Former Czech president Vaclev Havel may be writing bestsellers even after remitting office. Bill Clinton may be wowing the world with books on how to give. But India’s A.P.J. Abdul Kalam has shown the world that he may be older but he is a step ahead of most of his younger peers and compatriots. The…
Monthly Archives: November 2007
Why we don’t know who Jagennath Lachmon is
Every media house magically finds the resources to send correspondents to the Cannes, IFA or Frankfurt festivals. Indra Nooyi‘s climb up the global power ladder has our media charting her step. Every Mira Nair film has film correspondents flitting half way across the world for her bon mot. And of course each new car or…
Aussie journo wins top award for Indian story
Hedley Thomas, the Australian journalist who wrote a series of stories about his government’s mishandling of Indian doctor Mohammed Haneef‘s arrest on suspected terror charges, has won the country’s most coveted journalism award. Thomas, who is associated with The Australian newspaper, won the “Gold Walkley” award.In his acceptance speech, Thomas thanked Haneef’s lawyers Peter Russo…
Look, who the French President is dating
# In 2002, General Electric CEO Jack Welch filed for divorce with his Jane after he became involved with Suzy Wetlaufer, an editor with Harvard Business Review. # In 2004, television anchor Marion Brooks admitted to having a lengthy affair with then Atlanta mayor Bill Campbell. # Earlier this year, Los Angles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa‘s…
How the Maharaja disrobed New York media
E.R. RAMACHANDRAN forwards a fine example of how thoroughbred news hounds checked facts and did background checks in the era of before Google. *** By ROBERT POLLACK Publisher Whitlaw Reid had just lost a power struggle to his brother, Brownie Reid–later to become a New York congressman–and the Tribune staff was mourning the switch from…
‘Magazines, like mushrooms, should grow in dark’
It’s raining Tina Brown in New Delhi. Newspapers, magazines, television programmes are all full of the better half of Sir Harold Evans, explaining why she won’t blog, how the famous Demi Moore cover for Vanity Fair came about, how she was expelled from school for describing her teacher’s bosom as an unidentified flying object, and…
Your eyes. Your ears. Your voice. Your soul.
Shooting the messenger has become an international hobby. Instead of examining the message we bring home every day , afternoon and night, we are increasingly reminded that we are just doing a job like anybody else. If, heaven forbid, if what we bring home isn’t to the recipient’s liking, we have our motives and motivations…
Forbes can name India’s second richest woman
The gloves are well and truly coming off in New Delhi. The marketing heavyweights, Hindustan Times and The Times of India, first joined hands to launch a tabloid Metro Now to preempt tabloid Mail Today. And then HT refused to run the ads of the new paper launched by the India Today group. Now,…
Aroon Purie: Indian papers are in a time warp
In the West, newspaper readership is falling and advertising and circulation revenues are sinking. In India, existing newspaper groups are trying to consolidate through their web presence, etc, before the bad news arrives, as it must. Brave, therefore, is the media baron who, with no newspaper experience, decides to launch a brand-new newspaper from scratch.…
The world’s oldest, most fearless journalist
“I tape, therefore I am. I tape, therefore they are. Who are they, these etceteras of history, hardly worth a footnote? Who are they of whom the bards have seldom sung?” Studs Terkel, blacklisted, wiretapped, censored but still fighting fit. Read the full story here: What a fearless journalist looks like
Know it all? Trekkie? Debbie Downer? Douchebag?
The best magazine coverline of 2007
As adjudged by the American Society of Magazine Editors.
How (not) to chase a celebrity for a picture
Britney Spears leaves the Four Seasons hotel in Beverly Hills, California, with a paparazzo close on her heels.
Tina Brown: I would redesign The New Yorker
Tina Brown, the former New Yorker, Tatler and Talk editor who made “buzz” the buzzword of her newsroom, has given an interview to Mini Kapoor of The Indian Express. Ten years later, what would you do at The New Yorker? I would probably redesign it again. I might make a shorter front of the book…
‘Families are the best custodians of newspapers’
Sir Harold Evans, the legendary (former) editor of The Sunday Times, London, is in India. Delivering the K.C. Mammen Mappillai Memorial Lecture on “The Freedom of the Press in an Age of Violence”, organised by the Malayala Manorama group in New Delhi on Thursday, Sir Harold dropped these pearls in the company of his celebrated…
‘Chhuncho mere haath gondho korte chaina’
The first target of a military coup is said to be a television station. The first thought of a democratically elected leader is a newspaper. West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, facing mounting criticism of his handling of the Nandigram issue, has come down on the Bengali daily Bartaman for its “provocative reports”. He has…
$3,000 award for print and web reporting on TB
A new prize that recognises reporting and commentary in print and on the web about tuberculosis and resistant strains of the disease in developing countries, has been announced at the world conference of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease by being held in Cape Town, South Africa. The award, courtesy the Stop TB…
Should news agencies pay for news and pictures?
The greed of cash-rich sports organisations in bottomless. In September, the International Rugby Board sought to impose restrictions on media coverage of the World Cup, limiting photos and video on the internet, claiming intellectual property rights. Now, cricket has followed suit. Cricket Australia, cricket’s governing body down under, has said it owns the IPR to…
Norman Mailer is dead. Long live Norman Mailer
“Sans Serif” records with regret the passing away of Norman Mailer, the eternal enfant terrible of literature and one of the founding fathers of “New Journalism“, in New York on Saturday. He was 84. Born Nachem Malek, he published more than 30 books, including novels, biographies and works of nonfiction, and twice won the Pulitzer…
The things TV journalists have to do these days
As the competition gets hotter, ESPN reporter Rob Stone bites into the hottest red hot chilli pepper going around. You could call this a small gimmick, or you could call this a giant leap for “experiential journalism”.
IJR 