SUDHEENDRA KULKARNI writes: Whenever I see P. Sainath walk, I am reminded of the opening line in the novel Bharatipura by the Jnanapeeth award-winning Kannada novelist U.R. Anantha Murthy. Jagannath, the protagonist of the novel, is a young man in a hurry to implement his revolutionary thoughts, which he has picked up as much from…
Monthly Archives: August 2007
Should papers, TV publish terror suspects’ pix?
The police in Hyderabad, have released the “sketch” of the suspect (above) who they say was behind the bomb blastswhich killed several dozen people at an auditorium. The computer-aided sketch was then carried by all newspapers and television stations to help solve the crime. It will be a happy ending, of course, when the guy…
A 3-year-old kid answers publishers’ prayers
When newspaper publishers, editors and analysts are constantly wondering where their next reader is going to come from, Press Trust of India is reporting what must be the answer to their combined prayers. *** ROURKELA, Orissa: A three-year-old child prodigy in the Steel City has taken everybody by surprise as he is able to read…
’21st century media is an amoral being’
Sagarika Ghose in the Hindustan Times “The blame immediately shifts to the media—both print and electronic. It’s the media that’s responsible. The media do not show floods. The media do not show poverty. The media sensationalise blasts. The media are luring politicians to become trapped into a hall of mirrors where reality doesn’t matter. “Is…
MUST READ: Jeremy Paxman on television
What is television for? Is television inherently dishonest? Does television treat people fairly, is it healthy for society? Jeremy Paxman addressed all those questions, pertinent as they are in India as everywhere else in the world, as he delivered the James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture on the challenges before the television industry and the road ahead.…
Don’t shoot me, I’m just the piano player
Blaming the media—shooting the messenger—has become a blood sport, even with those with blood on their hands. Jhoomur Bose of CNN-IBN sends a poetic note to those who blame it on the media when what they see or hear doesn’t conform with their own closely held views and beliefs. *** Hello, can one talk to…
Matt Drudge: I’ve a right not to be watched
In 2003, Esquire termed Gay Talese‘s profile of Frank Sinatra as the best story it had ever published on its pages. “The legendary singer was approaching fifty, under the weather, out of sorts, and unwilling to be interviewed. So Talese remained in Los Angeles, hoping Sinatra might recover and reconsider, and he began talking to…
VINTON CERF: The end is near for television
The Godfather of the Internet says television, as we know it, is rapidly approaching the same kind of crunch moment that the music industry faced with the arrival of the MP3 player. “Eighty-five per cent of all video we watch is pre-recorded, so you can set your system to download it all the time,” said…
Jaffna journo hasn’t gone home for 13 months
Murders, kidnappings, threats, censorship… It’s all in a day’s work for journalists in war-ravaged Jaffna, in northern Sri Lanka, according to a report of an international fact-finding mission, making it one of the most dangerous places to work in or report from in the world. One newspaper (Valampuri) is down to just five correspondents, down…
The first pictures of the first modern genocide
“You have already been informed that the government… has decided to destroy completely all the indicated persons… Their existence must be terminated, however tragic the measures taken may be, and no regard must be paid to either age or sex, or to any scruples of conscience.” The incomparable Robert Fisk uncovers the Armenian massacre in…
‘We, the abominable dregs of planet earth…’
“The lowest depth to which people can sink before god is defined by the word ‘journalist.’ If I were a father and had a daughter who was seduced I should despair over her; I would hope for her salvation. But if I had a son who became a journalist and continued to be one for…
‘Conventional journalism serves the powerful’
PALAGUMMI SAINATH, the Magsaysay Award winning rural affairs editor of The Hindu, spoke to Sunil Sethi, the books editor of NDTV, over the weekend, on why he chose to do what he chose to do: report from India’s remotest villages on the poor and the marginalised: *** “In 1983-84, we had a very large drought…
‘Newspaper upheaval isn’t cyclical, it’s tectonic’
RESTON, VIRGINIA: If America decides how to deal with its (mostly invented) threats from the secretive settings of the Central Intelligence Agency in pristine Langley, its newspapers are preparing for combat with their (mostly visible) foe from a similarly verdant setting not far from it, in Reston, Virginia. CIA cooks up laboured names for its…
‘Trivialisation is the leit motif of Indian media’
E.R. RAMACHANDRAN writes: Trivialisation and dumbing down of news with the lowest common denominator in mind are becoming the order of the day in Indian media in the name of giving audiences what they like. Given the ferocious competition for eyeballs, newspapers and TV stations seem bent upon extracting tactile responses by increasingly (and disturbingly)…
The shape is all that changes in life
E.R. RAMACHANDRAN forwards a much-forwarded picture that captures the life of man, more so of a journalist, in all its essence. Also read: All the booze that’s fit to drink And the biggest drunk in journalism is… How well do you know your alphabet
‘Blogging helps journos understand readers’
Should newspaper websites have blogs? Should newspaper reporters and editors blog? Does it help? For all three questions, Ray Hartley‘s answer is, yes. Hartley, editor of the recently launched South African newspaper, The Times, blogged even while the newspaper was taking shape. Now, in an interview with the African Press Network, he says, blogging helps…
The worst op-ed piece ever written?
Stanley Fish, the well-known postmodernist and New York Times’ columnist, thought he was doing something cool writing about how difficult it was to get a cup of coffee at Starbucks. In “Getting Coffee Is Hard To Do”, he wrote of having to wait in a queue, look for a spot to stand, add the milk…
CNN Award for best of Indo-Pak journalism
The American satellite news pioneer, Cable News Network (CNN), has announced two new awards to honour quality journalism in India and Pakistan, commemorating the 60th year of independence of the two nations. The CNN Journalist Award will honour journalism that reflects the social and political realities of India and Pakistan, while the Photo Journalist Award…
Communists give full Marx to American journos
Are “market forces” prompting the Communist Party of India (Marxist) to get media savvy? Its central committee met in New Delhi on Thursday to discuss the stalemate over the Indo-US nuclear deal. And, wonder of wonders, Onkar Singh of rediff.com reports that the CPI(M) meeting was attended by “leading American news agencies”. The idea behind…
The storm in the C-cup is a neat 36B
Even Britain’s serious newspapers give out CDs and DVDs to boost circulation. India’s magazines dangle everything from watches to suitcases to cars to add numbers. One Bombay newspaper even sent out alphonso mangoes in a plastic bag in the early 1990s. So is a girlie magazine crossing the lakshman rekha in wooing readers by offering…
IJR 