DILIP CHAWARE writes from New Jersey: The Last Magazine is Michael Hastings’s novel which has been published a year after his death. This controversial young journalist, who worked for Newsweek as a war correspondent, died last year in a car accident in Los Angeles when he was just 33. Very few were aware about this…
Tag Archives: Newsweek
And, so, the ‘best journalist in India’ is…
Tunku Varadarajan, former editor of Newsweek International, on his thambi (younger brother), Siddharth Varadarajan, editor of The Hindu, in the September issue of The Indian Quarterly: “I think he’s the best journalist in India. He’s serious, he’s knowledgeable, he writes wonderfully. But what drives him is the urge to educate people, to edify. What he…
The cover of the ‘last print issue’ of ‘Newsweek’
Newsweek, the iconic American newsweekly, has just published its final dead-tree issue with a hashtag on the cover indicating the digital direction it it heading towards. Seventy-nine years in print, the magazine published 4,150 issues, saw 11 logo redesigns and had 17 editors at the helm, including the Indian-born Fareed Zakaria. Also read: Second editor…
‘Newsweek’ prize for South Asian commentary
PRESS RELEASE: The American newsweekly Newsweek and the website The Daily Beast are offering a prize for the best commentary writing in South Asia in partnership with the Open Hands Initiative in order to celebrate and nurture outstanding talent and find fresh voices covering the region. The aim of the prize is to promote and…
Why hasn’t India thrown up a media mogul?
Indian media houses, promoters and practitioners are gung-ho about foreign direct investment (FDI) in all sectors except the media, under the specious argument that the media is not a “commodity”, etc. Media barons who justify the worst excesses of modern Indian media under the this-is-what-the-consumer-wants logic, somehow find it convenient to block FDI in media…
NYT, WSJ weigh in on Tehelka’s Goa controversy
The controversy surrounding Tehelka magazine’s Goa conference, ThinkFest, had so far been largely confined to sections of blogosphere, which used an editorial page piece in Hindustan Times by the theatreperson Hartman de Souza, and Tehelka editor Tarun J. Tejpal‘s response to it, as a trigger. Only Deccan Herald among the large English dailies gave any…
Shoma Chaudhury in ‘150 most powerful’ list
Shoma Chaudhury, managing editor and one of the promoters of the weekly magazine Tehelka, has been named among the “150 Women Who Shake the World” in the re-launch issue of the American newsweekly, Newsweek. “Champions women in India’s celebrated newsmagazine Tehelka,” is the seven-word caption for Chaudhury. Newsweek has been relaunched this week under Tina…
Second editor of Indian origin for ‘Newsweek’
Tunku Varadarajan, the Indian-born, US-based writer-educator, has been named the new editor of Newsweek international, becoming the second journalist of Indian origin after Fareed Zakaria to hold the reins at the American magazine. Tunku broke the news through a tweet on Wednesday: “My news: Looks like I’ll be editing Newsweek International”. Born Patanjali Varadarajan, 48-year-old…
China wants to be a media tiger, too. India?
The American newsmagazine Newsweek is up for sale. C. Raja Mohan, the strategic affairs editor of The Indian Express, writes that Chinese academics are salivating over the prospect of picking it up as part of the grand media strategy the Middle Kingdom seems to have embarked upon. Writes Raja Mohan: “Bi Yantao, director of the…
Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria gets Padma Bhushan
Fareed Zakaria, the Bombay-born editor of Newsweek International and the host of CNN’s GPS, has been decorated with India’s third highest civilian award, the Padma Bhushan. Zakaria’s name finds mention in the annual Republic Day honours’ list released by the ministry of home affairs. Zakaria, whose mother Fatma Zakaria was one of the stellar names…
Iran to China, Newsweek has the story covered
More wisdom from the all-seeing, all-knowing editors of Newsweek*. On the left, the cover of the June 1, 2009 issue. Coverline: “Everything you think you know about Iran is wrong“. On the right, the cover of the October 26, 2009 issue. Coverline: “Everything you know about China is wrong“. Also read: Who, why, when, how,…
Speak out. Sign the petition. Free Maziar Bahari.
Newsweek contributor Maziar Bahari, a 42-year-old awaiting the birth of his first child, has just spent his 81st night in solitary confinement in Iran. Ahead of Iranian President Ahmadinejad‘s visit to the United States, Newsweek editor Jon Meacham makes a plea for Bahari’s freedom in The New York Times: “If Iran wants to be taken…
Who, why, when, how, where, what, what the…
The new, redesigned Newsweek has had plenty of what can only be mildly termed “negative fan following”. The designer Juan Antonio Giner wrote recently that it was time to “forget Newsweek“. “It’s irrelevant. Awful design. Cheap opinions. No reporting. No news. No quality. No necessary content. And… a newsroom of hundreds. For what? Fat newsroom…
‘The media’s Obama infatuation is worrisome’
The Pew Research Center’s project for excellence in journalism shows that US president Barack Obama has received more positive media coverage (42 per cent) in his first months in office, more than either Bill Clinton (27%) or George W. Bush (22%). *** Robert J. Samuelson in Newsweek: “The Obama infatuation is a great unreported story…
How a slumdweller became a Newsweek reporter
The demographic profile of journalists worldwide has undergone a radical transformation in recent years. Whether it has actually made journalism better is a question readers, viewers and listeners answer every day and night with their remote controls and subscription renewals. Once the lowliest of low professions—the last hope for lazy bums, the dregs of society…
‘A newspaper that’s a genuine viewspaper’
Its current circulation is 1.3 million. Its operating profits are up 25 per cent; revenues up 4 per cent in the first six months of this financial year. It is a magazine that calls itself a newspaper. It is sober yet witty and carries only a few bylines. Yet, with more than half its copies…
Will this man be the next US Secretary of State?
When Indian journalists like M.J. Akbar, Arun Shourie, Chandan Mitra, Sudheendra Kulkarni et al cosy up to politicians, tout a particular ideological line, stand for elections, grab non-journalistic posts, negotiate deals, etc, we look at them with a slight degree of circumspection. Are they, you wonder, misusing their editorial positions and platforms to advance a…
IJR 