POV: While We Watched

Since the election of Narendra Modi to national office in 2014, press freedoms in India have come under attack on multiple fronts, including murders of high-profile journalists and hostile media takeovers by the state. While We Watched provides an intimate portrait of one celebrated journalist, Ravish Kumar, as he doggedly speaks truth to power in a rapidly deteriorating news industry increasingly given over to polarizing misinformation and extreme Hindu nationalism.  Directed by Vinay Shukla, who describes the film as an “angry and anxious love letter to journalism,” While We Watched follows Kumar over a two-year period as he strives to preserve journalistic integrity and fact-based reportage in the face of violent personal threats, falling network ratings at NDTV (once a thriving, trusted network news source), loss of public confidence, and a seemingly never-ending cycle of funding cutbacks and staffing losses.  For its powerful defense of independent journalism and its poignant portrait of everyday courage in the face of radicalized politics and publics, While We Watched wins a Peabody.