Eenadu, the influential Telugu newspaper which pioneered hyper-local journalism before anybody in the country had even heard of the term, has shut down its local supplements and let go of hundreds of stringers who were reporting for it, as the shadow of COVID grows darker over India’s print media industry. The newspaper, which played a…
Tag Archives: Ramoji Rao
‘Raavali Jagan, Kaavali Jagan’: 14 pages in today’s ‘Sakshi’ on its owner Jagan Reddy and his rival Chandrababu Naidu prove the old adage: freedom of the press belongs to the politician who owns one
The model code of conduct of the Election Commission of India has been mostly reduced to a joke by pliant officers, cunning chartered accounts, and contemptuous politicians cocking a snook at the fundamental decency of democracy. It is most evident in the manner among political parties and politicians which own media as India heads into…
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…
When salary isn’t commensurate with circulation
The latest issue of Caravan magazine has more than just the story of former Indian Express editor-in-chief, Shekhar Gupta. There is a fine profile of Eenadu bossman Ramoji Rao, and there are interesting numbers in a data analysis of the big newspapers by howindialives.com. One of the charts (above) in the latter story is how…
Journalists vs journalist in Bangalore free-for-all
PALINI R. SWAMY writes from Bangalore: A veritable dogfight has broken out in Bangalore between a 24×7 Kannada news channel owned by the MP, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, and the owner-editor of a weekly Kannada newspaper. On the surface, the dispute is over credits for a recently released Kannada film. But, deep down, the spat has served…
EPW on the RIL-ETV-TV18 deal-within-a-deal
In the latest issue of the Economic & Political Weekly, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and Subi Chaturvedi weigh in on the nearly forgotten RIL-ETV-TV18 deal, which gives India’s biggest business house control over India’s biggest business news channel, a clutch of news channels, online properties and magazines: “If international best practices are to be followed, cross-media…
Mint says SEBI looking into RIL-TV18-ETV deal
Finally, some critical coverage of the Reliance-Network18/TV18-ETV deal in the business media. Mint, the business newspaper from the Hindustan Times stable, has a story in today’s issue that the stock market regulator, SEBI, is looking into RIL’s financial statements and reports to see if the company had divulged its holding or investment in ETV before…
Will RIL-TV18-ETV deal win SEBI, CCI approval?
PRITAM SENGUPTA in New Delhi and KEERTHI PRATIPATI in Hyderabad write: Media criticism in India, especially in the so-called mainstream media, has never been much to write home about. Operating on the principle that writing on another media house or media professional means exposing yourself to the same danger in the future, proprietors, promoters and…
The sudden rise of media mogul Mukesh Ambani
Mukesh Ambani (left) went to sleep last night as India’s richest man and woke up this morning as also India’s biggest media mogul. That, in a nutshell, is the sum and substance of the dramatic announcement by Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) that it was getting into a tie-up with Raghav Bahl‘s Network18. The tie-up means…
Rajeev Chandrasekhar picking up Eenadu TV?
For a paper which turns its nose at news about the rest of the media, The Times of India has a strange item on its business page, news of the mobile phone entrepreneur turned member of Parliament, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, evincing some interest in Ramoji Rao‘s Eenadu television chain in Andhra Pradesh. The ToI report comes…
‘Media standards not keeping pace with growth’
Sanjaya Baru, editor of Business Standard and former media advisor to prime minister Manmohan Singh, delivered the second H.Y. Sharada Prasad memorial lecture on media, business and government at the India International Centre on Sunday, 17 April. This is the full text of his address: *** By SANJAYA BARU I first met H.Y. Sharada Prasad…
Prabhu Chawla: A post-dated announcement
A front-page notice appearing in The New Sunday Express, the Sunday edition of the Madras-based The New Indian Express, on 23 January 2011, announcing the arrival of former India Today editor Prabhu Chawla as the editorial director of the paper. Chawla, who also hosted the Seedhi Baat show on the Aaj Tak channel, has launched…
‘Hindu and HT were worst offenders in 1975’
With nearly 60% of India reputedly being under 25 years of age—in other words, with three out of five Indians having been born after 1985—it stands to reason that the 35th anniversary of the declaration of Emergency by the Indira Gandhi government should have come and gone without creating a ripple. That, and the fact…
On the eve of the 33rd anniversary of Emergency
The dictionary defines “atrocity” as “the quality of being shockingly cruel and inhumane”. If that is an acceptable definition, what constitutes an “atrocity” against the scheduled castes and tribes? Is a Lok Ayukta raid against a corrupt SC/ST official an “atrocity” against dalits? Is sacking or suspending an incompetent SC/ST employee an “atrocity” against dalits?…
IJR 