Director Rajamouli employs a distinctive media strategy. He holds a media meet before the start of the movie shoot and another one just before the release.
During the pre-release phase, he might do an interview with Suma or one featuring his heroes. However, most of his media interactions are reserved for Bollywood.
He gives numerous interviews to Bollywood media and screens the film for Bollywood critics first, generating tweets and reviews from them. This strategy leaves little interaction with the Telugu media.
It seems Nag Ashwin is now following a similar approach.
Before the release of his film, he did not engage with the Telugu media at all. A week after the release, he went to Mumbai and conducted as many one-on-one interviews as possible. To avoid any discontent among the Telugu media, he called for a press meet for name's sake.
He hardly gave one-on-one interviews to the Telugu media. When his PR team is questioned, a tricky reply comes out: "If he starts giving interviews, he has to cater to around 50 people, which is a daunting task. It becomes a problem to selectively give interviews to some while neglecting others."
Hence, they feel that avoiding local media is a convenient practice. They may be hinting that although they have given interviews to a few national media outlets, the rest do not feel left out, unlike the Telugu media journalists.
As a result, we have to watch Nag Ashwin's interviews in English.
But an insider says that Nag Ashwin feels that giving more interviews at the local level would dilute the global image of his film.
"Local media also looks up to the film only when the makers are not easily reachable to them but accessible only to national and international media," the insider said.
However, neglecting or looking down on the local media and treating national media as superior would not serve the right purpose in the long run.
