In the era of news at the speed of light, no “scoop” lasts more than the time it takes for an obese OB van to turn the corner. On Friday, September 20, the Indian Express lead story on the activities of former army chief, Gen V.K. Singh‘s “rogue” outfit technical support division (TSD) threatened do…
Monthly Archives: September 2013
Indian Express, Shekhar Gupta & Gen V.K. Singh
For the second time in 18 months, the northern edition of Viveck Goenka‘s Indian Express (sold in the south as The National Standard) has been drawn into a blazing row between the Congress-led UPA government and the then (and now retired) chief of the Army staff, General V.K. Singh. *** In April 2012, the Express…
‘People know TV news is just entertainment’
Pratap Bhanu Mehta president of the Delhi-based thinktank, Centre for Policy Research (CPR), in an interview with Karan Thapar for CNN-IBN: Karan Thapar: How do you view the Indian media? Do you share justice Markandey Katju‘s concern, that by and large it is obsessive, it is narrow-minded, it focuses on middle class – urban concerns,…
Portrait of a film critic at the cash counter
At Sooni Taraporevala‘s endearing exhibition of photographs of Parsis, chronicled since 1977, the very first exhibit is of Rashid Irani. On the left is Irani last year; on the right is Irani 25 years ago. Both pictures show Irani, the working partner of Brabourne, the eponymous Irani restaurant on Princess Street in Bombay with which…
Karan Thapar takes on Shekhar Gupta on credit
Even after a quarter-century or thereabouts of television interviewing, Karan Thapar‘s competitive edge has far from dimmed. In his weekly column in the Hindustan Times (whose failed TV venture Home TV he helped set up in the 1990s), Thapar takes offence at the Indian Express and Mail Today for not crediting him for an interview…
When an editor draws a cartoon, it’s news
Indian print editors have done book reviews (Sham Lal, Times of India), film reviews (Vinod Mehta, Debonair), food reviews (Vir Sanghvi, Hindustan Times), music reviews (Chandan Mitra, TOI, Pioneer, The Sunday Observer; Sanjoy Narayan, Hindustan Times), elephant polo reviews (Suman Dubey, India Today) etc, but few have done cartoons. When The Telegraph, Calcutta, was launched…
And, so, the ‘best journalist in India’ is…
Tunku Varadarajan, former editor of Newsweek International, on his thambi (younger brother), Siddharth Varadarajan, editor of The Hindu, in the September issue of The Indian Quarterly: “I think he’s the best journalist in India. He’s serious, he’s knowledgeable, he writes wonderfully. But what drives him is the urge to educate people, to edify. What he…
Arnab Goswami, India wants to know, do you…?
The interjections, the Apsara pencil in your face, the six windows on the screen… they are all there on online store Flipkart’s new TV campaign, based on Times Now‘s editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami. Also read: Arnab Goswami finally, finally, joins Twitter ‘Arnab Goswami is corrective to babalog media’ How a martyr’s wife changed Arnab Goswami‘s outlook
When a freelance writer cannot meet an Editor
Three weeks ago, V. Gangadhar (in picture), the well-known Bombay satirist who created the character Trishanku, wrote a diary in Outlook* magazine, in which he lamented his inability to meet K.B. Ganapathy, the erudite editor of India’s most successful English evening newspaper, Star of Mysore, on a visit to the southern city. Gangadhar wrote: I…
Do readers and viewers care for film reviews?
How much do newspaper and magazine readers, internet surfers and television viewers, care for movie reviews? Do reviews help make up their minds on whether to watch a film or not? Do reviews affect box-office returns? Does a lower rating prompt filmmakers (and filmgoers) to take a higher road? The weekend supplement of Business Standard…
IJR 