CNBC-TV18 bossman Raghav Bahl managed to secure the “first interview” with Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee after he presented his budget on Monday, although Mukherjee had appeared before Financial Express managing editor M.K. Venu for Lok Sabha TV hours earlier. At the end of the 30-minute pow-wow, Bahl dragged in his hobby-horse, China, and quoted…
Monthly Archives: February 2011
The Indian Express programme in journalism
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‘Rabid, right-wing, Fox News on Acid.’ Yet 74%?
A news item on the business pages of The Times of India: Times Now most viewed during PM press conference Mumbai: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh‘s televised news conference last week was most watched on Times Now. According to rating agency TAM, 74% viewers among 25-plus males in big cities watched the PM on Times Now.…
Guess what I bought my girlfriend on Feb 14?
Ordinary mortals buy roses for their beau on Valentine’s Day. Sons of the soil buy TV news channels. Well, that’s what Bangalore Mirror, the tabloid from The Times of India stable is reporting. Former Karnataka chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, son of the former prime minister and “humble farmer” H.D. Deve Gowda, already runs a general…
Why is Rupert Murdoch taking on Samir Jain?
New Delhi’s media circles have agog all this week with news of a “sting” operation on The Times of India by The Sunday Times of London. The question: why would Rupert Murdoch‘s paper take on Samir Jain‘s, especially when it is not revealing anything particularly new? Is something afoot between the media giants? Has a…
‘The poor in rural India need BBC Hindi service’
Eighteen leading intellectuals, including the BBC’s iconic voice from India, Sir Mark Tully, have written a letter to the editor of The Guardian, pleading for the continuation of broadcast of the BBC’s Hindi service. “We are astonished at the news that the BBC management has decided to stop transmission of BBC Hindi radio on short…
Love Facebook? FB has a job for you in NY
Facebook is seeking a Journalist Program Manager with proven experience using Facebook in progressive ways as a journalist. The Journalist Program Manager will utilize both partnership and program management skills to help journalists understand the value of using Facebook, get started, and use it effectively over time. This is a full-time position based in New…
The minister, the prime minister & the advisor
*** Was the information and broadcasting minister Ambika Soni invited to the prime minister’s inquisition on television? Or not? Depends on which paper you read. If you read The Indian Express (top) on Monday, for instance, she was informed by the PMO about the interaction but then told about the space crunch and asked to…
Rajeev Chandrasekhar buying a Malayalam daily?
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the mobile phone baron turned media entrepreneur, is spreading his news media presence wings some more in the South. After buying Asianet News in Kerala and launching Suvarna News in Karnataka, the Rajya Sabha member is about to obtain controlling stake in Kannada Prabha, the Kannada daily owned by the New Indian Express…
Why the PM is hopelessly wrong about media
T.J.S. GEORGE writes: Does the media distort facts? The Prime Minister thinks so. By “focussing excessively” on scam after scam, does the media spoil India’s image? The Prime Minister thinks so. For the leader of a government that is neck-deep in scams, it is natural to think as the Prime Minister does. But that does…
‘Bollywood journalism is about PR & pimping’
Nandita Puri, journalist and wife of actor Om Puri, in an interview in Tehelka magazine: Q: What are the biggest problems in Bollywood journalism today? A: Bollywood journalism is about PR and pimping. Of course, stars have glamours personal lives everyone wants to know about, but now that has become the core of film reportage.…
In its golden jubilee year, ET gets a new design
Quietly, almost as if it doesn’t want anybody to notice, India’s oldest and largest business paper,The Economic Times, has undergone a redesign. On top is the front page of the launch issue of the paper in its new avatar (Monday, 14 February 2011) and below is the paper from exactly a week before. The pagination…
A new editor for Udayavani. New editions next?
Udayavani, the Kannada daily published by the Pais of Manipal, has a new editor from today: Ravi Hegde. Hegde, former editor of the Rajeev Chandrasekhar-owned 24×7 Kannada news channel Suvarna News, joins the paper published from Bangalore, Mangalore and Bombay at a time of great churning in the Kannada media. He has been designed group…
How well is the PM’s media advisor advising him?
Of all the reasons being trotted out for prime minister Manmohan Singh‘s declining equity, his media management skills rank somewhere near the very top. Despite a full-fledged media advisor in his entourage, the bush telegraph is that Manmohan has been poorly served by Harish Khare, the former deputy editor of The Hindu. Although Manmohan Singh…
‘Good morning! Your paper is free of paid news!’
In this era of mercenary managers and predatory proprietors, brave is the editor who can actually stick his neck out—at least in public—and vouch for the virginity of his product. But Aditya Sinha, the new editor-in-chief of the Bombay daily Daily News & Analysis (DNA), clearly doesn’t mind taking the risk. At least, if nothing…
Radia effect on PM’s invitees for TV pow-wow?
Prime minister Manmohan Singh‘s much ballyhooed pow-wow with “editors” of television channels to clear the air over the scams dogging his government, was, as was to be expected, a typically tepid, bureaucratic affair. Only the national English TV channels—Headlines Today (represented by Aroon Purie), CNN-IBN (Rajdeep Sardesai), NDTV 24×7 (Prannoy Roy), Times Now (Arnab Goswami)—were…
World Cup: From our very special correspondent
A news snippet on the nation page of the Hindustan Times reveals Pakistan’s secret weapon for the press box in the upcoming cricket World Cup: Bigg Boss finalist Veena Malik. Her cricket expertise? She was hitched to former Pakistani cricketer Mohammad Asif, since banned for spot match-fixing.
26/11, the RSS, the Editor & the Rajya Sabha seat
Last month, Aziz Burney, the influential editor of the Urdu daily Roznama Rashitriya Sahara, owned by Subroto Roy of the Sahara group, published a grovelling front-page apology for linking the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) with the 26 November 2008 siege of Bombay. In a box titled “Aziz Burney ki taraf se safaai aur maafi)” (A…
‘Indians trust magazines* more than newspapers’
Trust in the Indian media is down sharply by 15 percentage points over the last two years. One out of every two Indians distrusts what they read, see, and listen but—surprise, surprise, OK, no surprise, no surprise!—trust in magazines* is higher than for newspapers, TV news or radio. These, in short, are the major highlights…
One more claimant for the 2G spectrum scam
It is the year of the lord, 2011, but it is still not too late to claim credit for the 2G spectrum allocation scam. Nearly a week after the disgraced telecom minister A. Raja was arrested, marking the end of the beginning of the scam, today’s Indian Express carries a five-ad campaign saluting its sister…
IJR 