Exactly six months ago, on the intervening night of June 15-16 this year, the lives of 20 Indian soldiers ended—literally at the hands of the Chinese in the heights of Ladakh. For several weeks, large sections of mainstream media were in denial, dishing out the sarkari view that there was nothing abnormal on the border.…
Category Archives: Podcasts
J-POD || Podcast || “Some journalists are too close to power; coopted and corrupted by money. That and the libel laws”|| former ‘Financial Times’ editor Lionel Barber on why the business press in India sucks
Becoming a digital-first operation, and getting readers to pay for content, is the battlecry on every media manager’s lip across the world. But the Financial Times of London has been there and done that, a long time back, without going click-bait. At the centre of the transformation of the pink newspaper was Lionel Barber, the…
Four reasons why more journalists must start podcasts, and not just in English: views you can use from Amit Varma, the ‘Govinda of Podcasting’
A baffling splitscreen stares at journalists, especially middle-aged and experienced journalists, in a post-COVID world ravaged by falling revenues, plunging profits and growing irrelevance. Those who have a job worry about when they might lose it, or how much their salaries will be cut next, or about being rendered obsolete by younger whipper-snappers adept…
J-POD || Podcast || “Aveek Sarkar ranks among the best. Without Rupert Murdoch, British press would have been killed off” || Amit Roy, foreign correspondent twice over
A foreign correspondent is an exotic bird quickly going extinct. Once upon a time, newspapers had correspondents in many of the world’s news hotspots: Washington and London certainly but also Islamabad and Colombo, Dubai and Dhaka. Paris, Brussels, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Johannesburg, Sao Paolo have all seen an Indian presence at one time or the…
India’s most successful multimedia journalist, with a humongous output across platforms, is dead at 62. But why didn’t you know of Ravi Belagere before?
The great West Indian writer C.L.R. James famously wrote: “What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?” In other words, there is a lot more to the game than just the game. The question can be rephrased in journalism: “What do they know of journalism who only English and Hindi journalism know?” ***…
J-POD || Podcast || “Republic doesn’t need to fix TV ratings. Even if all rigging is removed, Arnab Goswami will still be No.1. If Aaj Tak gets defeated, it can’t make a comeback” || Aunindyo Chakravarty
https://soundcloud.com/user-311470525/aunindyo One of the great miracles in Indian television is that every new news channel manages to overtake the incumbent market leader in a matter of weeks. First NDTV overtook Headlines Today soon after launch. Then CNN-IBN overtook NDTV. Later Times Now overtook CNN-IBN. And finally Republic overtook Times Now within days. The reason for…
J-POD || Podcast || “A large section of media doesn’t want to dwell on stories that present the government in a bad light” || Ananth Krishnan of ‘The Hindu’ on the tepid coverage of Chinese ingress
*** India is locked in its biggest conflict with China in recent times. Twenty Indian soldiers have died. Massive tracts of Indian land have been lost. In response—without naming China—India has banned Chinese apps, curtailed visas for Chinese citizens, raised the entry barrier for Chinese investors, and banned the study of Mandarin. The two nuclear…
“Journalism is in an extraordinarily healthy place right now. I can’t think of a time when we mattered more”: Malcolm Gladwell shuts down the prophets of doom
The acclaimed New Yorker writer and best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell on journalism, and the future of journalism, in a podcast interview with Anna Maria Tremonti of the Canadian public service broadcaster CBC. Listen to the full show: Malcolm Gladwell
J-POD || Podcast || “In 1992, journalists had to be beaten up to stop them from telling the Ayodhya story. Today it will appear on page 8. English media will go Hindi way soon” || Seema Chishti on covering the Babri Masjid demolition
https://soundcloud.com/user-311470525/j-pod-the-story-that-changed-a *** Most journalists will confess that “changing people’s lives” was one of the reasons they got into the profession. Some might even remember this or that story that indeed changed a few lives. But not too many can claim that they actually reported a story that changed a billion lives, in fact changed a nation. The…
J-POD || Podcast || “In 1962, media was more independent, less subservient. It lampooned Nehru, Krishna Menon mercilessly. Modi is trying to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by managing headlines” || Jairam Ramesh
https://soundcloud.com/user-311470525/j-pod-jairam-ramesh-on-nehru *** When WhatsApp becomes the chief source of information, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that India was a mere 15 years old as a free nation when China invaded in 1962. An impressionable teenager, whose population was 45 crores, whose GDP was a mere $4,200 crore. On the other hand, when China…
J-POD || Podcast || “Indian TV is not a force-multiplier in Nepal, it’s a force-subtractor. Its sexism, misogyny and ultra-nationalism is ruining India’s ties not just with Nepal but also with China” || ‘Himal’ founder Kanak Mani Dixit
https://soundcloud.com/user-311470525/j-pod-how-sexism-misogyny-and *** Even the most uninformed Indian might be able to understand India’s troubles with Pakistan and China. But even a genius will find it difficult to make sense of India’s current relationship status with Nepal. When it came to power in 2014, the BJP-led NDA government was naturally expected to develop deeper linkages with what…
