*** There are many politically incorrect things Narendra Modi has done in office and gotten away with. But none has been more questionable than inviting Brazil’s loathsome president Jair Bolsonaro as chief guest at the Republic Day in January 2020. Bolsonaro, a retired military officer, had been in office for less than a year, but he…
Category Archives: Podcasts
J-POD || Podcast || “A good newspaper is a companion in life’s shared journey. It prepares you to live in a diverse, contentious society. Social media gives you a hollow sense of control” || philosopher Prof Sundar Sarukkai
*** All through history, the rise of the right wing has seen a rage against intellectuals in public life. In India where politics sets the pace and everything else follows in its wake, this is especially evident in the news media. Rare is the newspaper or news magazine today which values experience and expertise of the…
J-POD || Podcast || “No substitute for credible journalism. Media has to cut costs, get into new areas. Journalists need to be multi-skilled in new era” || ex-INS president and ‘Malayala Manorama’ director Jayant Mammen Mathew
*** Battle-weary journalists, who have been there, done that and seen it all, think they know exactly how the media houses which employ them should deal with the existential threat posed by the #Coronavirus pandemic. You could call this the sentimental view, the belief that, at this inflection point for the media business, the least…
J-POD || Podcast || “Hindi media has swung majorly towards Modi govt. Big newspaper chains have become mammoth like Google and Facebook. News desks are at the forefront of communalisation” || ex-Hindustan editor Mrinal Pande
*** Hindi journalism has been such an unquestioning and uncritical proponent of majoritarian establishment causes for so long that it is an accepted axiom now, but the outbreak of #Coronavirus has decidedly taken it to the next level. The ease with which newspapers and news channels in the heartland have surrendered their professional tasks and…
J-POD || Podcast ||”Pakistan media has not tried to find a scapegoat for #Coronavirus like Indian media. Imran Khan has handled media better than Narendra Modi” || Mehmal Sarfraz on what No. 142 can learn from No. 145
*** 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 it…
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…
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…
J-POD || A podcast on journalism || Why my mother would not be celebrating the suspension of publication of ‘Star of Mysore’ despite its Islamophobic editorial
J-POD || A podcast on journalism || Why Sharada Viswanath (and hundreds of mothers) would not have celebrated the temporary suspension of publication of India’s most successful English evening newspaper ‘Star of Mysore‘ in #Coronavirus season. Also read: Star of Mysore suspends publication
J-POD || A podcast on journalism || ex-Rediff and Yahoo editor Prem Panicker on what journalists facing an uncertain future due to #Coronavirus can try to do on the digital front
Indian journalists have been doing a heroic job of reporting the #Coronavirus pandemic even though it has thrown the print media sector into a massive tizzy. The “lockdown” has caused havoc to advertising, transportation and distribution of newspapers and magazines—and ignorance has spread the fear of contamination among the “educated”. Job losses and salary cuts…
“Mainstream Media is coming back into its own in the age of #Coronavirus. What people everywhere want is reliable information and they are turning to the trusted providers”
https://soundcloud.com/user-311470525/j-pod-ex-bbc-broadcaster #Coronavirus has changed the media landscape across countries and continents like nothing else before. In this podcast interview, Dr Andrew Whitehead, the former BBC broadcaster and historian, talks of the damage it has wrought in Britain—and what it holds for journalists worldwide. As job losses and salary cuts loom, he has a word of…
J-POD: a podcast on journalism. Will our writing on #Coronavirus stand the test of time? Will it have value a 100 years from now?
News connoisseurs to news nibblers: how BBC is approaching journalism in Indian languages with five words fast disappearing from our ‘bhasha’: trust, credibility, strength, depth, quality
If the English market is tough for serious players in Indian journalism, keeping the head above the water in the languages is a humongous challenge. So immense, so expensive, and so impossible is the task of attracting readers and viewers, and keeping them engaged with quality content, that nearly nobody is attempting to do it.…
70% of Indians live in the villages but media coverage of rural India is barely 4%, and that is mostly in print media and of non-farm issues
In episode 11 of ‘Shut Up Ya Kunal‘, the poet and lyricist Javed Akhtar tells Kunal Kamra of the abysmal coverage of farm and rural issues in Indian media. Around the 34th minute of the episode, Akhtar says: “In a nation where 70 per cent of the population lives in the countryside and most of…
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