Those who live by the media shall die by it, was not what the editor-in-chief of the Harijan said. But he would well have had he been around in the era of Suhel Seth. The adman cum image consultant cum lobbyist cum columnist cum TV regular, who counts media bigwigs and gasbags among his many…
Monthly Archives: November 2011
How papers are working around wage board
With the Union government having notified the recommendations of the Majithia wage board for journalists and other employees, newspaper managements are on a collision course. The Indian Newspaper Society (INS) has slammed the government go-ahead despite industry representations; at least three newspaper houses have filed cases against it; and insiders say a November 16 meeting…
Vir Sanghvi says his HT column will resume soon
After gripping the nation’s attention for nearly a year, the Niira Radia tapes that brought the politics-business-media nexus into sharp focus, is now on a slow but screechy rewind. The lobbyist Radia has shut shop; arrested politicians (Kanimozhi) are on the way out of jail; the corporate bosses and business executives have secured bail; the…
‘Black Day’ to protest bid to scuttle wage board
PRESS RELEASE: Delhi Union of Journalists(DUJ) will observe a “Black Day” on Friday, 2 December 2011, to protest against moves to scuttle the wage board for journalist and non-journalists, and concerted moves to kill the working journalists Act. The Black Day will also spotlight the increasing attacks on journalists in sensitive areas, and moves by…
Ex-journo ends life owing to “work pressure”
sans serif records the demise of Smitha Rao, a former Times of India and Bangalore Mirror journalist, who had joined Infosys, apparently owing to “work pressure” at the bellwether IT company. A former colleague who described her as “very bright, high strung, hugely temperamental”, said she kept saying she missed journalism. Image: courtesy One India…
‘China Daily’ hands back occupied areas to India
Tongue firmly in cheek, James Fallows of The Atlantic Monthly (a one-time resident of Beijing) calls it “the world’s finest daily”. Two weeks ago it began to appear on the streets of the United States. Now, “China Daily” has spread its wings to India. A 24-page edition of the weekly tabloid, printed in Hong Kong…
EPW, the ‘Economist’ of emerging countries?
The former West Bengal finance minister, economist and left ideologue, Ashok Mitra, in The Telegraph, Calcutta: “Gentlemen do not engage in public brawl; if they have a grievance to air, they write to the London Times. That was the British code…. The Indian gentry, as could only be expected, inherited the code of the ruling nation…. For…
An Emergency-style witchhunt of the media?
The top item (above) in the gossip column of The Indian Express today lends further credence to the conspiracy theory doing the rounds in Delhi that there may be a pattern to, and a devious intent behind, all that is happening to the media in recent weeks: the sweeping remarks of press council chairman Justice…
Journalist arrested in journalist’s murder case
Jigna Vora, the deputy bureau chief of The Asian Age, Bombay, who was arrested today in connection with the dastardly murder of Mid-Day journalist J. Dey. Vora, who was formerly of Mumbai Mirror, has been charged under Section 120 (b) of the Indian penal code (conspiracy), read with 302 (murder) and Maharashtra control of organised…
Then and Now: How TOI covered the Tata change
There is a change at the top of Bombay House, the headquarters of the Tatas, and the manner in which it is covered by Bombay’s biggest media house, The Times of India, is illustrative of how much journalism has changed, and how much the way journalists look at business news has changed, in the last…
2011 Sanskriti Award for Tehelka’s Rana Ayyub
Rana Ayyub, a Bombay-based assistant editor with Tehelka magazine, is among the five recipients of this year’s Sanskriti Awards. The awards were presented in New Delhi on Friday, November 18. In her seven-year career in journalism, Rana, 28, a postgraduate in social communications media, has reported from the naxal hotbeds and the warlands of the…
Times, Express groups get most anniversary ads
PRITAM SENGUPTA writes from New Delhi: For the final anniversary of the year of India’s “Family No. 1”—the birth anniversary of the nation’s first woman prime minister Indira Gandhi—there are 70 advertisements amounting to 32 published pages in 12 English newspapers that have been surveyed through the year by sans serif. With this anniversary, the…
HT springs to ToI’s support in Times Now case
Admittedly, the Justice P.B. Sawant libel case against Times Now is a grave one with serious implications for the media across the nation. Even so, it is worth asking if The Times of India–Hindustan Times jugalbandi—most evident when the arch rivals joined hands to float a (now-defunct) tabloid to stymie the launch of Mail Today…
Editors Guild backs ‘Times Now’ in libel case
The Supreme Court of India has declined to intervene in a Bombay High Court case against Times Now, directing the channel to deposit Rs 20 crore with the court registry along with a bank guarantee of Rs 80 crore, in a libel case involving the former chairman of the Press Council of India, Justice P.B.…
323 ads, nearly 160 pages to mark 5 anniversaries
PRITAM SENGUPTA writes from New Delhi: There are 58 government advertisements amounting to 26¼ pages in 12 English newspapers today to mark the birth anniversary of India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. In contrast, there were 108 ads amounting to 48 pages to mark his grandson, Rajiv Gandhi‘s birthday in August. All told, so far…
How mainstream media has neglected Manipur
Pradip Phanjoubam, editor-proprietor of the Manipur English daily Imphal Free Press, on how the mainstream Indian media has covered the 100-day-old blockade in the northeastern State, in conversation with Jyoti Punwani in The Times of India: How do you view the media’s coverage of Manipur’s situation? Many TV channels themselves said Maharashtra or Gujarat would not…
A paper without ‘paid news’ for north Indians
It is the season for southern English newspapers to head North. Deccan Herald is due to print out of Delhi from December. And nowThe Hindu, “the most readable daily in the world” which already prints out of the national capital, has added another printing centre in the North, with a potshot at those who “serve…
Ravi Dhariwal: Reader is king, reader is the CEO
Ravi Dhariwal, the chief executive officer of The Times of India group, on why Indian newspapers still continue to be successful unlike in western markets. “Coming from an FMCG background, fundamentally the first thing that I look at is, is it good for our consumers? Is it good for our advertisers and customers? The traditional…
NYT, WSJ weigh in on Tehelka’s Goa controversy
The controversy surrounding Tehelka magazine’s Goa conference, ThinkFest, had so far been largely confined to sections of blogosphere, which used an editorial page piece in Hindustan Times by the theatreperson Hartman de Souza, and Tehelka editor Tarun J. Tejpal‘s response to it, as a trigger. Only Deccan Herald among the large English dailies gave any…
Should the Chief Justice present media awards?
Influential members of the Supreme Court bar were aghast and affronted when the Indian Express named the Chief Justice of India, S.H. Kapadia, as the most powerful man in India two years ago, especially when he had just taken over and the apex court was seized of major cases with corporate interests, such as mining…
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