A 10-page defamation notice sent by the legal advisors of The Indian Express to Open magazine, over an interview granted to the latter by Vinod Mehta, editorial chairman of Outlook* magazine, criticising the Express ‘C’ report, is now in the public domain. The letter—on behalf of the Express, the paper’s editor-in-chief Shekhar Gupta, its reporters…
Tag Archives: The Hoot
3 deaths, 14 attacks on journos in last six months
GEETA SESHU writes from Bombay: The killing of Mid-Day (special investigations) editor J.Dey on Saturday, 11 June 2011, was the third death of a journalist in India over the last six months. In all three instances, investigations are on but no arrests have been made; much less is there any headway as to the killers…
Student research internships at ‘The Hoot’
The media website Hoot is offering five short-term research internships for studentsto be completed between January and March 2011. The internships are open to undergraduate and post graduate students from any part of the country. Each intership is for Rs 10,000. Proposals have to be related to Indian regional media, in English or a regional…
Free, frank, fearless? No. Grubby, greedy, gutless.
A significant outcome of the 2009 general elections has been the “outing” of the corruption in the Indian news media. What was earlier, usually, seen as an individual transgression has grown and morphed into an institutional malaise with long-term implications for our democracy which the aam admi is still to recognise. Most cases of corruption…
‘The media is as guilty of neglect as politicians’
Is the Indian media as guilty as those in the Indian polity in the “neglect” of the country it covers (and uncovers)? At least two well-known journalists, from opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, seem to think so. Kalpana Sharma, formerly of The Hindu, writes on the media website, The Hoot: “Elections are a time…
Sauce for a paper ain’t sauce for a TV channel?
If it is not all right in the eyes of The Hoot for NDTV to select the BJP’s prime minister-in-waiting L.K. Advani for a “Lifetime Achievement Award” in 2009, was it OK for Business Standard—in which Hoot editor Sevanti Ninan has a stake—to invite the leader of the opposition to hand the Business Standard Awards…
Should the media be honouring politicians?
Should a designated prime ministerial candidate of a mainstream political party be chosen and given an award by a television channel which might have to cover him if and when he takes charge? Should the candidate so eagerly accept such a public honour? The candidate is L.K. Advani of the Bharatiya Janata Party, and the…
Conflict of interest and an interest in conflicts
The media website The Hoot, created under the auspices of the Media Foundation and run by Sevanti Ninan, who writes a fortnightly media column in The Hindu, has this piece of media gossip today: “Rumour mills in Delhi have it that Mint editor Raju Narisetti’s exit last month had something to do with the home…
Was CNN-IBN right not to air Amar Singh sting?
Tuesday’s disgraceful scenes in the Indian parliament—when lawmakers heaped currency notes of nearly $2 million to show that they were being bribed to abstain from a trust motion moved by the government—has a media angle to it. The buying and selling of legislators, it turns out, was captured on film by CNN-IBN which however declined to…
‘Hindu had a discernible pro-China line on Tibet’
Tibet is in India’s backyard. Tibetans have been amidst us for decades. The Olympic torch issue has turned a dormant issue into political hot-button with diplomatic ramifications. So how did India’s major English newspapers cover the uprising in Lhasa? Sevanti Ninan, Shayoni Sarkar and Tenzin Paldon of The Hoot have done a qualitative analysis of…
What’s in a word? Don’t ask the poor ‘sod’
As if cricket’s byzantine “Laws” weren’t enough, the lexicon is becoming a potent weapon in the wars of words that have enveloped cricket in recent months. Down under, the use of labels like “monkey” and “obnoxious little weed” by rival players sent cricket correspondents scurrying to their dictionaries. Back home, the use of a three-letter…
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