Impact, the marketing journal from the exchange4media group, has conducted a five-city poll on the mood of the nation after the Niira Radia tapes stung Barkha Dutt, Vir Sanghvi, Prabhu Chawla and eight other media stars. And the results are revealing. # 86% of respondents feel let down by the thought of journalists as “fixers”.…
Monthly Archives: November 2010
Everybody loves a nice mutual admiration club
Ratan Tata, the bossman of Tata Sons in the middle of the 2G spectrum allocation scam following the outing of the tapes of the conversations of his chief lobbyist Niira Radia, has given an interview to Shekhar Gupta, editor-in-chief of The Indian Express and host of NDTV’s interview programme, Walk the Talk. The text of…
‘Credibility is like virginity and it has been lost’
The veteran journalist, columnist and author Kuldip Nayar in The Sunday Guardian: “Credibility is like virginity. It exists or it does not. Unfortunately, some top names in Indian journalism have lost their credibility…. They behaved like power brokers and crossed the Lakshman rekha between legitimate news gathering and lobbying. It is like the fence eating…
How to get tomorrow’s news today: an example
The Indian Express, Ramnath Goenka‘s bludgeon that once drove fear through the hearts of the high and mighty, the corrupt and the crooked, has emerged as a key player in drumming up the defence for Ratan Tata, the chairman of Tata Sons, whose conversations with the group’s chief lobbyist Niira Radia, revealed by Outlook* and…
Lessons for Vir & Barkha from Prem & Nikhilda
By T.J.S. GEORGE Journalism started going astray with the birth of financial dailies in the 1960s. With full-fledged newspapers devoted exclusively to business, corporate houses became hyperactive. The next thing we knew was press conferences ending with gifts of expensive sarees and suitlengths to reporters. That was innocent child play compared to what has hit…
Vir Sanghvi “suspends” Hindustan Times column
Vir Sanghvi‘s weekly Hindustan Times column Counterpoint will not appear from next Sunday, after tapes of his alleged conversations with the lobbyist Niira Radia surfaced in Outlook* and Open magazines last week. The column which will appear tomorrow, 28 November 2010, will be his last, although Sanghvi claims on his website, a) that he is…
Bangalore journos named in site allotment scam
It’s raining scams across the country—and the media is increasingly getting caught in the downpour with its pants down. In just the last few weeks, newspapers, magazines and TV stations have stood accused of conflict of interest, outright plagiarism, questionable business practices, and equally questionable journalistic practices. In the backdrop of the Adarsh scam in…
BARKHA DUTT on the allegations against her
After lying low for a week following the Outlook* and Open magazine cover stories on her conversations with the lobbyist Niira Radia, the NDTV anchor Barkha Dutt has provided her version of events, rebutting the key charge that she played any role in passing on any message to intercede on behalf of a particular minister…
The Fuhrer intervenes again on Radia Tapes
As journalists ponder the rot within the media, Varun Grover at The Daily Tamasha provides much-needed levity to the proceedings by asking the basic question: where is the story in the paper I read (and the TV station I watch)? Also read: Santosh Desai: Silence of the hacks *** In which Adolf Hitler reacts to…
In which, Adolf Hitler reacts to “Barkhagate”
So what if “mainstream media”, assuming such a beast exists, ignores the Niira Radia tapes in the 2G scam involving, among others, topguns of journalism like Barkha Dutt, Vir Sanghvi and Prabhu Chawla? Also read: This is “All India Radia”
‘Quantitative growth vs qualitative improvement’
Editorial in Business Standard: “These exposes [of paid news, nexus between media professionals and corporate lobbyists, etc] are, however, only the tip of an iceberg of professional misconduct in the Indian media. “The unprecedented quantitative growth of media in the past decade has overtaken qualitative improvement. The enormous improvement in financial compensation has, paradoxically, blunted…
‘Tehelka’ walks away with IPI award for 2010
Tehelka magazine has won the International Press Institute (IPI) India award for excellence in journalism for 2010, for its expose of the killing of a Manipur resident, Chongkam Sanjit, in cold blood by the northeastern State’s commandos. The report, by then correspondent Teresa Rehman, prompted a central bureau of investigation (CBI) investigation, which went on…
‘Go to bed knowing you haven’t succumbed’
Business Standard, the financial daily edited by Sanjaya Baru, the former media advisor to the prime minister, carried an editorial last week on Ratan Tata‘s 2010 revelation that an “advice” to bribe a Union minister Rs 15 crore was what had put his group off from launching a private airline in the late 1990s. “Name…
Would our media spend Rs 20 lakh on a ‘junket’?
A PTI story estimating US President Barack Obama‘s India trip at $200 million a day prompted CNN anchor Anderson Cooper to do some number-crunching, and elicited a column from Pulitzer prize winning New York Times foreign affairs columnist Tom Friedman, and a response from PTI editor-in-chief M.K. Razdan. Now, the Indian Express has a diary…
‘Media houses are sitting on plots leased at Re 1’
The BJP general secretary and member of Parliament, Ravi Shankar Prasad, in an interview with Kunal Majumder of Tehelka magazine: Q: [Maharashtra chief minister] Ashok Chavan has resigned after corruption charges. Will Karnataka chief minister B.S. Yediyurappa follow suit? A: Irregularities in housing societies are nothing new. The Adarsh Society scam shocked the nation because…
Has media credibility suffered a body-blow?
As if all the scams involving the legislature, executive and the judiciary weren’t enough, a big blow has been struck against the so-called fourth estate—the media—with tapped conversations (outed by Open and Outlook magazines)allegedly revealing that some of Indian journalism’s biggest names may have crossed the line between legitimate news gathering to lobbying with political parties…
Why we didn’t air Niira Radia tapes: 2 examples
The publication of the transcripts of the Niira Radia tapes—in which the fixer of the Tatas and Ambanis talks to journalists Vir Sanghvi and Barkha Dutt (among others)—by Open magazine, Outlook* and Mail Today has sent the media world into a tizzy. Only a brave few have been able to avoid the temptation of…
Just a year old and already moving around
It has been issued free to new readers. It has been bundled with the main paper for old ones. When subscribers refused to pay, it had to be clarified that it is not a free supplement. And it is now being promoted through the main paper. That’s the story of the Crest edition of The…
Everybody loves (to claim credit for) an expose
Indian television news channels, whose fortunes rise and fall each week, routinely advertise their ratings “victory” after each major event: the Union budget, the general elections, the Obama visit, etc. It looks like newspapers are quickly following in the footsteps of television in the 2G spectrum allocation scam, and this even as the Supreme Court…
Who really named All India Radio as Akashvani?
PALINI R. SWAMY writes: Mysore’s preminent position in the setting up and christening of All India Radio as “Akashvani” has gone uncontested for well over half a century. Now, in the 75th year of AIR, an unlikely challenger has emerged from 300 km away. A 70-year-old woman has stood up in Udupi to assert that…
IJR 