A ccording to T.K. Santhosh Kumar who anchors Amrita TV's interview-based show ‘The Truth,' the programme “is not a run-off-the-mill talk show.” ‘The Truth,' telecast on Sundays at 8 p.m., is just a couple of episodes away from hitting a century. Dr. Santhosh handles all aspects related to the programme, including the research for each show. A writer with six books to his credit, Dr. Santhosh has been associated with the channel for seven years now, first as anchor of ‘Innathe Pathram,' a daily analysis of the newspapers, and then of ‘Naatakame Ulakam,' a political satire. He shares his thoughts on ‘The Truth,' which “enlightens the general public on vital issues relating to eminent personalities from the political, social and cultural milieu.”
The format
It has been modelled on BBC's much popular hard-hitting one-on-one interview programme, ‘Hardtalk.' ‘The Truth' has just two people – the guest and the anchor. The questions asked by the anchor are probably the very same questions any common man would have asked the guests if he/she had met them in person. Interviews may be issue-based, dealing with topics of relevance such as the ones with K.M.Mani and P.J.Joseph, which were on the Mullapperiyar issue, or personality-oriented, which is aimed at presenting a profile of the guest – the one with singer-music composer M.G.Sreekumar, for example.
The difference
Firstly, it is news-oriented. We always try to extract something newsworthy from the guest and then present it in our ‘Top10@10' news programme (which brings the top 10 news stories of the day).
Secondly, the anchor is always polite. The interview is never meant to intimidate the guest. And, if at all a guest gets angry or chooses to walk out, the channel never sensationalises it. For example, in the episode featuring Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, when he felt uneasy about a question, he removed the microphone and stood up. But we were able to convince him about my duty as a media-person to ask that question. We never aired that segment.
The toughest to deal with…
Of course, the politicians. They are very smart. They can camouflage their answers; sometimes their reply is a question shot at the anchor. But for a question about his good old days with P.J. Joseph, which took him by surprise, K.M. Mani is the best in business.
The guest line-up
Almost all the big names from Kerala politics such as K. Karunakaran, K. Muraleedharan, , K. Balakrishna Pillai, K.B. Ganesh Kumar, C.K. Chandrappan, P.J. Chandrachoodan, K.M.Mani, P.J.Joseph, T.M.Jacob , his last television interview,… However, we have not been able to feature Pinarayi Vijayan, V.S. Achuthanandan and Veliyam Bhargavan. Due to some reasons those interviews haven't materialised. ‘The Truth' has also featured names from the film industry like director Kamal and actor Jagadeesh. The episode with M.G. Sreekumar has been special in that it was perhaps his first comprehensive interview on television.
What's in store
We've been featuring interviews with politicians and celebrities. Now, we will move on to newsmakers. Recently, we brought in M.R. Jayageetha, who was in the news for protesting against the alleged bad behaviour of ticket examiners during her train journey. In upcoming episodes, such people will be given a space to voice their side of the story.
