Thirty-five days into Kashmir’s “lockdown”—mild jargon for a brutal, undemocratic suppression of fundamental rights in the State—are conditions getting even more tough for journalists to report from the Valley? The Telegraph, Calcutta, one of the few national newspapers giving adequate space for its Srinagar correspondent Muzaffar Raina to put out the unvarnished view, details the…
Tag Archives: Swapan Dasgupta
Are journalists already poised to ride Modi wave?
As the 2014 general election campaign gathers steam, the masks are beginning to come off, as journalists who make no pretence of their political and ideological inclinations (without disclosing it publicly) walk over to the other side, just as they did in previous elections. Ashutosh of IBN-7 is officially the Aam Aadmi Party’s candidate from…
Are government ads distorting media freedom?
Swapan Dasgupta in The Telegraph, Calcutta: “The national capital boasts a multitude of daily newspapers in different languages. On my part, I subscribe to seven dailies and one is delivered to me free of charge. This Wednesday, which happened to be a public holiday on account of Janmashtami, I perused all eight of these Delhi…
‘Arnab Goswami is corrective to babalog media’
Bangalore, the home of City Tab, India’s original weekly tabloid, now has a new weekly: Talk. Edited by former Indian Express and Yahoo! staffer S.R. Ramakrishna, Talk also features a weekly satire page called Ayyotoons, illustrated by Satish Acharya. The latest issue features Times Now* editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami. *** At the turn of 2012, the…
Zee News, Jindal Steel & silence of the media
Swapan Dasgupta on the silence of much of the media on the Zee News-Jindal Steel extortion case, in which the editorial staff of the Subhash Chandra-owned channel allegedly demanded Rs 100 crore in lieu of advertisements from the steel major to not publish stories in the coal scam, in The Pioneer, Delhi: “The media didn’t…
When the Gang of Four meets in IIC, it’s news
An item appearing in Raisina Tattle, the gossip column of Mail Today, the tabloid from the India Today group. Also read: Who are the journos “running and ruining” the BJP? For the BJP, pen is mightier than the trishul? Don’t laugh: do journalists make good politicians? The lone-ranger of loony Hindutva versus…?
The Chetan Bhagat-ification of Indian newspapers
Business Standard books’ reviewer Nilanjana S. Roy—and CNN-IBN anchor Sagarika Ghose (who has a column in Hindustan Times)—provide the latest update on the state of Indian newspapers.
When Samir served a thali, Vineet served a scoop
SHARANYA KANVILKAR writes from Bombay: As it approaches its dosquicentennial, India’s biggest English language newspaper, The Times of India, truly deserved a meticulous biography to tell the world on “what goes on inside this amazing media machine”. Sadly, Bachi Karkaria‘s Behind the Times (Times Books, 325 pages) is not that. Poorly structured, poorly sourced and…
The Lone Ranger of Loony Hindutva versus…?
A somewhat tenuous peace has been achieved in the ranks of the Bharatiya Janata Party after the “nasty jolt” it received in the May 2009 general elections. But a detente eludes journalists aligned with the BJP. This, above, is the public exchange of words between the columnist Swapan Dasgupta and the Pioneer associate editor Kanchan…
India’s best editors, wiser than rest together?
Via Twitter, CNN-IBN editor-in-chief Rajdeep Sardesai, names the “most outstanding election analysts across channels” on counting day, October 22. His verdict: Kumar Ketkar, editor of the Marathi daily Loksatta, and Palagummi Sainath, rural affairs editor of The Hindu, both of whom were on CNN-IBN. “Wiser than all Delhi editors put together,” says Sardesai, whose own…
Don’t laugh: Do journos make good politicians?
PRITAM SENGUPTA in New Delhi and SHARANYA KANVILKAR in Bombay write: The stunning defeat of the BJP in the general elections has been dissected so many times and by so many since May 16 that there is little that has been left unsaid. What has been left unsaid is how the BJP’s defeat also marks…
How come nobody heard or saw the worm turn?
SHARANYA KANVILKAR writes from Bombay: Hindsight, as the moronic aphorism goes, is always 20/20. And we have been seeing plenty of hindsight dressed as foresight over the last fortnight following the announcement of the results of the general elections, which bucked the “anti-incumbency” cliche and put the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance back in power. #…
IJR 