The media is pilloried, and rightly so, for erasing the line between editorial and advertising. Space sellers are slammed, and rightly so, for allowing advertisers and agencies to run riot. And publishers and editors are pilloried, and rightly so, for not standing up and telling advertisers, agencies and space sellers where to get off. But…
Monthly Archives: September 2009
Allen J. Mendonca: Here’s looking at you, kid
CHETAN KRISHNASWAMY writes from Bangalore: Allen Mendonca slunk away in sleep, gently tip-toeing into the darkness never to return. This time, his flamboyance was missing. The swagger was not there. There were none of the histrionics either. 49 is no age to exit out. Yet, he chose to do it his way. He never did…
Allen J. Mendonca, rest in peace
sans serif records with a heavy heart the passing away of Allen J. Mendonca, the former Indian Express and Times of India journalist, in Bangalore on Monday. He is survived by his wife Sandhya Mendonca and their son, Aditya. Allen, the son of a Reserve Bank of India employee, was an old-school journalist for whom…
William Safire’s 18 steps to better writing
It’s not known if William Safire, who wrote the “On Language” column in the New York Times Magazine for 30 years till earlier this month, was conversant with the ways of social media, but it is safe to presume that he would have been horrified at how his demise last night was coveyed to readers…
‘Newspaper men meet such interesting people’
American folk music singer, the legendary Pete Seeger, sings an ode to newspapermen. Link via Vadiraj Hombal
His Master’s Voice varies from his Man Friday’s
Minister of state for external affairs, Shashi Tharoor, is a) the son of a journalist of The Statesman, Calcutta, b) a longtime columnist with The Illustrated Weekly of India, The Hindu and The Times of India, and c) a career diplomat who spent a good part of his life at the United Nations writing books…
Old wine in very old bottle is still old wine
SHARANYA KANVILKAR writes from Bombay: The Times of India has unveiled its ‘Crest Edition‘ in Bombay and Delhi with a 40-page offering at an “introductory price” of Rs 6 per copy. (The ‘Crest Edition‘ branding is embedded below the masthead in italics.) “Why another newspaper or magazine, you may well ask. Don’t we already have…
Could the media end up killing Barack Obama?
Al Jazeera’s media show The Listening Post on how 24×7 media is dangerously inflaming passions against US President Barack Obama with lies, untruths, rhetoric—a little like the way a newspaper advertisement greeted John F. Kennedy the day he arrived in Dallas in 1963. Also read: How global media covered Barack Obama inauguration ‘The media’s obsession…
A lofty title takes the high road at premium price
The Times of India has officially announced the name of its new, “premium”, weekend paper launching on Saturday, September 26. It is called “The Crest Edition” and will have 40 pages. An announcement on the front page of the paper today says that like its “lofty title”, the Crest Edition will take the high road…
Readers take rest. Premium readers take Crest.
After weeks and months of “will they, won’t they”, The Times of India has bucked the advertising downturn and announced the launch of its “premium” weekend paper just ahead of the festival season. This announcement appears on the front page of the paper in Bombay and Delhi, suggesting that it is initially going to be…
If a report isn’t ‘wrong’, surely it must be ‘right’?
The threat of war between India and China has still not receded but the battle between unnamed home ministry sources continues relentlessly. Caught in the crossfire: journalists. First, The Hindu reported, quoting unnamed home ministry sources, that the government was contemplating filing a first information report against two journalists of The Times of India for…
Are you being served, Mr Foreign Correspondent?
The ruling Congress-led UPA government in India is on a major austerity drive. Ministers have moved out of temporary accommodation in five-star hotels. Party leaders are moving around in economy-class planes and trains to send the right signals. And a Twitter comment about the “cattle-class” and “holy cows” has sent the country all atwitter. In…
‘India’s best lensmen don’t come from media’
The celebrated lensman Prashant Panjiar has captured “the visual landscape of India at the cusp of change” for his solo exhibition Pan India, to be held in New Delhi from September 25 to October 5 under the auspeices of Tasveer, the art and photo gallery. In an interview with the Sunday Express, Panjiar, a former…
Censorship in the name of ‘national interest’?
PRITAM SENGUPTA writes from New Delhi: The coverage in the Indian media of conditions along the India-China border from where reports of “military incursions, shooting incidents and even imminent conflict along the Line of Actual Control” are being reported on an almost-daily basis has invoked a strange reaction from the government. On the one hand,…
‘A List’ most A-listers don’t want to be a part of
The Indian edition of Campaign has brought out a booklet called “The A List”, supposedly the who’s who in media, marketing and advertising, in partnership with NDTV Media. And the sloppy, incomplete and typo-ridden effort is remarkable for how predictable and boring most A-listers are: the most-admired politician—surprise, surprise—is Mahatma Gandhi, almost everybody’s favourite device…
The difference between fiction and journalism
Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes, whose next book is a journalistic report on drug trafficking and political corruption, has said he sees the press as the backbone of history, and fiction as the necessary contrast which gives meaning to the work of the press: “For fiction to be fiction, the press must be true. When novels…
The quest for the first blogger on planet earth
Was it Dave Weiner? Ranjit Bhatnagar? Montaigne? Julius Caesar, perhaps? Scott Rosenberg, author of say everything, says the qeust for the first blogger is, in the end, an infinite recursion; each candidate a pointer to one before. And the search is as futile as searching for the first poet, first playwright, first novelist, or even…
How a TV station was launched with Rs 4 lakh
How The Hindu reported the birth of India’s public television broadcaster 50 years ago. The terrestrial station went on air on 15 September but the report appeared in the newspaper two days later. Launched under the banner of All India Radio (AIR), it later attained its own brandname, Doordarshan. DD’s trademark signature, first brought to…
On India’s TV anniversary, no monkeying around
The 50th anniversary of the inception of terrestrial television in India provided the occasion for one of Doordarshan’s most famous faces, Salma Sultan, to enter the studios of the satellite whipper-snappers. Talking to Barkha Dutt on NDTV 24×7, Ms Sultan recounted the harrowing experience of having to read from the teleprompter and the challenge of…
‘If the reader is second to advertiser, you’ve lost’
At the Toronto international film festival, documentary film maker Michael Moore drops some pearls on the state of newspapers: “In Europe, Japan and other countries, for many—most—of their newspapers, the primary source of funding is circulation, advertising second. In our country [the United States] advertising is the primary source of funding, circulation second. “Any time…
IJR 