Newspaper editorials on Republic TV founder and editor Arnab Goswami‘s arrest for allegedly abetting the suicide of an unpaid studio designer all take the same line: that no matter what the facts of the case, the arrest of a pesky needler is wrong. *** Hindustan Times *** The Indian Express *** The Times of India…
Category Archives: For the record
How many Pulitzer Prize winners can the ‘New York Times’ assemble to say ‘goodbye and thank you’ to a much-loved office manager in Delhi? Three.
It is possible to spend your entire working life in The Times of India and not even get a para in the paper upon your passing, unless you are a Subhash Kirpekar, Arindam Sen Gupta or somebody of like stature and utility. Meanwhile, The New York Times doffs its hat to Parambaloth Joseph Anthony or…
Who would have thought that in a season of festivals, post-COVID, the fattest English newspaper would be from Kashmir?
For months, after the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019, Kashmir’s newspapers could not be printed or distributed; their reporters could not move around, meet people or file stories. Journalists even worked as masons to make a living. Post-COVID, even in a festival season, mainland Indian newspapers are still struggling to produce healthy editions,…
Seema Mustafa elected president of the Editors Guild of India; Sanjay Kapoor is general secretary
Seema Mustafa, the founder and editor of the website The Citizen, has been elected as the new president of the Editors Guild of India for a one-year term. Mustafa defeated M.D. Nalapat of The Sunday Guardian, 87-51, in the first ever election of the Guild’s officebearers, held via Zoom, on Friday. Previously, the Guild has…
‘Time and Tide’ waits for no man: after 157 Tests, Kishore Bhimani ties up his next assignment, 22 days after Dean Jones
Kishore Bhimani, the voice that relayed to the world that a Test had been tied in Madras, with the scores level of both the teams with all wickets down, only for the second time in cricket history, has passed on—just 22 days after the demise of the Australian star of that match, Dean Jones. “It’s…
‘Mr KN’, a legend at ‘The Hindu’: a “Dronacharya who moulded a generation of Ekalavyas”, an elder brother who helped faraway correspondents scale new heights
Journalism is more than just bold-face owners and editors, whose face appears on TV or who advertise their greatness on social media every few minutes. There are many unsung heroes down the food chain, quietly going about their job with dignity and dedication. The Hindu lost two former news editors on the recently. Here, Mathihalli…
When a journalist gets an honorary doctorate it’s news: ‘Mint’ ex-editor Raju Narisetti is now Dr Raju Narisetti thanks to the publishers of ‘The Economic Times’
Raju Narisetti, the Times School of Journalism alumnus who was founder-editor of the business newspaper Mint, has been conferred an honorary doctorate by Bennett University set up by The Times of India group. Narisetti, currently Publisher at McKinsey & Company’s Global Publishing, was conferred the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Honoris Causa) in Media Management…
‘KN’, a long-standing News Editor of ‘The Hindu’, and his successor ‘GD’ both pass away on the same day. And the encomiums are a reminder of journalism as it once was.
K. Narayanan, the former news editor and later readers’ editor of The Hindu, has passed on, at age 88. And so has the man who succeeded him at the post: Gomatam Dwarakanath, at age 86. Both on the same day, 29 September 2020. The Narayanan obit highlights his penchant for hard work, integrity, wide knowledge,…
Indian media is in such fine fettle that the death of the great ‘Sunday Times’ editor Sir Harold Evans is just a routine affair
To no one’s surprise, the passing of Sir Harold Evans, the legendary Editor of The Times, London, received less-than-enthusiastic coverage in English newspapers in India, most of which were happy to run a dry Reuters or AP obituary on the foreign page. Only The Telegraph, Calcutta, in whose design in 1982 Sir Harry is rumoured…
On the same day, two eye-popping lead editorials in ‘The Times of India’ and ‘The Economic Times’ tell a tale of conflict of interest
The Times of India group’s outer facade is of a free-market champion where more is merrier, and only the fittest survive. But, deep down, the flame of swadeshi and protectionism burn brightly, especially in areas where the media house’s growing digital interests are at stake. *** The lead editorial in today’s ToI wants India to…
Except ‘The Hindu’ and ‘The Telegraph’, most newspapers can’t join the dots between arrested journalist Rajeev Sharma and NSA Ajit Doval
