PALINI R. SWAMY writes from Bangalore: A first-generation newspaper promoter launches a newspaper with his first name as part of the title. After a few years, he sells the now well-established newspaper to a well-established newspaper group. The new owners (neither of whom share the original promoter’s surname) continue to publish the newspaper in its…
Tag Archives: The Times of India Group
Editors Guild backs ‘Times Now’ in libel case
The Supreme Court of India has declined to intervene in a Bombay High Court case against Times Now, directing the channel to deposit Rs 20 crore with the court registry along with a bank guarantee of Rs 80 crore, in a libel case involving the former chairman of the Press Council of India, Justice P.B.…
The Times of India, Indiatimes.com and IPL-4
Not so long ago, a much-feared Indian publisher who shall go unnamed wanted the broadband expansion in India to be slowed down because, well, it would woo readers away from his newspaper to the world wide web. Well, the times, they are a-changing. Last month, Indiatimes.com, the internet arm of The Times of India group,…
The “journalist” who offered a Rs 2 crore bribe?
Journalists and media houses are turning out to be key go-betweens and beneficiaries in the 2G spectrum allocation scam that has already seen a Union minister and several corporate honchos go behind bars. Several famous scribes have found themselves on the infamous Niira Radia tapes, at least one journalist’s house has been raided, and a…
‘Rabid, right-wing, Fox News on Acid.’ Yet 74%?
A news item on the business pages of The Times of India: Times Now most viewed during PM press conference Mumbai: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh‘s televised news conference last week was most watched on Times Now. According to rating agency TAM, 74% viewers among 25-plus males in big cities watched the PM on Times Now.…
A blank editorial, a black editorial & a footnote
When Indira Gandhi introduced media censorship as part of the Emergency in 1975, Indian newspapers ran blank editorials as a form of protest. The Kannada newspaper Vijaya Karnataka, belonging to The Times of India group, runs a blank (and black) editorial today, in protest against what happened in the State legislative assembly on Monday, during…
10 media barons in India Today power list of 50
Ronnie Screwvala of UTV, and Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy of NDTV, are the three prominent media names missing in India Today magazine’s annual ranking of the 50 most powerful people in India for the year of the lord, 2010. Otherwise, this year’s list comprise the usual barons: Samir Jain and Vineet Jain of The…
Why media must not rush to report FIR in rapes
On the face of it, a First Information Report (FIR) may be a public document which can be obtained from the concerned magistrate. And once a judicial trial begins, the FIR and the evidence of the witnesses comes within the public domain as the judicial proceedings are open to the public. However, this is not…
‘The first casualty of a cosy deal is credibility’
The Times of India group’s decision to make strategic investments in mid-level companies, in return for guaranteed advertising and editorial exposure in the group’s publications and media vehicles, through the quaintly named “Private Treaties“, has had several other media houses following suit. Hindustan Times is said to be well on its way to establishing a…
Forget the news, you can’t believe the ads either
The selling of the news columns in Indian newspapers, a pernicious practice that deliberately blurs the distinction between independently generated news and paid advertisements, has assumed pandemic proportions with language publications unabashedly apeing the market-leader The Times of India, which pioneered the move. But, it now turns out that even paid advertisements are no longer…
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