A line of outdoor broadcast (OB) vans occupy one half of the road outside the Supreme Court of India on Tuesday, 28 September 2010, the day the highest court in the land ruled that the judgement in the Ayodhya title suit could be pronounced without any further delay. Below, the media scrum sticks the mike…
Monthly Archives: September 2010
Censored, but no copies have been confiscated
Since January 2009, India has “censored” The Economist “newspaper” 31 times, mostly for its depiction of Kashmir in its maps. Usually, newsstand copies are more at risk of attracting the “illegal stamp” against subscription copies. Image: courtesy The Economist Link via Boing Boing Also read: If it catches your eye, surely the ad’s working? Funny…
Why newspapers were offloaded from a plane
An item in ‘Delhi Confidential‘, the Monday gossip column of The Indian Express, on the Volkswagen Vento “talking ad” run by The Hindu and The Times of India last week. Facsimile: courtesy The Indian Express Also read: ‘Talking ads’ in The Hindu and The Times of India Three reasons why the ToI-Volkswagen ad won’t work…
Fortune India and Forbes India in numbers
Much anticipated and much delayed, Fortune, the business magazine from the Time Inc stable, has finally made its India debut, in collaboration with Aveek Sarkar‘s Ananda Bazaar Patrika (ABP) group, 16 months after the launch of the Indian edition of Forbes in collaboration with Raghav Bahl‘s Network 18 group. # Forbes India periodicity: fortnightly Fortune…
Ambani book review, a response and a riposte
Its original avatar,The Polyester Prince, failed to see the light of day after injunctions were secured against its release in several cities. Now, an updated version of Sydney Morning Herald journalist Hamish McDonald‘s book on the Ambanis has surprisingly hit the stands under a new title, Ambani & Sons. Shantanu Guha-Ray, the business editor of…
When games’ wealth ain’t for the Common Man
Cartoon: courtesy E.P. Unny/ The Indian Express
Is it all over for DNA in the battle for Bombay?
SHARANYA KANVILKAR writes from Bombay: The October 8 issue of Forbes magazine, from the CNBC-TV18 group, carries a four-page story that reads more like an advance obituary for DNA, the English broadsheet daily newspaper that was launched by the Dainik Bhaskar and Zee television groups to humble The Times of India in urbs prima in…
An Aroon Purie tribute worthy of emulation
Farewell speeches and circulars in Indian media houses—where good HR practises are somewhere between 18th and 19th century—are usually grim, graceless, god-awful affairs. The moment the exit sign lights up over an employee’s head, the good times are over: bosses suddenly bare their fangs, colleagues start hissing amongst themselves, and management chamchas slither around suspiciously.…
Prabhu Chawla out, M.J. Akbar in at India Today
There is change at the top of the totempole of India’s largest English newsmagazine, India Today. After several false rumours of his impending mortality as helmsman, editor Prabhu Chawla has been sent off to look after the language editions of the magazine. Author-editor-columnist M.J. Akbar has been named editorial director of India Today and the…
Is media resorting to self-censorship on Ayodhya?
The run-up to the court verdict on the title suit in the Ayodhya dispute has seen plenty of activity built around the media. The News Broadcasters’ Association—the body representing private television news and current affairs broadcasters—has issued a set of four guidelines to all editors of member-news channels: 1) All news relating to the High…
When an advertisement becomes the news
Both The Hindu and The Times of India have today run news items on the buzz created by the Volkswagen Vento “talking” advertisement that the two papers ran. And both claim they were the “world’s first” newspaper to run the ad, without mentioning the other. But, to its credit, The Times of India story also…
3 reasons why ToI-Volkswagen ad doesn’t work
Still unaware that the Volkswagen Vento ‘talking’ ad appeared first in The Hindu, Madras, and not The Times of India, and that it also appears in The Hindu Business Line, the adman turned columnist Anil Thakraney lists three reasons why the ad doesn’t work, in Money Life: 1) Getting instant attention cannot be the sole…
‘Talking’ ads in The Hindu and The Times of India
Two leading Indian newspapers—The Hindu and The Times of India—have notched up a global first of sorts by carrying a “talking advertisement” two days in a row. The pathbreaking ad, which first featured in the Madras edition of yesterday’s Hindu, now finds space in today’s ToI in its Bangalore, Bombay, Poona and Delhi markets. ***…
Why Karan Thapar stopped haggling with God
Karan Thapar has a well-cultivated image of a tough, snarling, bulldog of a interviewer a la Jeremy Paxman. All the aggressive, relentless questioning and eyeball to eyeball gazing with the crooked and the wicked of the world might leave viewers wondering if the man has a heart at all. But the Devil’s Advocate has a…
Star News chief made to ‘sweep’ Kashmir street
The renewed violence on the streets of Kashmir—against the presence of armed forces, the stifling of free movement and speech, the alienation of the State and the humiliation of the people—is not sparing journalists on the job, too. Samar Halarnkar of the Hindustan Times reports in today’s paper that… “A friend’s husband, the chief of…
Does a free newspaper stand a chance in India?
Per Mikael Jensen, president and CEO of Metro International, the Swedish company behind the world’s largest free newspaper Metro, on his India plans, in the latest issue of Forbes India: # We’ve been looking at India for the last five years. It would have to be a joint venture or a franchise. FDI allows us…
Pablo Bartholomew: Cynical and proud of it!
Long years in the profession—watching vicious vipers making merry—should leave most professional Indian journalists deeply suspicious of the human species. Yet, rare is the journo honest enough to admit he has become a cynic in the process. “Sceptic yes, cynic no,” is the cop-out answer. Not so Pablo Bartholomew. The renowned photographer uses the C-word…
Whiff of a land scam at ‘National Media Centre’
Acquisition of land from farmers, tribals, shopkeepers and residents and others for industry and infrastructure projects has become a hot-button issue all over the country. Mediapersons, it seems, are not immune. The high-profile National Media Cooperative (NMC) housing society in Gurgaon—home to 190 of the capital’s boldfaced names in imprintlines—has landed bang in the centre…
What Raghav Bahl could learn from Samir Jain
SHARANYA KANVILKAR writes from Bombay: Some time in the mid-20th century, the legendary New Yorker writer (and foodie) A.J. Liebling famously said, “freedom of the press belongs to those who own one“. For proof in the early 21st, he might like to take a look at Raghav Bahl. The founder, editor, controlling shareholder and managing…
The grass is always greener on the other side
Former New Yorker and Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown: “Young journalists [should] go work in India. There are so many great newspapers in India. I go quite a lot, actually. It has a very vibrant newspaper and magazine culture. There’s a lot of energy in Delhi, a lot of newsmagazines. It’s a very literary culture,…
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