As the old saying goes, once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, thrice is enemy action. Or, as we say in journalism, a trend. In the space of just 20 days, two Members of Parliament have been found dead. The first, 7-time MP Mohan Delkar, was found hanging in his hotel room in Bombay in February.…
Tag Archives: Amar Ujala
Kashmir’s small English dailies show more balance and sobriety than mainland India’s gung-ho newspapers in putting out the casualty figure in the air strikes on Pakistan
Verification is a vital function of the news media, especially when the reader-viewer-surfer is exposed to relentless propaganda via electronic and social media. India’s air strike on Pakistan on February 26 posed a test of the newspapers and television against the backdrop of opposing claims made by the two countries. As if to prove the…
How India’s newspapers are covering Narendra Modi’s transformation—from a ‘Nero’ who was fiddling when Gujarat was burning, to a ‘Narcissus’ who was filming when CRPF jawans were dying
“Speaking truth to power” is said to be the raison d’être of journalism. “Comforting the afflicted; afflicting the comfortable,” is another variation of it. How well Indian media is performing those duties is evident on the front pages of today’s mainline dailies. On February 14, the day of the deadliest attack on Indian paramilitary forces…
Top-6 dailies devote 2% coverage on rural issues
“India lives in its villages.” “Agriculture accounts for 60% of the Indian economy.” “Two out of every three Indians live in the rural areas.” The cliches abound about Bharat id est India. Yet, a study of India’s top-three English and Hindi newspapers shows that they devote only a minuscule porportion of their total coverage to…
Indian Express vs The Hindu, N. Ram vs N. Ravi
*** The Indian Express, Delhi, has a front-page “exclusive” on the fracas in the family controlling The Hindu, Madras. The main points the Express story (also simultaneouly carried in its sister-business daily Financial Express) by media correspondent Archna Shukla makes are: a) disagreements over the “proposed retirement” of publisher and editor-in-chief N. Ram; b) the…
“Accused” Chawla is now “Investigator” Chawla
Ankur Chawla, the son of India Today editor Prabhu Chawla*, who was named in a bribery case concerning the Hindi newspaper Amar Ujala 10 days ago, has had a “status update”. Chawla junior, a Supreme Court advocate, has now been inducted into the CBI team probing the bribery case involving the acting head of the…
Prabhu Chawla’s son named in media bribery case
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has named advocate Ankur Chawla, son of Prabhu Chawla, editor of the leading English newsweekly India Today*, for allegedly acting as a conduit to pay a bribe to a quasi-judicial official for “a favourable verdict in a case concerning a media house”. The Hindustan Times reports that junior Chawla…
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