A six-month study of India-China coverage in the top-two English newspapers in New Delhi shows that between 50 and 60 per cent of the stories are of adversarial nature, “establishing a pattern of clear negative China coverage”. The Delhi editions of The Times of India and the Hindustan Times, both of which have correspondents based…
Tag Archives: India
The Hindu and ‘a scribe’ who was told to shut up
The pro-China tilt of “the world’s most readable newspaper“, The Hindu, used to be grist for the gossip mills, till one of the warring brothers of the family-owned newspaper himself decided to put it on record. An incident in Delhi on Thursday involving China’s ambassador to India underlines the insinuation some more. At a function…
And who’s afraid of the face-to-face powwow?
Manmohan Singh, prime minister of the world’s largest democracy, completes six years in office on May 22 without once being subjected to hard-nosed questioning by an Indian journalist—print, television, radio or internet—in a face-to-face, one-on-one, on-the-record interview. He will, however, seek the safety of the crowd once again when he addresses the media at a…
The Indian cartoon that’s offending Australians
It takes a particular genius to feel offended by a piece of art instead of the reality it mirrors. Several students of Indian origin have been clobbered in Australia in an unceasing (and unacceptable) wave of attacks over the last few months; one of them even being killed last week. Yet, the response from both…
Media freedom is what separates India & China
No media debate on Asia is complete with0ut comparing India to China, or vice-versa. Even among middle-class media consumers, there is a barely disguised contempt for the slow pace of growth in democratic India, for all the “obstacles” in the path of progress and development, compared with the frenetic pace in The Middle Kingdom. But…
‘India’s freedoms as fragile as its neighbours”
The Hindu’s Islamabad correspondent, Nirupama Subramanian (in picture), has shared the Chameli Devi Jain award for excellence in journalism with Vinita Deshmukh, the editor of The Weekly Intelligent, Poona. In her acceptance speech, read out in her absence by her sister Vasudha Sondhi, Subramanian said: “In Pakistan, where I am based, a number of journalists…
India opens another door for FDI in papers, mags
Eighteen years after the liberalisation process began in India, and just months before the general elections, the Congress-led government has decided to allow 100 per cent foreign direct investment in facsimile editions of foreign newspapers. Simultaneously, 26% FDI has been allowed in Indian editions of foreign magazines. The following is the full text of the…
Rupert Murdoch on India, China and democracy
The controversial media mogul, Rupert Murdoch, on India and China, in Esquire: “Any company that is global cannot ignore China or India. They are just enormous, emerging great powers. I enjoy China. I have a lot of friends there. But all we have there are the moment is a few very minor investments. “India is…
Was CNN-IBN right not to air Amar Singh sting?
Tuesday’s disgraceful scenes in the Indian parliament—when lawmakers heaped currency notes of nearly $2 million to show that they were being bribed to abstain from a trust motion moved by the government—has a media angle to it. The buying and selling of legislators, it turns out, was captured on film by CNN-IBN which however declined to…
How the crude oil price spike spooked the media
Who’s to blame for the mounting crude oil prices? Oil producing countries? India and China for their voracious appetite? Speculators wanting to make a quick buck or ten? In the latest episode of its media showThe Listening Post, hosted by Richard Gizbert, Al Jazeera English throws light on how the global media has failed to…
Pinch yourself: ‘foreign hand’ is on the other foot
In pre-liberalisation socialist India, in the licence-quota-permit raj of Indira Gandhi, the “foreign hand” —shorthand for the United States—was always blamed for every ill on our soil. Look, who’s complaining about whom now. George W. Bush and Condoleeza Rice are blaming growing prosperity in India and China for the global food crisis. And the White…
‘Nationalism in place of cricket journalism’
India’s best-known sports writer, now a happy resident of Australia, has torn into the output of cricket correspondents covering the ill-tempered series down under. Rohit Brijnath, formerly of Sportsworld and India Today, writes on the BBC website: “Cricket is crying out for independent voices (and certainly for the well-crafted cricket piece). “Commentators who romance clichés…
The media and the stock market collapse
Indian stock markets plunged by 7.4 per cent on Monday, and closed another 4.97 per cent down on Tuesday. The fall, much more precipitous than other Asian and global markets, left small investors nursing their wounds and mourning their phenomenal losses, much of it notional. As the stock markets had soared, the Indian media had…
Indians favour stability over press freedom: BBC
Hard to believe but it’s true. “Although Indians are not strong advocates of media freedom and are generally satisfied with the accuracy of news reporting in their country, they are in favour of having a say in newsreporting decisions,” according to a survey done by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to mark its 75th anniversary.…
Cricket journalist banned from press boxes
As it is, Indian cricket is a minefield. The team’s best batsmen (Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar) are reluctant to be captain. South Africans (Graham Ford) and Australians (Geoff Lawson) don’t want to be coach. The chief selector (Dilip Vengsarkar) wants to quit because he is not allowed to write his newspaper column. The cricket…
‘Ignorance of law is no excuse for the media’
ALOK PRASANNA writes from Bangalore: Ignorance of the law is no excuse for attracting punishment under the law. However, ignorance of the law seems a fine excuse for the media to make a story out of nothing as is evidenced by news reports of a judge at a fast-track court in Jharkhand summoning two Hindu…
Why we don’t know who Jagennath Lachmon is
Every media house magically finds the resources to send correspondents to the Cannes, IFA or Frankfurt festivals. Indra Nooyi‘s climb up the global power ladder has our media charting her step. Every Mira Nair film has film correspondents flitting half way across the world for her bon mot. And of course each new car or…
Should news agencies pay for news and pictures?
The greed of cash-rich sports organisations in bottomless. In September, the International Rugby Board sought to impose restrictions on media coverage of the World Cup, limiting photos and video on the internet, claiming intellectual property rights. Now, cricket has followed suit. Cricket Australia, cricket’s governing body down under, has said it owns the IPR to…
More things change, more they remain the same
From The Hindu, 10 November 1957: Inaugurating the 13th annual session of the All-India Newspaper Editors’ Conference in New Delhi on November 8, Prime Minister Pandit Jawarharlal Nehru outlined what he thought should be the approach of Indian newspapers which were now “on the verge of a vast increase in circulation,” consequent on the spread…
‘Media is now part of a conspiracy of silence’
The latest sting operation by India’s Tehelka magazine that captured “mass murderers on national television saying how they killed, who they killed and who helped them kill” has resulted in a deafening silence all around. For starters, there has not been an inkling of action from the executive or the judiciary. Then the political parties…
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