J-POD || Podcast || “Coverage of border conflict is a dangerous new low. It signals to China that the incursion doesn’t matter very much or the government has controlled the media” || ex-FT journalist Rahul Jacob
https://soundcloud.com/user-311470525/j-pod-coverage-of-border Like nearly news event these days, China’s incursion into Ladakh has revealed the deep fault lines in the media. For weeks, most Indian newspapers and nearly all TV channels pretended nothing was amiss at the border. The exceptions—Ajai Shukla of Business Standard, Sushant Singh of The Indian Express, Manu Pubby of The Economic Times—could…
J-POD || Podcast || Data journalism as a career option for young journalists || Advice from Rukmini Shrinivasan, former data editor, The Hindu & Huff Post India
https://soundcloud.com/user-311470525/j-pod-data-journalist-rukmini *** Rukmini Shrinivasan, host of ‘The Moving Curve‘ podcast, and former data editor of The Hindu and Huff Post India, on what India’s #COVID numbers mean—and #DataJournalism as a career option for young journalists. Also read: “India’s official COVID numbers are an undercount”
J-POD || Podcast || “Twitter has not followed due process in withholding account. FIR on a retweet had details very few people know. BJP tends not to focus on quality of content but punishment they will try to inflict” || Aakar Patel
https://soundcloud.com/user-311470525/j-pod-aakar-patel-on-twitter  On J-POD, a podcast on journalists and journalism, Aakar Patel, columnist and former journalist who headed Amnesty International, discusses what he makes of Twitter withholding his account, and who he suspects might be behind it—and why. *** # Twitter emailed me that they had received a “legal removal demand” from the government, that my…
J-POD || Podcast || “COVID has given us a brain scan of media thinking. National newspapers devote 0.67% of front page to 69% of India. Corporate media is the bed on which religious and market fundamentalists cohabit” || P. Sainath
https://soundcloud.com/user-311470525/j-pod-p-sainath-on-the-media *** Less than 2% of India’s population is invested in stocks and mutual funds. Yet, India has at least half-a-dozen business newspapers in English. And just as many business news channels. Every newspaper in every language, in every part of the country, has a page—or half of page—dedicated to business news. Or what they think is…
J-POD || Podcast || “Journalism is a form of public service. It is dangerous to undermine institutional news. All of us need to become more critical readers and users of social media”|| Alan Rusbridger, former Editor-in-Chief, The Guardian
https://soundcloud.com/user-311470525/j-pod-alan-rusbridger-former *** The role of social media in distorting societies by pouring unfiltered information directly into the pockets and phones of users has been evident for nearly a decade now. But it took the American presidential elections of 2016—which installed Donald Trump in office—for Google, Facebook and YouTube to come in for scrutiny. At first,…
J-POD || Podcast || “Every year over 20,000 students pass out. Where are the jobs? || Big media is trapped. J-schools should produce entrepreneurs, one-man armies” || Prof Kanchan Kaur of IIJNM, and Prof Anand Pradhan of IIMC
https://soundcloud.com/user-311470525/j-pod-prof-kanchan-kaur-of/s-irwgVBGeFaO *** In a nation where more than half the population is below 25 years of age, professional education has boomed in the last couple of decades—to make the most of the so-called “demographic dividend”. Journalism education—in particular—has seen gravity and logic-defying growth. As liberalisation freed up the air waves and wallets, and TV channels…
J-POD || Podcast || “Commission is down by two-thirds. Some readers look at us like untouchables. The show will go on for just a couple of years” || A paper vendor in Mysore has a message for India’s paper tigers (and INS)
https://soundcloud.com/user-311470525/j-pod-from-uday-to-vineet-a *** In Aesop’s Fables, one of the stories that everybody relates to is the one about the boy who cried wolf. It’s No. 210 in the Perry Index of Greek and Latin fables: the morality tale of a young boy who shouts “wolf, wolf” while grazing his sheep. Villagers who are near by rush to his…
J-POD || Podcast || “Coronavirus has made us realise how networked we are. Even the ‘News-Finds-Me’ generation is seeking out news now” || PSU media effects research don, Prof Shyam Sundar
https://soundcloud.com/user-311470525/j-pod-without-social-media-the *** Media education in India is the bright sun on an otherwise dark horizon, but it’s a bit of a blur. Although there are hundreds of journalism schools across the country, some of them as expensive as B-schools, serious academic research is an exception. Nothing is measured professionally, consistently and independently. Only the most…
J-POD || Podcast || “Media freedom in India has sunk even lower after COVID. Social media has smashed our notion of what is news. The time has come to reconsider the valorisation of news media”|| ACJ chief Sashi Kumar
https://soundcloud.com/user-311470525/j-pod-tech-has-changed-what-we *** Largely because of the low road it has taken in the last couple of decades, and directly as a result of the challenges thrown up by the COVID pandemic, the time has come for Indian news media to press the reset button once again. A hard reset actually. Force-Quit. No one knows…
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