We decided to shoot this week’s episode of TV Newsance in Shaheen Bagh because of the sort of stuff we heard on primetime news.

Here’s a sample : “Shaheen Bagh main siyasi nautanki jaari hai, jo log dharne main pahunch rahe hain unhe toh rozgaar mil gaya hai, jeb main paanch sau rupay aur pet main Biryani.” This means: "There’s political drama on at Shaheen Bagh, those who have landed at the protest site have got some employment, Rs 500 in their pocket, and biryani in their stomach."

Anchors across major news networks such as Zee News, Republic TV, India TV and ABP News have kept the focus on Shaheen Bagh over the past two weeks. Apart from shoddy stings on Times Now and Republic TV , most anchors have labelled the protest site as a “den” of pro-Pakistan, Jinnah-loving anti-nationals who are also anti-Hindu.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and you can confirm this with any journalist who has been reporting from Shaheen Bagh.

The one thing that is true, though, is the traffic snarls that the protest has caused. People from around Shaheen Bagh heading to Noida have especially been affected; what was earlier a half-hour commute can now take more than an hour.

But one can very well make this point without painting the protesters as Dawood Ibrahim’s next of kin. “Shaheen Bagh is a useful epicentre of an anti-Hindu, anti-India, money-guzzling, opportunistic and entirely political movement,” thundered Arnab, repeatedly stressing how the protesters at Shaheen Bagh had “terrorised” people.

While Arnab’s nightly war cries are a source of much hilarity to the TV Newsance team, people at Shaheen Bagh didn’t find the misrepresentation funny. Broadly, they were angry at being portrayed as bikaau, or sellouts, by the media and were very suspicious of journalists, especially those with cameras.

We went with the idea of questioning the people on what they thought about being called “tukde-tukde gang” or “Jinnah lovers” in a lighthearted way, but soon realised this was going to be tough. The anger and deep suspicion were palpable. Every person I spoke with began by saying there was no point talking to the media since they weren’t going to present their issues fairly. After every interview, I was instructed not to cut out soundbites and present them out of context.

One of the women I interviewed told me: “Please don’t cut anything...aap poori baat dikhana.” I told her it was impossible for me to show all of what she had said because of the constraints of time, but I promised I wouldn’t place anything out of context. (This effectively meant we couldn’t use any of the satire devices we had used previously like in the Gangs of Khan Market episode.)

At this point, my colleague Ayush Tiwari, who was there for a report, told me that outside the tent where women were sitting, a TV news anchor had been heckled by a bunch of men. Ayush too had been heckled when he tried to record how the men outside surrounded a TV reporter.

Here’s Ayush’s account.