The pandemic and the economic slump may have given the Times group the cloud cover to pull the trigger on Mumbai Mirror, but the tabloid’s fate was probably decided when it was hived off from The Times of India’s parent company a couple of years ago seven months ago. Launched in 2005 with a Bennett…
Tag Archives: DNA
Who brought Subhash Chandra of Zee to his knees—‘The Economic Times’, ‘The Wire’, or that usual suspect, Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries?
Who broke the story of the troubles of the Zee conglomerate which led to a notional crash in stock prices by as much as Rs 14,000 crore on January 25, which then led to its founder “Dr” Subhash Chandra‘s extraordinary mea culpa? Was it Mohit Bhalla of The Economic Times who set the stage more than a month…
Not just a newspaper, a no-paid-news newspaper!
It speaks for the level of distrust that the media has managed to earn for itself that the front page of the Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar carries an emblem in Hindi (right) alongside the masthead, in the space usually reserved for ear-panel advertisements, proclaiming “No Paid News”. Two years ago, the Bombay newspaper DNA, in…
Look, who’s putting up a statue for press freedom
Of all the noxious fumes that emanated from the coal allocation scam that hit UPA-II in 2012, was the perils of political and business interests of media owners and groups, which extend beyond the media. For, among the impressive list of beneficiaries of “Coalgate” was the name of Vijay Darda, the Congress MP who runs…
How seven cartoonists drew one TOI cartoon
As part of its dodransbicentennial celebrations, The Times of India has published “a cavalcade of cartoons over 175 years”. Titled “Jest in Time“, it is put together by Ajit Ninan, Neelabh Banerjee and Jug Suraiya. At its launch in New Delhi on Monday, seven well-known cartoonists—Sudhir Tailang from Deccan Chronicle, Manjul from Daily News and…
How Narendra Modi buys media through PR
In the latest issue of Open magazine, its deputy political editor Jatin Gandhi lays his hand on a “Request for Proposal” (RFP) document of the Gujarat government that shows how “almost every day, the Indian media—and sometimes the foreign media too—is tricked or influenced by Narendra Modi‘s public relations machinery”. Exempli gratia: “Modi’s Rambo act,…
A national newspaper goes ‘local’ in Bangalore
The Hindu has unveiled a new hyper-local look in Bangalore with the tagline “Bringing Bangalore Back to You”. Writes the paper’s editor Siddharth Varadarajan in a front-page note: “Why you might ask. After all, Bangalore has known The Hindu for its credible, fearless and unfettered reportage. For never dumbing down. For vanguard journalism that brings…
Shekhar Gupta storms into India Today powerlist
Thirteen out of India Today magazine’s 2013 ranking of the 50 most powerful people in India have interests in the media, but only two of them (former Indian Express editor Arun Shourie, Times Now editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami, Indian Express editor-in-chief Shekhar Gupta) are pure-play journalists. The chairman of the press council of India, Justice Markandey…
Meanwhile, Chidambaram on the morning after
There is something about the Union budget, a dreadfully dreary two-hour affair (interspersed with cliches and couplets that owe their origin to the origins of the respective finance minister) that unleashes the wildest, orgiastic spirits in Indian print newsrooms—and art cubicles. The morning after, readers are greeted to the marvels of PhotoShop, some to good…
Why Aditya Sinha suddenly exited from DNA
Aditya Sinha, the editor-in-chief of the Bombay newspaper DNA has resigned, within weeks of former Times of India response chief Bhaskar Das joining the Zee group, which now wholly owns the paper. (Sinha’s departure had been preceded by the exit of K.U Rao, the long-serving publisher of DNA.) Coming at a time when the Zee…
What your settop box says abour your newspaper
The perils of cross-media ownership are obvious and the Bombay daily DNA demonstrates it in ample measure today on its business pages. The news-you-can-use story is ostensibly aimed at empowering TV viewers on the various options before them as the country’s four metros go digital from July 1. It lists the comparative advantages of Tata…
How Bombay is skewing the media worldview
On the day the world economy was in a tailspin and the rupee was tanking, much of the media led with a spat between Shah Rukh Khan and a security guard at the Wankhede stadium in Bombay. Much of the blame for this warped worldview rests with the Bombay media, says DNA editor-in-chief Aditya Sinha:…
Aditya Sinha tears into Indian Express ‘C’ report
Aditya Sinha, editor-in-chief of DNA, in his weekly column: “There was a telephone call from my father, who lives abroad, a few days ago. He wanted to know if it was true that the Army had planned to attack Delhi back in January, as reported in The Indian Express. Don’t worry, I said, no such…
It’s a mad, ad, mad, ad, mad world in Bombay
A full-page advertisement on the back page of the Bombay newspaper, DNA, hitting out at you-know-who: From luring the brands with incentives to no-escape clauses in their advertising contracts, the industry is stooping to newer lows for gaining advertising revenue. However, at DNA, we still hold a torch to some old-fashioned traditional values. Our principles…
Ex-TOI, ET editor E. Raghavan passes away
sans serif records with deep regret the passing away of Ethiraj Raghavan, an Indian Express stringer who rose to be Editor of the largest selling Kannada daily newspaper, Vijaya Karnataka, in Bangalore on Saturday. He was 61 years old, and is survived his wife Kumuda and their daughter Swathi. After stints with the Express in…
Three reasons Arnab Goswami should be PM
Columnist G. Sampath on Times Now‘s editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami in DNA: # “Arnab Goswami is the only person in the country to whom every Indian is answerable. # “Our politicians, at any rate, hold him in higher regard than Parliament. No matter how provocative the questions posed to them, they won’t dream of staging a…
How Hindu aimed at The Times but shot DNA
It is never a pretty sight when a giant wakes up after a nice, long slumber. After snoring through the thinly veiled insinuations of The Times of India that it was a sleeping inducing newspaper, The Hindu has woken up with a jolt through three TV, super-aggressive commercials that are already airing on television channels…
Are journalism’s best practices in your DNA?
On the eve of the nation’s 63rd Republic Day, the Bombay newspaper DNA, from the Dainik Bhaskar and Zee groups, devotes its front page to publicising its code of ethics. Before laying out its key principles—responsibility, freedom, independence, truth and accuracy, impartiality, fair play—the code reads: “Our Constitution, protecting freedom of expression, guarantees to the…
Swamy and his media friends (and enemies)
In the latest issue of Tehelka magazine, Ashok Malik has a profile of the “irrepressible” Subramanian Swamy, the maverick economist-politician behind the 2G spectrum allocation scam. The profile is occasioned by Harvard University’s recent decision to not renew Swamy’s teaching contract for a venomous column in DNA in July on “How to wipe out Islamic…
IRS sparks TOI-Mumbai Mirror vs DNA-HT battle
Mumbai Mirror was launched seven years ago to protect The Times of India from the new kids on the block, DNA and Hindustan Times, on its hometurf. TOI says the latest Indian Readership Survey (IRS) puts Mirror‘s average issue readership (AIR) at 7.54 lakh copies, ahead of both DNA and HT. In Mumbai, TOI remained…
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