Once upon a time, Indira Gandhi called journalists “glorified stenographers“, but at least there was some dignity of labour in that epithet. For, stenos physically take notes of what is dictated to them, and then take the trouble to transcribe it. The Narendra Modi age has robbed journalism of even that iota of respect. “Headline management” has made the…
Tag Archives: PMO
Unused to real journalists meeting him without questions pre-scripted by the PMO, a defensive Narendra Modi mentions ‘The Indian Express’ ten times in his interview with ‘The Indian Express’
*** Prime minister Narendra Modi‘s interview with The Indian Express has been totally overshadowed by Time magazine calling him “Divider-in-Chief” on its cover, and the NewsNation TV “interview” in which he reveals how he fooled Pakistan’s radars by going in for the air strike in Balakot on a cloudy night. But the Express interview with…
In India’s glorious dance of democracy, why are regional language newspaper groups so eager to send their owners, not Editors or reporters, to “interview” Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi?
Publicity is the mother of election. So, in a seven-phase poll Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi are gaming their “interviews” to big-circulation publications in states heading to the hustings, phase by phase. Modi spoke to the Kannada daily Vijaya Vani before 14 constituencies in the southern part of Karnataka voted on April 18. And Gandhi spoke to The Hindu…
A ‘mile-high experience’ for the hack-pack
A picture tweeted by the prime minister’s office (PMO) of the media scrum accompanying Manmohan Singh, as he answers questions in mid-air on his way back home after a five-day visit to the United States. Among those identifiable, Raj Chengappa, editor-in-chief of The Tribune, Chandigarh (in suit, ahead of mikes); Jayanta Ghosal of Ananda Bazaar…
Everybody loves writing about Pankaj Pachauri
It is not often that the same piece of political gossip appears in three different newspapers in two different cities on more or less the same day. But in the snakepit of power that is the nation’s capital, it is all in a day’s work, especially if concerns the media advisor to the prime minister,…
Brajesh Mishra, Outlook, Indian Express and DD
The passing away of the former national security advisor and former foreign service officer Brajesh Mishra last week has resulted in a welter of tributes, many very mushy, a few critical, but almost all of them throwing light on the uncomfortable influence that the Vajpayee aide held over the media—and the chummy friendship that some…
Media advisor is second highest-paid in PMO
Life isn’t easy for a public servant in the age of transparency, when every little detail is open to scrutiny under the right to information (RTI). Mail Today, the tabloid newspaper owned by the India Today group, carries a two-page story today on what the prime minister and his key men earn, and it turns…
Brother, sister spar over seat on PM junket
From Delhi Confidential, the gossip column of the Indian Express: FAMILY FRACAS The inclusion of Team Anna member, former TV anchor Shazia Ilmi, in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s media team for his trip to the Rio+20 summit in Brazil, has been the cause of much fuss in the PMO and in the MEA over the…
What the media toilet at PMO says about India
The state of Indian newspapers and news channels (and magazines*) can be judged by the condition of their toilets. And so, it seems, can the state of the most important address in the country—that of the prime minister of the democratic, socialist, secular republic of India. A correspondent for an English news channel forwards a picture of…
IJR 