‘Good morning! Your paper is free of paid news!’

In this era of mercenary managers and predatory proprietors, brave is the editor who can actually stick his neck out—at least in public—and vouch for the virginity of his product. But Aditya Sinha, the new editor-in-chief of the Bombay daily Daily News & Analysis (DNA), clearly doesn’t mind taking the risk.

At least, if nothing else, to send a signal to managers and proprietors who have hired him.

The masthead of the paper now sports a seal affirming that the paper is free of the latest scourge of Indian journalism—paid news. And this, in the cradle of the newspaper group that is seen to be the motherlode of all things negative about the profession: medianet, paid news, private treaties and what have you.

For the record, DNA, under its previous editor R. Jagannathan, had kicked off a front-page campaign in 2009 against paid news with a set of advertisements.

Also read: Time to drop the “A” from DNA?

Aditya Sinha on the world view of Delhi journalists

Radia effect on PM’s invitees for TV pow-wow?

Prime minister Manmohan Singh‘s much ballyhooed pow-wow with “editors” of television channels to clear the air over the scams dogging his government, was, as was to be expected, a typically tepid, bureaucratic affair.

Only the national English TV channels—Headlines Today (represented by Aroon Purie), CNN-IBN (Rajdeep Sardesai), NDTV 24×7 (Prannoy Roy), Times Now (Arnab Goswami)—were interested in asking questions (and suplementaries, much to media advisor Harish Khare‘s discomfiture) about corruption.

Most of the rest, be they from regional channels like Sun TV, Calcutta TV or Asianet, or “international channels” like BBC and Al-Jazeera, were content with asking questions relevant to their audiences and markets (Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Assam, Europe, Middle East).

Questions are already doing the rounds on why some sizeable channels like Star News, TV9, etc, went unrepresented. And rumours are already doing the rounds on why at least one sizeable editor was absent.

Radhika Ramaseshan reports in The Telegraph, Calcutta:

“The owner of an English channel had been requested to be present instead of deputing a colleague.

“The owner-editor of another Delhi-based channel was also told he would be welcome. Other channels were sent a general invite.

“The caution came against the backdrop of the Niira Radia tapes featuring conversations of some journalists.”

Also read: Did Niira Radia tapes have impact on Padma awards?