For the longest time, journalists and physical fitness could never be used in the same sentence except in jest. Long and irregular working hours, fat and oily samosas, slouching at the desk, smoking, drinking and other vices took their toll on the aspirations of the newsroom Adonis. The self-obsessed millennial lot which frequented gyms rather…
Tag Archives: Rajat Sharma
Who does India trust as a news media promoter—Anil Ambani or Mukesh Ambani? Republic Day will reveal as #FirstPostPrint makes its debut.
India’s richest family, the Ambanis, have had a long and tortuous tryst with the media. The subject of well-deserved scrutiny for their less-than-clean methods when India still had a moral compass, they have been media promoters, off and on, with mixed success, in post-liberalised times. But for the most part, the Ambanis have been seen…
At ‘Republic’ summit, there were (at the very least) 9 known BJP faces; 0 from Congress. Any wonder Arnab Goswami wants other news channels to boycott the party that boycotts him?
Mint, the business newspaper owned by the Hindustan Times group, has a four-page supplement of the first Republic Summit, hosted by the TV channel, Republic. The guest list, as evident from the photographs, is revealing of the channel’s moorings and impulses. Narendra Modi, Arun Jaitley, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Piyush Goyal, Devendra Fadnavis, Sarbananda Sonowal, Anurag Thakur, Smriti Irani Farooq Abdullah, Praful Patel, Kamal…
How a BVB journalism course shaped a writer
Shashi Deshpande, the Bangalore-based short story writer and novelist, on how journalism shaped her writing, in the Indian Express magazine on Sundays, Eye: Do you remember how your writing career began? And how you became a journalist? I was working as a trainee with the Onlooker when a colleague asked me, ‘Why don’t you write…
‘A List’ most A-listers don’t want to be a part of
The Indian edition of Campaign has brought out a booklet called “The A List”, supposedly the who’s who in media, marketing and advertising, in partnership with NDTV Media. And the sloppy, incomplete and typo-ridden effort is remarkable for how predictable and boring most A-listers are: the most-admired politician—surprise, surprise—is Mahatma Gandhi, almost everybody’s favourite device…
‘Do terrorists sit around watching television?’
Did the non-stop television coverage of the terror attack on Bombay reveal operational details of the commando operations, endanger the lives of hostages, intrude into the personal lives of victims and relatives, etc? In today’s Indian Express, the founder of India TV, Rajat Sharma, claims he tried an interesting experiment last Saturday. He invited a…
‘Is abusing politicians the nation’s agenda?’
Harinder Baweja of Tehelka buttonholes Rajat Sharma, the editor-in-chief of India TV that sits on top of the heap of Hindi news channels, with its mix of sleaze, superstition, and “a host of other debatable tricks” that has left its seven competitors playing catch up: # TV viewership is like a game of cricket. There…
How Indian TV slayed a dangerous superstition
In a moment of pure television, an Indian rationalist has challenged a black magician to kill him on live TV—and survived to tell the tale. On March 3, Sanal Edamaruku of Rationalist International found himself opposite Pandit Surinder Sharma, a tantrik who claims to be a consultant for top Indian politicians and is a wellknown…
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