https://soundcloud.com/user-311470525/j-pod-pakistani-journalist *** Coronavirus has had a strange effect on Indian media. Pakistan has vanished off the radar. Well, not entirely but substantially. A sudden intimation of mortality has distracted desktop dvesh bhakts from their core group activity, of protecting India’s borders—by building walls in the minds of Indians; by spitting hatred at their neighbour so that…
Monthly Archives: April 2020
Everybody in the media loves a good sop from the government in the time of #Coronavirus. (Sorry about exhorting the State to let “market forces” do their job in happier times.)
Since its publication in 1996, the title of the journalist P.Sainath‘s book Everybody loves a good drought has been ready fallback for sub-editors stuck for a headline. (A lot like the movie title The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.) #Coronavirus is as good a time as any to doff the mask to Sainath’s book which,…
J-POD || Podcast || “This is not the time to get co-opted by the State. Media must stay vigilant and keep a critical eye on government” || ‘Asianet News’ editor M.G. Radhakrishnan on what “so-called national channels” can learn from Kerala
https://soundcloud.com/user-311470525/j-pod-asianet-news-editor-in-1 *** The greatest Editor-in-Chief to have walked India’s soil once said “the soul of India lives in its villages”. You could extrapolate that quotation of the ed-head of Young India and Harijan to the media, and say: “The soul of Indian journalism lives in its languages”. Just one set of numbers will suffice to show…
Will readers pay for the digital content of Indian newspapers and magazines, when they can get PDFs of the world’s best offerings free on WhatsApp?
The folly of Indian print media being overly dependent on advertisements to sustain and grow the business has come into sharp focus during the time of the COVID crisis. An average 16-page daily newspaper costs about Rs 10 to produce. In the quest for circulation numbers, publishers have followed the “penny press” model propagated by…
Supreme Court admits journalists’ unions’ PIL on post-COVID job losses; issues notice to Centre, INS, broadcasters
Amid lay-offs and salary cuts in the media industry during the COVID-19 lockdown, the Supreme Court has issued notice to the Centre in a petition filed by journalists’ unions. The Bench headed by Justice N. V. Ramana observed that the plea filed by among others by the Brihanmumbai Union of Journalists (BUJ), Delhi Union of…
J-POD || A podcast on journalism || “The newspaper business is in danger. It’s an unprecedented challenge for survival. We were in denial till Coronavirus struck” || N. Ram, Chairman, ‘The Hindu’ group
https://soundcloud.com/user-311470525/j-pod-n-ram-former-editor-in *** To look at the deep and debilitating impact #Coronavirus has had on jobs and salaries and workplaces merely through the prism of journalists and editors in India, would be to take a very limited view of what is a larger, systemic problem, one that haunts those way above the payscale of employees. Barring…
In the make-believe world of TOI’s brand managers, and spurious surveyers, #Coronavirus has led to a miracle in Indian newspaper readership
Trust and credibility, the foundational principles of good journalism, were long destroyed in India by privately vegetarian but publicly carnivorous media barons who destroyed the distinction between real and fake, between news and advertising. This front-page anchor in The Times of India in #Coronavirus season today provides visual proof. As editions get slimmer (today’s TOI…
J-POD || “Kannada newspapers’ circulation is down from 25 lakhs to 5 lakhs due to #Corona. No ads, no sales, no newsprint. It’s unimaginable; a grave existential crisis” || ‘Vishwa Vani’ editor and owner, Vishweshwar Bhat
Media management in India doesn’t present a pretty sight on a day when the “Old Lady of Bori Bunder” rides on little #Corona to announce salary cuts and defer increments, opening the floodgates, as it were, to less-endowed groups lower down the food chain. As each day dawns, the full scale of the havoc wrought…
“Advertisers are reluctant to spend on Marketing right now”: 10-40 per cent salary cuts at NDTV for those earning over Rs 50K per month
Hi, Together we have withstood formidable crises that would have left most groups ducking for cover. Our courage and our resilience is drawn from our commitment to free and fair journalism, from our determination to side only with the Truth. Most importantly, as we have demonstrated over and over, our strength and our courage is…
“To do more for less is the new normal”: Times Group says #COVID crisis needs a “start-up mindset”, as it announces 5-10% salary cuts, defers variable pay and increments
