to be a cuddlebunny. No need to cross check Malti’s fears or find other victims, or speak to Shinde’s staff to get paperwork that would help incriminate him. There’s not one policeman she speaks to or another doctor that she approaches. As if it wasn’t bad enough that Noor thinks a single testimony is enough to prove a racket, Noor’s editor also doesn’t send her back to report and gather more evidence.

Worse yet — SPOILER ALERT — CNN thinks this story, in its single-source state, is good enough to run. It doesn’t seem to strike anyone in Noor that one person’s testimony isn’t a story, but a starting point of a journey that’s long, frequently frustrating and exhausting. Noor as journalist doesn’t ask any of the questions that are basic to the profession. She doesn’t have any sense of the ethics that come with the power that media has as the fourth estate.

It’s obvious that the screenwriters of Noor haven’t the first clue about journalism or at least couldn’t be bothered with establishing even a superficial accuracy with the reality of journalism. Reporting can be dramatic and visually exciting. From the campy Superman movies to Spotlight along with a host of Bollywood movies, we’ve seen writers tap in to the drama and tension of following leads and uncovering the mechanisms of a conspiracy.

Ironically for a film with a heroine who claims to be all about research, it seems little research went into Noor. Whether this is because the writers thought the audience is too dull to appreciate the processes and work or because they just couldn’t be bothered to research is anyone’s guess. The writing team’s ignorance about journalism is perhaps most blatant in the plagiarism case that is a pivotal point in Noor. Especially in the age of the internet and back-ups, even a rookie reporter has a copy of their work and can turn to the internet to do some naming and shaming. Yet Noor’s response is to collapse in a heap and weep. There’s a brief interval of about 35 seconds when we see Noor doing what reporting actually involves — knocking on doors that invariably shut in your face, and forcing them open not with force, but with perseverance. That’s 35 seconds in a two-hour film.

Ladies and gentlemen, journalism is not as easy as it seems to be in Noor (and neither, one is tempted to say, are journalists, though that might vary from individual to individual). It isn’t even that easy to steal a story. Best of luck finding a journalist who keeps all their work on their unlocked phone. In the unlikely event that a story lands on your lap, it needs to be pursued. Pursuing a story doesn’t mean videoing yourself while reciting godawful spoken-word poetry. That sort of thing might go viral, but it isn’t journalism.

The reporter isn’t a stranger to Bollywood storytelling. Her truth-telling skills have been used as a device in countless films — Dil Se, No One Killed Jessica Lal, Satyagraha, Madras Cafe, Peepli Live are just a few examples. It’s worth keeping in mind, however, that most of these films are inspired by journalists from the print era (Peepli Live looks at television journalism, but through the lens of bitter mockery). That Noor presents a singularly airheaded version of this profession is partly the screenwriters’ failing, but it also raises the question of the spectacle to which broadcast journalism, in particular, has reduced this line of work.

Noor has been made at a time when news media, particularly on television, is at its aggressive best. The channels telecast 24 hours and compete viciously with each other for eyeballs. People see more news today than they ever have in our history. Courtesy social media, they have access to more journalists and get to peek into their lives, rather than only seeing bylines. And yet, despite all this access and exposure, what we get is the silliness of Noor.

That says a lot about what’s in the spotlight in the Indian news space. Excuse me while I go and add to the #IamnotNoor tweets.