An advertisement appearing in The Times of India in Delhi today, in memory of Kul Bhushan Kumar, who set up a pioneering cartographic service for Indian newspapers over 60 years ago. “KBK”, as his signature read, was a migrant from Peshawar who hopped across the border after Partition, setting up his syndication agency in Bengali…
Monthly Archives: April 2012
The editor who said ‘no’ to Ramnath Goenka
The veteran journalist Kuldip Nayar pays tribute to V.K. Narasimhan, the legendary editor of the Indian Express during the Emergency in 1975, in a column in Deccan Herald: “The day Indira Gandhi was defeated at the polls Narasimhan was ousted to bring in S. Mulgaonkar. Ramnath Goenka explained that this was his obligation because Mulgaonkar…
‘Jacket’ ads continue to trouble ‘The Hindu’
In January, a jacket advertisement on the front page of The Hindu, featuring a Tamil Nadu Congress leader who loudly proclaimed his affection for Sonia Gandhi at the beginnig of the new year— “We remain, Madamji, ever at your feet”—caused a bit of buzz. Then, Siddharth Varadarajan, the paper’s incoming editor, wrote on his Facebook…
Press Trust of India strike for Majithia wage board
Press Trust of India (PTI) employees are going on strike tomorrow demanding the implementation of the recommendations of the Majithia wage board. Below is the full take of the PTI news advisory to subscribers. *** ZCZC PRI COM ECO ENT GEN NAT SPO .NEWDEL DEL31 ADVISORY Attn: All Subscribers PTI news and photo services are…
Eight reasons journalism is the best profession
A recent survey ranking journalism as the fifth worst job to have—alongside dishwashers and oil rig workers—has got journalists all worked up. Jeff Bercovici lists eight reasons why that’s not true, despite the low salaries,the long and irregular working hours, etc. # You’re always learning # You get paid to read a ton # You…
‘Praja Vani’ special issue guest-edited by a Dalit
Many Indian newspapers now invite a “Guest Editor” to create some buzz. Usually the guest is a boldfaced name: a cricketer (Yuvraj Singh), a godman (Sri Sri Ravi Shankar), a businessman (N.R. Narayana Murthy), a news maker (Amartya Sen) or a celebrity. Take a bow, Praja Vani. On the birth anniversary of the father of…
Journalism lesson #1: No one’s indispensable
Tabish Khair, journalist turned poet, in Open magazine: You were with The Times of India in Delhi for a little les than five years. How has your life as a journalist shaped your writing? You lose your fear of deadlines, and learn to keep them. You realise that the world is far wider and weirder…
Congratulations, all of you, for a great job…
Infographic: courtesy Hindustan Times *** Also read: If you’ve been feeling nice about yourself… This magazine’s newsroom is a real brothel
Journalists vs journalist in Bangalore free-for-all
PALINI R. SWAMY writes from Bangalore: A veritable dogfight has broken out in Bangalore between a 24×7 Kannada news channel owned by the MP, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, and the owner-editor of a weekly Kannada newspaper. On the surface, the dispute is over credits for a recently released Kannada film. But, deep down, the spat has served…
Time for focus-groups in Indian journalism?
Vidhu Vinod Chopra, the film maker and producer behind such big hits as Parinda, 1942: A Love Story, Munnabhai MBBS and 3 Idiots, is a big fan of focus groups—exposing a small audience to a film before its release and tailoring the finished product based on their reaction. In an interview with Shekhar Gupta of…
Times of India: one movie, one review, 3 ratings
On Saturday, the venture capitalist Mahesh Murthy drew attention, through his Facebook account, to the differing number of stars in The Times of India review for the same film (Housefull-2) by the same reviewer (Srijana Mitra Das) in the Bombay and Madras editions of the paper. ToI got the “discrepancy” rectified, but the disparity remains…
Aditya Sinha tears into Indian Express ‘C’ report
Aditya Sinha, editor-in-chief of DNA, in his weekly column: “There was a telephone call from my father, who lives abroad, a few days ago. He wanted to know if it was true that the Army had planned to attack Delhi back in January, as reported in The Indian Express. Don’t worry, I said, no such…
‘Mouth ka Saudagar’ to play Rajdeep & Arnab
Emran Hashmi, the Bollywood actor who has attained the reputation of a “serial kisser” in his film career, is to play the role of an “upwardly mobile journalist with a top news channel” in the upcoming film, Rush. HT City, the city supplement of the Hindustan Times in Delhi, quotes the movie’s director as saying…
It’s a mad, ad, mad, ad, mad world in Bombay
A full-page advertisement on the back page of the Bombay newspaper, DNA, hitting out at you-know-who: From luring the brands with incentives to no-escape clauses in their advertising contracts, the industry is stooping to newer lows for gaining advertising revenue. However, at DNA, we still hold a torch to some old-fashioned traditional values. Our principles…
How the media viewed Express ‘C’ report
Editorial in Deccan Herald: “There is reason for deep concern over the report in a national daily, The Indian Express, about an ‘unexpected (and non-notified) movement’ of two army units towards Delhi on the night of January 16-17… To insinuate that General V.K. Singh would attempt a coup to settle scores with the government is downright…
‘The Indian Express’ stands by its ‘C’ report
Everybody from the prime minister to the defence minister have dismissed the Indian Express front-page story on the coup that wasn’t in Delhi on the night of January 16-17. Now, the paper has published a formal statement standing by the story on its website. Below is the full text: *** “The Indian Express report “The…
Indian Express ‘C’ report: Scoop, rehash, spin?
PRITAM SENGUPTA writes from New Delhi: The front-page, full-page report in the northern editions of The Indian Express this morning, that two units of the Indian Army moved towards Delhi on January 16, 2012—the day the Army chief V.K. Singh‘s petition before the Supreme Court on his date of birth was coming up—has sent New…
How the ‘bribe bomb’ landed at ‘The Hindu’
The chief of the Army staff, Gen V.K. Singh‘s interview to The Hindu on March 26, in which he accused a former army officer of making a Rs 14 crore bribe offer, stirred the proverbial hornet’s nest last Monday. The timing of the charge, on the eve of the BRICS summit in Delhi, set tongues…
IJR 