A baffling splitscreen stares at journalists, especially middle-aged and experienced journalists, in a post-COVID world ravaged by falling revenues, plunging profits and growing irrelevance. Those who have a job worry about when they might lose it, or how much their salaries will be cut next, or about being rendered obsolete by younger whipper-snappers adept…
Tag Archives: The Guardian
J-POD || Podcast || “Journalism is a form of public service. It is dangerous to undermine institutional news. All of us need to become more critical readers and users of social media”|| Alan Rusbridger, former Editor-in-Chief, The Guardian
https://soundcloud.com/user-311470525/j-pod-alan-rusbridger-former *** The role of social media in distorting societies by pouring unfiltered information directly into the pockets and phones of users has been evident for nearly a decade now. But it took the American presidential elections of 2016—which installed Donald Trump in office—for Google, Facebook and YouTube to come in for scrutiny. At first,…
Journalism #101: Lessons for Indian broadcasters from a Briton in America
On a personal journey across white America, writer Gary Younge came face to face with alt-right leader Richard Spencer @Channel4 Thurs 10pm pic.twitter.com/25f0gHWmjO — Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) November 7, 2017 Concomitant with the rise of the Right, India’s brain-dead TV news channels have offered the platform to the most communal, incendiary, racist viewpoints in…
Why Jug Suraiya doesn’t buy Hindustan Times
There are many reasons why people buy newspapers (and inshallah, newsmagazines). To be part of the shared conversation; to get an organised view of the world; to keep up with the Joneses; to get news and views and ads; to be educated and engaged and entertained. Jug Suraiya throws light on another reason in The…
Will Barack Obama be page one news tomorrow?
Will Barack Obama‘s reelection be front-page news in your newspaper tomorrow? Not if your paper has a “jacket advertisement” in this Diwali season, in which case it will technically be on page 3. Not if your paper two jacket ads, in which case it will be on page 5. In many ways, Indian newspapers have…
Umberto Eco has a piece of advice for journalists
How long should news stories and features be in an era of short attention spans? Does serious stuff have an audience when there are a million diversions? Should we only give what readers and viewers want? Is it all about boiling it down for the lowest common denominator? The questions facing journalism are eternal. The…
From Our Staff Correspondent: R.K. Narayan
On the 10th anniversary of his death, The Guardian, London, has a long piece on the legendary creator of the fictional town of Malgudi, R.K. Narayan, who did a short stint as the Mysoe correspondent of the Madras newspaper, The Justice: “After graduating in 1930 from the Maharaja’s College – prototype of the Albert Mission…
‘Indian media eclipses America’s and Europe’s’
It is one thing to scoop the cables of American diplomats obtained by WikiLeaks, and it is quite another to project WikiLeaks’ maverick founder, Julian Assange, not merely as the facilitator of the cable-leaks but as the fount of all wisdom contained in them. But The Hindu has managed to do both inside 30 days.…
Could Wikileaks strike some Indian journalists?
The leaked cables of American diplomats in India, published by The Hindu in conjunction with Wikileaks, has exposed a “brazenly mendacious and venal ruling class”. But are some Indian journalists likely to be get exposed too? Pankaj Mishra writes in The Guardian, London: “There are many more dramatic revelations in store from WikiLeaks and The…
In its golden jubilee year, ET gets a new design
Quietly, almost as if it doesn’t want anybody to notice, India’s oldest and largest business paper,The Economic Times, has undergone a redesign. On top is the front page of the launch issue of the paper in its new avatar (Monday, 14 February 2011) and below is the paper from exactly a week before. The pagination…
Kilburn? Cardiff? Kee farak payinda, yaar?
David Hopps of The Guardian on dealing with Indian TV and radio stations on the Pakistan spot-fixing scandal: The best stations in India rival any in the world. They are not averse, shall we say, at cutting to the quick. Those less good leave you in a state of bewilderment. They shout phrases like “The…
Who wins, who loses when it’s Gandhi vs Gandhi
When the Mail Today juxtaposes the Congress scion Rahul Gandhi with the father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi, who should feel more offended, Gandhi junior or Gandhi senior? The Guardian‘s media critic, Roy Greenslade, sees the promo in conjunction with Mont Blanc trying to sell pens in the name of Gandhi and Telecom Italia trying…
Will M.J. Akbar recreate The Telegraph magic?
New Delhi has a new Sunday paper, The Sunday Guardian, edited by the veteran editor, author and columnist M.J. Akbar. The 40-page weekly, priced at Rs 3, hit the stands on 31 January with the renowned lawyer Ram Jethmalani as chairman of the board of MJP Media Pvt Ltd. This is the second weekend paper…
Six questions for Stephen Farrell and NY Times
Tunku Varadarajan, the former foreign correspondent of The Times, London, currently a professor at NYU’s Stern Business School, asks some excellent questions on the abduction and rescue of Stephen Farrell, the “seemingly reckless” New York Times journalist, by the Taliban in Afghanistan, at Forbes.com. 1) Did not Farrell assume the risk of some harm befalling…
Jug Suraiya takes on the mighty Big B
The reverberations of Amitabh Bachchan‘s blog comments on the Academy Award-winning movie Slumdog Millionaire are now being felt in the “cesspool” of Indian journalism. In his reaction to the movie, Bachchan wrote in January: “If SM projects India as [a] third-world, dirty, underbelly developing nation and causes pain and disgust among nationalists and patriots, let…
Cost-effective, yes, but is it good journalism?
Pasadena Now, a California-based website, tried to outsource local civic affairs and political coverage to India two years ago. Now, New Haven Advocate, an American alternative weekly covering local news and arts, has decided to check out the limits of “outsourced journalism”. It posted ads on Craigslist in Bangalore and Bombay in March seeking journalists…
‘Ask the questions and question the answers’
Peter Cole in The Guardian, London: “Journalism is basically a simple game. It is about finding things out and telling other people about them. The finding out requires a variety of skills because those in power often prefer that we know only so much. Journalism is about holding such people to account, exposing their humbug…
Can people like us cover people like them?
Of all the reasons proffered for the current state and priorities of the media, Indian and otherwise, one of the most obvious ones has got the least amount of attention: the changing demographic profile. To some of the key charges—celebrity-obsessed, headline-driven, trivial, titillatory, hit-and-run—the media has no option but to plead guilty. The “real problems”…
‘A question papers and TV must start asking’
George Monbiot in The Guardian, London: “There is no nonsense so gross that it cannot be justified by the creation of jobs…. It is true that investment creates employment. But jobs are used to justify anything and everything. But the big question is asked very rarely in the press: how reliable are these promises? Whenever…
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