Below is the full text of the note by Sivakumar Sundaram, chairman, executive committee, Bennett Coleman & Co Ltd (BCCL) *** Dear Colleagues, The last one month has been unprecedented in terms of the disruption it has caused in our personal and professional lives. I recognise it must be extremely stressful for all, worrying about…
Gulshan Ewing, pioneering magazine editor of ‘Eve’s Weekly’ and ‘Star & Style’ , passes away at 92
Indian Journalism Review records with regret the passing away of Gulshan Ewing, one of India’s earliest women editors, in London. She was 92 years old. Six days before her death in a care centre, Ms Ewing’s daughter had tweeted: *** Ms Ewing was editor of the society magazines Eve’s Weekly and Star & Style, both…
“Journalism and words will stay and survive. Censorship won’t. Memory will win”: Kashmiri journalist Gowhar Geelani booked for “unlawful activities”
The Kashmiri journalist and broadcaster Gowhar Geelani has been booked for his “posts and writings prejudicial to the national integrity, sovereignty and security of India”. Below is his response. *** “Journalists and writers are storytellers. They tell people’s stories and explain the events in a proper context and historicity with an analytical sweep. “As a…
136, 138, 140, and now 142: India’s worst-ever showing on the World Press Freedom Index—the only ranking Narendra Modi isn’t keen to improve
India has slipped two more places, from 140 to 142, on the 2020 World Press Freedom Index compiled by the Paris-based advocacy group Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reports without Borders). Which means, the freedom of journalists in India to do their job has shrunk every year since 2015, the year after Narendra Modi came to power.…
Who runs “PIB Fact Check”? What is their experience of journalism? Who has certified them as “fact-checkers”? 12 questions Indian news media should ask ‘Press Information Bureau’ as a new form of control and intimidation takes shape.
The outbreak of the #Coronavirus pandemic has seen a clear shift in media strategy of the Narendra Modi government. Suddenly, an image-conscious regime has spotted an opening to up the game and control independent news flow—and seized it. On the one hand, the prime minister, who has not held a press conference or met a…
“All you need is a mobile phone and a computer to offer your content to the whole world”: Star-Disney boss Uday Shankar on why media will be a worthy career despite #Corona
In the short term, media appears to be a treacherous minefield to cross, for working professionals and wannabe journalists, as jobs and salaries shrink, and the workplace undergoes a metamorphosis. But in the medium to long term, once the COVID cloud passes over, is a career in the media still worth the effort? Yes, says…
“Preposterous, rank intimidation of a photographer whose pictures document the travails of Kashmiris”: Network for Women in India slams FIR on Masrat Zahra
Network for Women in Media India (NWMI) has condemned the FIR lodged against the award-winning photojournalist Masrat Zahra by the Cyber police, Srinagar, under provisions of the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and Indian Penal Code (IPC). The FIR was lodged on April 18 against a Zahra for allegedly “uploading anti-national posts with criminal…
The company that virtually underwrites Indian journalism says it will protect jobs for 3 months. Are Indian media barons and baronesses listening?
Hindustan Unilever has, by far, been the biggest private advertiser in Indian media for a long time now. Print, television, radio or digital, Lever has been up there, underwriting a lot of journalism, some good, much of it awful. As Indian media houses use the COVID pandemic to play around with the lives and livelihood…
J-POD || Podcast || Three things journalists can do in #Coronavirus season to save their jobs || Must-hear advice from Mumbai Press Club president Gurbir Singh
Journalistic solidarity in India began to crack when media managements started using the contract system of employment to break unions at the cusp of liberalisation in 1991. With newsrooms increasingly split between secure “wage board” employees and higher-paid contractual staffers, journalists became islands. To each her own. #Coronavirus has had many effects, but it has…
Journalists’ unions file PIL against jobs losses and wage cuts; ask newspapers’ and broadcasters’ bodies not to “misuse” Coronavirus lockdown
J-POD || Podcast || “Most big Hindi newspapers guilty of communalising #Coronavirus coverage…. Hindi media has stopped asking the simplest questions…. Plight of journalists worse than migrants”: ex-‘Jansatta’ editor Om Thanvi
“Print media is in trouble because of #Coronavirus and it will get worse.” If there was any doubt about that dark foreboding, confirmation came from revenue-rich English publications which fired staff, trimmed salaries, shut editions and sought tax breaks even before the 21-day lockdown could end. But what of language media, especially the much…
IJR 