Food inflation is hitting the media, too, and the Press Club of Bangalore has a new menu card with revised prices for the paper tigers who throng the best located watering hole in the country.
Monthly Archives: October 2012
The Ambani brothers, TOI, Medianet & paid news
The “reverse-swing” done on Zee News by Jindal Steel is one of the most intriguing media stories in recent memory. The steel company says it is suing the Subhash Chandra-owned network for Rs 200 crore for the demand of Rs 100 crore in lieu of advertisements allegedly made by its editors, Sudhir Chaudhary and Sameer…
How did Robert Vadra vanish off the front pages?
A week is a long time for the media in Scamistan. The ripples caused by Sonia Gandhi‘s son-in-law Robert Vadra‘s real-estate dealings have given way to the hera-pheri of BJP president Nitin Gadkari‘s. The veteran editor and columnist Virendra Kapoor writes in The Sunday Guardian: You can be forgiven if you believe that Nitin Gadkari‘s…
In case you can’t believe what you’re seeing…
Top reporter quits plum job after 75 years
Exactly a week after Newsweek decided to shut shop and on the eve of the reverse-sting that caught Zee News with its pants down, Clark Kent has walked off his job at The Daily Planet as the world’s longest serving reporter, bemoaning the state of journalism. He would have completed 75 years of service next…
Forget Ram Rajya, there is a new Ravana in town
On the last day of Dasara, Vijayadashmi—the day Lord Rama is rumoured to have defeated the demon-king Ravana, in newspaper parlance—The Times of India‘s chief illustrator Neelabh Banerjee presents a new ten-headed monster–from corrupt cops to cricket officials to doctors to businessmen to bureaucrats to politicians—to slay (Click to view a larger image). Also read:…
Zee News, Jindal Steel & silence of the media
Swapan Dasgupta on the silence of much of the media on the Zee News-Jindal Steel extortion case, in which the editorial staff of the Subhash Chandra-owned channel allegedly demanded Rs 100 crore in lieu of advertisements from the steel major to not publish stories in the coal scam, in The Pioneer, Delhi: “The media didn’t…
Salman Khurshid, India Today & Sunday Guardian
Salman Khurshid, the Oxford-educated Union law minister, has taken the India Today group to court in Delhi, Bombay, Lucknow and London claiming damages of Rs 243 crore following Aaj Tak‘s sting operation that accused the trust run by his wife, former Sunday magazine journalist Louise Khurshid nee Fernandes, of a discrepancy of Rs 71 lakh.…
Thankfully, TOI calls S.M.A Kazmi a journalist
S. M. A. Kazmi, the Urdu and Persian language journalist arrested in March this year for his alleged involvement in the attack on the car of an Israeli embassy official in New Delhi in February, has been ordered by the Supreme Court of India to be released after seven long months in custody. Not surprisingly,…
Mamata Banerjee’s 9 commandments for journos
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, that great upholder of freedom of expression—think of cartoonists, college students, farmers and others who have been called “Maoists”—has some words of advice for journalists. Media creates “news pollution“, according to her; media spreads “canards and exaggerates negative news“; media “glorifies rape“. Therefore it should do the nine things…
‘Every big story in last 3 years broken by TOI’
The front-page of the launch edition of Ei Samay, the new Bengali newspaper launched by The Times of India group, in Calcutta, on Mahalaya, the first day of Dasara 2012. The first day’s issue comprises a 32-page main broadsheet section, a 32-page supplement, and an 8-page tabloid section titled O Samay. The main section has…
V.N. Subba Rao: a ‘shishya’ remembers his Guru
There are few more misleading terms in Indian journalism than the phrase “national media”. Only those who flit around in the rarefied circles of Delhi and Bombay, rubbing shoulders with the high and mighty, qualify; everyone else is “upcountry”. Only the bold-faced names from big English media houses are supposed to be national; everyone else…
An Angry Young Man gets good media @ 70
Amitabh Bachchan, the BBC’s “star of the millennium”, peers through a front-page of the Europe edition of The Wall Street Journal, in photographer Daboo Ratnani‘s calendar for October 2012. Libran Mr Bachchan, who has had a stormy relationship with the Indian media, turns 70 today. Also read: Amitabh Bachchan versus the Mumbai Mirror Look, who…
From the desk of hon’ble Member of Parliament…
In which Vijay Darda, member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) and chairman of Lokmat Media Limited shoots off an appeal to advertisers on his letterhead seeking advertisements for the special Deepotsav and Deepbhav issues of Lokmat (Marathi) and Lokmat Samachar (Hindi).
V.N. Subba Rao, an Express legend, no more
sans serif records with regret the passing away of V.N. Subba Rao, the former chief reporter and chief of bureau of the undivided Indian Express—and a guru and mentor to hundreds of young journalists—in Bangalore, on Tuesday morning. He was 81 years old and had been ailing for a few months. VNSR, as he was…
Brajesh Mishra, Outlook, Indian Express and DD
The passing away of the former national security advisor and former foreign service officer Brajesh Mishra last week has resulted in a welter of tributes, many very mushy, a few critical, but almost all of them throwing light on the uncomfortable influence that the Vajpayee aide held over the media—and the chummy friendship that some…
Rs 50 crore? Rs 100 crore? It’s all in the business
The coal scam claims its first journalistic victim: Zee Business from Subhash Chandra‘s Zee Network. The Indian Express reports a Rs 50 crore extortion claim from member of Parliament Naveen Jindal’s company for not doing a story. The Times of India pegs it at Rs 100 crore. Zee Business head Sudhir Chaudhary denies the charge…
There’s nothing like a bad deal at TimesDeal
Last Friday, business pages of The Times of India carried single-column item on the supposedly “accidental” travails of Times Deal, when a promo code being tested internally was reportedly leaked. The report quoted Satyan Gajwani, the newly appointed CEO of Times internet limited and son-in-law of the group’s bossman, Samir Jain. Today, TOI‘s business page…
When the Gang of Four meets in IIC, it’s news
An item appearing in Raisina Tattle, the gossip column of Mail Today, the tabloid from the India Today group. Also read: Who are the journos “running and ruining” the BJP? For the BJP, pen is mightier than the trishul? Don’t laugh: do journalists make good politicians? The lone-ranger of loony Hindutva versus…?
Samir Jain, Vineet Jain & TOI in The New Yorker
The October 8 issue of The New Yorker carries a nine-page article on The Times of India by its renowned media critic Ken Auletta in the clearest indication yet that the Times group is bracing for an IPO. Titled “Citizens Jain”, after the brothers Samir Jain and Vineet Jain, the piece examines why India’s newspaper…
IJR 