Infallible Indian journalists have been spooked by a delightful Da Vinci Code style hoax played on them. On Sunday, almost every newspaper reported the arrest of Johann Bach, an 88-year-old Nazi war criminal, in the jungles of Khanapur, close to Goa, on Saturday. A classified advertisement inserted by the “Waffen SS” fugitive to sell an…
Monthly Archives: June 2008
How the crude oil price spike spooked the media
Who’s to blame for the mounting crude oil prices? Oil producing countries? India and China for their voracious appetite? Speculators wanting to make a quick buck or ten? In the latest episode of its media showThe Listening Post, hosted by Richard Gizbert, Al Jazeera English throws light on how the global media has failed to…
Editor charges Indian Prime Minister of sabotage
M.J. Akbar, who the grapevine says was ousted from the editorship of The Asian Age due to his staunch opposition to the Indo-US nuclear deal, goes for the jugular in his column in the Khaleej Times of Dubai: “The Manmohan Singh government has been unable to bear the burden of an alliance with George W.…
Sucheta Dalal in public row on private treaties
The true depth of an employer-employee relationship is never quite revealed during the course of the latter’s employment, generally speaking. It is only after the two have parted ways, when the two parties take their gloves off and shadow-box each other, does it become clear whether it was good cohabitation or a charade. India’s bestknown…
‘Real journalists are feared and disliked’
Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Chris Hedges on Alternet: “No journalist makes $5 million a year. No journalist has a comfortable, cozy relationship with the powerful. No journalist believes that acting as a conduit, or a stenographer, for the powerful is a primary part of his or her calling. Those in power fear and dislike real journalists.”…
‘Get me copydesk on the other side of the globe’
Outsourcing medical operations to India is understandable because our doctors have a well-earned reputation for being among the best in the business. Outsourcing backend telephone work to India is understandable because we know how to talk—or we think we know how to talk. Outsourcing film editing and post-production to India is understandable because the skills…
These are a just few of my favourite things…
Blogs like Stuff White People Like have spawned a variety of clones. 10,000 words comes up with an imaginative and startlingly accurate 27-point list of Stuff Journalists Like: 2. All the President’s Men 5. Seinfeld 6. AP Stylebook 9. Correcting bad grammar/typos 13. Exclusives 16. Debates 21. New York Times 22. Coffee 25. Lists 26.…
Zero to one-eighty in nine seconds (& stitches)
CHETAN KRISHNASWAMY forwards an example of fine public service advertising, against overspeeding. Also read: If public service is God’s service…
‘Proud to have held the powerful accountable’
Leonard Downie Jr, executive editor of The Washington Post, has announced that he will step down in September, after 44 years at the paper. On Wednesday, he took questions from readers: Reader from Alexandria, Virginia: A question I usually ask in an exit interview is: “What are you most proud of in your career and…
On the eve of the 33rd anniversary of Emergency
The dictionary defines “atrocity” as “the quality of being shockingly cruel and inhumane”. If that is an acceptable definition, what constitutes an “atrocity” against the scheduled castes and tribes? Is a Lok Ayukta raid against a corrupt SC/ST official an “atrocity” against dalits? Is sacking or suspending an incompetent SC/ST employee an “atrocity” against dalits?…
Who decides what we should/shouldn’t watch?
News has not been in short supply in the global village in the satellite age. There are the “Indian” English news channels: NDTV 24×7, CNN-IBN, Times Now, Headlines Today. And the Hindi news channels: Aaj Tak, Star News, NDTV India, IBN 7, DD News, India TV. And the language news channels: Udaya, Sun, Suvarna, TV9,…
A comedian who was more than just a comedian
sans serif records with regret the demise of George Carlin, the gold standard for standup comedians in Santa Monica, California, on Sunday. He was 71. Irreverent and strangely philosophical, Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words” comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a narrow 5-4 decision by…
‘Indian journalists take themselves too seriously’
‘A case of exploding mangoes,’ the fictional account of the mysterious death of Pakistani president General Zia-ul-Haq by Mohammed Hanif (in picture), the air force man turned journalist who now heads the BBC’s Urdu service in London, has been acclaimed as the fiction debut of the year. So far. In an interview with Nikhil Lakshman,…
My first night, there was a gentleman called Bob
It’s easy to forget, but phone sex operators are real human beings, too, with their own hopes, dreams, desires, fears, ambitions, motivations—and reasons for what they do to earn a living. Mother Jones has a fine photo essay of some of them pouring their hearts out for Laura McClure, Gary Moskowitz, and Mark Murrmann. These…
#4: Insert a pair of scissors into foetus’s skull
Contract Advertising’s newspaper advertisement against female foeticide which won the gold at the Cannes Lions 2008 in the public awareness category. The ad was created for the NGO, Aadhar. Executive Creative Director: Ravi Deshpande Creative Director: Raghu Bhat/Manish Bhatt Copywriter: Anshumani Khanna Art Director: Manan Mistry/Vimal Singh Typographer: Manan Mistry Link courtesy Anamika Crossposted on…
How media went overboard in Padmapriya case
A. NARAYANA writes from London: Enough and more has been said about the media’s overzealousness in the Padmapriya Bhat case.(The wife of a law-maker in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, Padmapriya went missing for three days and was later found dead in the national capital, New Delhi, 2500 km away.) More than the overreach…
‘Skewed Crude Fuels Pump Slump’
Despite his vast, wide and well-earned notoriety, Rupert Murdoch continues to maintain—unlike any Indian newspaper publisher, may we add—that he wants to make The Wall Street Journal “the best newspaper in the world.” Yet, the thought of the owner of ultra-sleazy tabloids The Sun, News of the World, and The New York Post being at…
From their own correspondent: the inside story
G.N. MOHAN forwards a picture of a Lakshmamma, an agricultural labourer from Andhra Pradesh, doing to three journalism students of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in Bangalore on Tuesday what they will eventually do later in their careers to everybody else. The woman and four of her colleagues from the community media trust of Deccan Development…
15 great ideas (or 15 trite ideas) for newspapers
Lee Abrams, the chief innovation officer of the Tribune newspapers in the United States, has a blog in which he lists the 15 ways to grow newspapers: 1) Compartmentalise: If grocery stores were organized like newspapers, you’d wear out your shoes looking for vegetables, as carrots would be in aisle 6, tomatoes in aisle 8,…
170 intellectuals protest case against edit writer
170 academics, writers, film makers, journalists, activists, and other public intellectuals drawn from several countries have expressed their strong protest against the charges of criminal offence brought against political psychologist and sociologist Ashis Nandy over an editorial page article written by him in The Times of India in January this year, in the aftermath of…
IJR 