Who will decide who is a journalist and who will decide who will get to report, journalists asked at an event organised at the Press Club of India on Wednesday (October 13). The gathering included several journalists who were detained, shoved, dragged and manhandled by Delhi Police while covering the recent agitation of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) in central Delhi and included young ground reporters as well as seasoned journalists and senior editors.“It is really dangerous that the police is deciding who the media is, and who can report,” said Astha Savyasachi, a reporter with Newslaundry.“My question to the police is, what protocols do they have in order to deal with situations in which they detain women,” she said.Multimedia journalist Ryan Thomas from Caravan magazine said he was detained, beaten and threatened with being shot by police during the protest, and reported being especially targeted when he revealed his name to the policemen.Media ‘management’, in the Gujarat and Narendra Modi style drew the ire of journalists across the NCR, who included founding editor of The Wire, Sidharath Varadarajan, Hartosh Singh Bal of Caravan, Suhasini Haidar, diplomatic editor, the Hindu and independent journalist Ajit Anjum.You cajole and manage TV channels, browbeat and threaten newspapers, but digital remained outside the goverment’s control. The government has been warning since 2018 that it wants digital media under its control as well, said Varadarajan, reminding that when then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi was asked what he did not handle well during the 2002 violence, he had said he did not “manage the media” well.“The government has equated protesters and journalists covering the protests – I believe this is happening at the behest of top officials [in government]. That is why this is happening despite the orders of the Supreme Court,” said Anjum.“What we witnessed during this round of protests is, I believe, a very dangerous escalation. It is the overreaction of a regime that is wounded,” said senior journalist Sreenivasan Jain, describing the mass detetentions of journalists, including seven being picked up in one go at the R.K. Ashram Metro Station on October 11.“None of this should surprise anyone – it is the Gujaratification and Kashmirisation of the media,” said senior journalist and anchor, Rajdeep Sardesai.“Section 144 [S. 163] is routinely extended for six months in Gujarat and Kashmir is even worse. And this has spread across the country from Delhi,” he said, adding that the experience of journalists in Mumbai was the sole exception.