To no one’s surprise, the passing of Sir Harold Evans, the legendary Editor of The Times, London, received less-than-enthusiastic coverage in English newspapers in India, most of which were happy to run a dry Reuters or AP obituary on the foreign page. Only The Telegraph, Calcutta, in whose design in 1982 Sir Harry is rumoured…
Tag Archives: The Times
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…
And, so, the ‘best journalist in India’ is…
Tunku Varadarajan, former editor of Newsweek International, on his thambi (younger brother), Siddharth Varadarajan, editor of The Hindu, in the September issue of The Indian Quarterly: “I think he’s the best journalist in India. He’s serious, he’s knowledgeable, he writes wonderfully. But what drives him is the urge to educate people, to edify. What he…
‘A cricket writer as loved as any great cricketer’
In The Telegraph, Calcutta, Amit Roy reports on the funeral for the Bombay-born cricket and squash writer Dicky Rutnagur who passed away last month at the age of 82. After the funeral, Rutnagur’s friends, colleagues and relatives proceeded to the Writing Room at the Lord’s, where John Woodcock, the legendary cricket correspondent of The Times,…
EPW, the ‘Economist’ of emerging countries?
The former West Bengal finance minister, economist and left ideologue, Ashok Mitra, in The Telegraph, Calcutta: “Gentlemen do not engage in public brawl; if they have a grievance to air, they write to the London Times. That was the British code…. The Indian gentry, as could only be expected, inherited the code of the ruling nation…. For…
The Guardian, Nick Davies and News of the World
PRITAM SENGUPTA writes from Delhi: Most journalists who succeed in bringing down a minister or a bureaucrat, or a government, wear it as a badge of honour. How about Nick Davies, who has brought down a 138-year-old newspaper, the News of the World—and its mighty owner Rupert Murdoch—with his searing expose of the phone hacking…
‘Indira exploited Western media outrage in ’75’
William Rees-Mogg, the former editor of The Times, London, on the Emergency of 1975 and media censorship, in his book, Memoirs, to be published by Harper Collins on July 7: “We attacked in a Times leader Mrs Indira Gandhi‘s suspension of Indian democracy. I only saw Mrs Gandhi once. She was insufferably arrogant, and very…
When editor makes way for editor, gracefully
The change of editorship at Indian publications is (usually) a graceless cloak-and-dagger affair, done in the dead of night after the janitors have left the building. Media consumers are rarely ever told why the helmsman has left or why a new one has come in, especially when there is a cloud shrouding the midnight operation.…
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…
Funny joke from a balding journo-blogger*
David Finkelstein in The Times, London: An economist-friend has just told me a wonderful story about a professional colleague of his. The colleague was waiting at the airport for his flight to be called when a man ran into his section of the lounge, slightly out of breath. “Is there an economist in here?” he…
Hero survives cost-cutting, jobs freeze, pay cuts
Tintin, the boy-faced Belgian reporter turns 80 years old today, 10 January 2009. It was on this day that Herge‘s comic-book hero made his appearance in the church newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle, in which he visits Russia (Tintin in the Land of the Soviets) to describe the horrors of Bolshevism. Tintin held the ultimate job…
Sure, size matters, but does only size matter?
How much smaller can a newspaper sheet get before it becomes a newspaper chit? From 60-inch web presses (the old Wall Street Journal or The Hindu) which generated very wide 15-inch by 22¾ front pages, we have come down to acceptable 54-48 inch web presses which generate 12½ to 13½ inch front pages (New York…
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
That’s French for the more things change the more they remain. We think we are going through an amazing boom, but Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was saying the same in 1957. We think it is only now that the need to attract younger readers has become imperative, but the Daily Mirror was issuing television commercials aimed…
IJR 