Sriram Raghavan Quotes

Tricks you need to transform something which appears fantastic, unbelievable into something plausible, credible, those I learned from journalism. The key is to tell it straight. It is done by reporters and by country folk.

It's about being right and trying to get the facts and get the story right, and inform, you know, the readership or the viewership. And there are some reporters that do that.

Whenever you're telling a story about true-life events and about real people, there's a tremendous responsibility-slash-burden to get it right.

If you tell a true story, you can't be wrong.

Whether the story reflects the facts is obviously a different matter.

Truth is so much more interesting than the fiction we're used to.

Fact-checking doesn't exist primarily because some of us are liars and cheats. It exists because writers will be writers, much as they may mean to be historians.

Writers don't have to keep themselves honest. They have to keep themselves accurate.

The truth is overrated.

First and foremost, you want to be truthful as a storyteller.

… he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false, is guilty of falsehood; and the accidental truth of the assertion, does not justify or excuse him.

What is truth? What is a true story? Who is telling the truth, and what is truth in this world today?

Every fact in my films is true. And yet how often do I have to read over and over again about supposed falsehoods?

If something is presented as a fact, it has to be correct.

As a journalist, the details always tell the story.

See, I have no journalism in my background, so I wasn't practised at research or writing non-fiction, nor at handling the truth in a journalistic way. Journalists know when to call a halt and write something, but I kept on looking for answers.

I would never have been a good reporter because I am not accurate regarding facts.

Readers appreciate the truth. Why say, 'Some think a situation is a mess?' Based on my reporting, if a situation is a mess, then I say that. The truth is always what reporters tell each other when they get back to the newsroom.

Good journalism, I think, represents life and if you try to organize something too neatly it usually blows up in your face and doesn't really happen the way you want it to.

My purpose is to make my narrative as truthful as possible.

I was once a journalist. And I think of myself as a journalist, and that's it. You tell the truth. I even wrote a book called 'The Truth'.

If there's anything about someone's life that's important enough to make a movie about it, I have to take responsibility to get all of it right. It's a huge responsibility.

I do not make stories up, full stop.

I think the most important thing journalism taught me is to mine for details. The details are key. You can't try to be funny or strange or poignant; you have to let the details be funny or strange or poignant for you.

Truth indeed rather alleviates than hurts, and will always bear up against falsehood, as oil does above water.