The arrest of Delhi-based journalist Rajeev Sharma, for violating the Official Secrets Act (OSA) by allegedly passing on “defence secrets” to China, is remarkable for the consistent quality of stenography. Only The Hindu (above) categorically reports Sharma’s association with the right-wing thinktank Vivekananda International Foundation, whose founder-director was the national security adviser, Ajit Doval. ***…
“Mind-boggling, high-handed”: Press Club of India slams Delhi Police arrest of ‘Global Times’ contributor Rajeev Sharma for allegedly passing on “defence secrets” to China
The Press Club of India has slammed the arrest of Delhi-based journalist Rajeev Sharma, allegedly for violating the official secrets act (OSA) by passing on “secrets” to the Chinese. Below is the full statement of PCI. “We are astounded to hear of the arrest of Rajeev Sharma, a well-known independent journalist of long standing and…
‘Rajasthan Patrika’, once the BJP’s bugbear in Delhi and Jaipur, now has Narendra Modi virtually on its speed dial
The front page of the Hindi daily Rajasthan Patrika on September 8 to mark the inauguration of “Patrika Gate” built by the newspaper on Jawaharlal Nehru Marg in Jaipur. The front page of ‘Rajasthan Patrika’ on the day after the inauguration of ‘Patrika Gate’. There are 8 photos and 12 quotes of Modi; 3 photos…
Timothy Franklyn, the cancer-surviving son of a former ‘Times of India’ executive, goes to Columbia University as an Obama Scholar
An internship or a job is for a journalism student. A book or a national seminar is for a journalism teacher. An Obama Foundation scholarship is for a journalism school founder. Timothy Franklyn, 40, who set up the National School of Journalism and Public Discourse (NSoJ) in Bangalore six years ago, is among 11 people…
A “big propaganda” campaign of “slander and vilification” driven by “malice and prejudice” which was “wrong and motivated”: ‘Deccan Herald’ holds the mirror to the media on Tablighi Jamaat
The coverage of the #TablighiJamaat congregation in Delhi—the shameless attempt to give the #Coronavirus outbreak a communal angle—was one of the more egregious examples of a majoritarian media that has lost its moral, social and professional moorings. India’s brain-dead TV “news” channels, of course, led the pack, with “shows” titled Corona Jihad se desh bachao (save India…
Mathai Manjooran: The Kerala newspaper Editor who refused to pay a Rs 100 fine and opted to be jailed for alleged contempt of court 61 years ago
On the day of reckoning for advocate Prashant Bhushan before the Supreme Court of India, The Telegraph has a fine story of an Editor in Kerala who refused to buckle in and opted to spend a month in jail for alleged contempt of court, 61 years ago. Mathai Manjooran was Editor of the Malayalam daily…
B.N. Nayak, an unsung hero of Indian journalism, one of the many pillars on which ‘The Times of India’ stands, departs at 70
“Telling people, who did not know Mr So-and-So was alive, that Mr So-and-So is dead,” is one of the better definitions of the basic functions of journalism. And so it comes to pass that newspaper readers in Mysore, who (mostly) did not know who Mr B.N. Nayak was, are being informed today that B.N. Nayak…
The advertisement that Kamala Harris’s grandparents placed in ‘The Illustrated Weekly of India’ in the early 1960s
When the Democratic Party’s vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris‘s mother Shyamala Gopalan, a Tam-Brahm, decided to tie the knot with Donald Harris, a Jamaican black, her grandparents took out an advertisement in The Illustrated Weekly of India, the now-defunct magazine from The Times of India group. Screenshot: courtesy ToI
“Hold Facebook accountable. Misuse of social media a threat to democracy. Platforms must be agnostic to ideology”: newspaper editorials can’t hide weak reporting
Four days after The Wall Street Journal revealed Facebook’s chief India lobbyist Ankhi Das batting for BJP’s hate mongers, Indian newspapers are unable to add to a story that has deep implications for Indian society and polity. Also read: FB expose reveals barren cupboard ** Even today, there are no revelations and even today only…
The tribute M.S. Dhoni will treasure the most: four special pages in his hometown’s biggest newspaper
Prabhat Khabar, the Hindi daily first published from Ranchi 36 years ago, pays a handsome tribute to the eastern Indian city’s greatest contemporary contribution to the national and global consciousness, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, upon his retirement from international cricket.
IJR 