‘You furnish the pictures, I’ll furnish the war’

Modern journalists not used to the thrills and travails of sending despatches on the telegram and the teleprinter and the telex machine from the back of beyond will not understand the hoo dash ha in today’s papers on the decision of the Bharat sanchar nigam limited bracket open BSNL bracket close to wind up the telegraphic service stop Our sympathies stop para The innocent little tykes probably do not even remember William Randolph Hearst‘s famous telegram to his correspondent that features in the greatest film ever made comma Citizen Kane stop para 

***

In The Pioneer, the paper’s editor and member of Parliament Chandan Mitra goes down memory lane:

“When I became a journalist, working with The Statesman in Kolkata, I had to sometimes send my reports that way. Press persons were issued P&T cards which enabled us to file copies by telegram and telex (a relatively new innovation) and even make trunk calls to the headquarters without paying cash as the cards were postpaid by the organisation.

“Reporting on terrorism in Punjab in 1984, one evening I reached Ludhiana to find the telex machine at the GPO out of order. Given the urgency of the report, I was left with no option but dictate my entire story to the grumpy telegraph operator whose machine went tappity-tap to the Morse code.

“Later, the News Editor said my story had run into an extravagant 22 sheets with many undecipherable words (the reluctant babu’s faulty English to blame!) and took over three hours to retype!

“District correspondents too often filed this way. As Chief of the Times of India News Service in the late 1980s, it was my lot to sort out telegram sheets, each line pasted on the form, and punctuation marks spelt out.

“A joke of telegram’s nascent years was that in Britain stingy businessmen found a way to beat the cost by sending only punctuation marks, which were free (that is, not counted as a word). So, one shipper from London sent a telegram to his shipping agent thus (;).

“Spelt out, it reached the agent as semicolon.

“The agent replied next day, saying (:).

In case you haven’t figured this out, the message was “see my coal on” and the reply “coal on”!

There is also the delightful but possibly apocryphal story of a foreign correspondent based in the far-east who, when laid off by his paper, got the operator to punch and send the entire Hong Kong telephone directory by telegram so that the “bastards back home”—the accountants—would learn a lesson.

eom

***

Read the full article: 160 years on, the telegram retires

Also read: An urgent telegram to Shri Rupert Murdoch

How Chandan Mitra has his halwa and hogs it too

The best editor The Pioneer never had?

An Editor is never too old to learn a new trick

After 42 years of handwriting his columns, articles and books on scribblepads—at Debonair,The Sunday Observer, The Indian Post, The Independent, The Pioneer and Outlook*—and after hiding the vicious mouse behind his PC all his life, Outlook* editorial chairman Vinod Mehta writes his latest Diary on his new laptop, in New Delhi on Tuesday.

“I found the Google Search fantastic,” says the new convert, who has coincidentally discovered the joys of the world wide web.

“I used to ask the librarian to get me George Orwell but now I type in the window, I get more than I bargained for. Even the thesaurus, not only does it give the synonyms and antonyms, it comes up with so many other options.”

Mr Mehta would neither confirm nor deny that he will start tweeting soon.

* Disclosures apply

‘The question tonight is conflict of interest’

Rohit Iyengar pays tribute to “the nation”.

Just.

Now, NewsX says it is the ‘No.1 English channel’

If our TV stations cannot even put out numbers of their viewership which have a faint whiff of credibility, can they real put out news and views that news consumers can trust and believe?

NewsX, the news channel which has already seen three sets of owners since its launch, is running crawlers on its screens and advertisements on websites, claiming that it was the “most watched English channel” on May 8, when the Karnataka election results came out.

By splicing and dicing TAM data, NewsX manages to show that Times Now was the least watched of the five major English news channel.

On the other hand, Times Now too is running print advertisements of its viewership on results day. Not surprisingly, this shows that Times Now was the most watched, with NewsX not even in the frame.

Also read: The most-watched TV news show at 9 pm is…

Lots of people watch Lok Sabha TV. Surprised?

Headlines Today claims it has overtaken Times Now

Just between You and Me, a ‘Time’ special

 

What goes around comes around in the world of magazines*.

Six years ago, Time magazine hailed you, yes You, as the person of the year: “You control the information age. Welcome to your world.”

In circa 2013, it bemoans the “Me, Me, Me” generation addicted to phones, tabs and notebooks: “Millennials are lazy, entitled narcissists who still live with their parents.”

Just.

* Disclosures apply

Also read: Do Time magazine’s lists means anything at all?

Time, Sandesh and the six degrees of separation

Richard Stengel: Do weekly newsmagazines have a future?

Congratulations. We have the worst job on Earth.

Worse than a lumberjack, if you know what it means.

Worse than a dishwasher.

Worse than a garbage collector.

Worse than a dairy farmer.

That’s the job of a news reporter.

The worst job on earth.

That’s the finding, if you believe that kind of thing, of Career Cast, an American human resource consultancy firm. On its website, the researcher lists low pay, stress, etc as the causes.

The study said:

“…(News reporting) has lost its lustre dramatically over the past five years and is expected to plummet even further by 2020.”

News reporters are ranked at No. 200, photojournalists are only slightly better at 188. But look at the bright side: none of the other 199 “better” professions than ours can report this piece of news.

Image: courtesy Hindustan Times

Also read: A happy new year to all you psychopaths!

Also read: The ten worst jobs on earth

Eight reasons journalism is best profession

External reading: Ten worst jobs of 2012

Ten worst jobs of 2013

ET Now anchor to wed ex-cricketer’s son

From the gossip columns of Pune Mirror, glad tidings on former CNBC TV18 and current ET Now anchor, Ayesha Faridi:

“Marriage bells are ringing for Dilip and Manali Vengsarkar’s son Nakul. Your diarist has learnt that the 31-year-old architect and interior designer will be tying the knot with TV anchor Ayesha Faridi on April 27.

“The cricket legend’s only son had earlier been engaged to marry Swapnali, daughter of real estate baron Avinash Bhosle, but the alliance was called off in circumstances that remain shrouded in mystery to this day….

“However, we gather that Nakul secretly started dating Ayesha around two years ago when she was working in Mumbai and the relationship went from strength to strength even after she relocated to Delhi to take up a fresh assignment.

“The engagement, which took place some months ago with the blessings of their families, was a low key affair. Though the marriage will be solemnised in Delhi, the Vengsarkars are gearing up to host a grand reception in Mumbai.”

Also read: When a politician weds a journo, it’s news

When a filmstar weds a journalist, it’s news

Another (woman) journalist bites stardust

When a magazine editor marries a starlet, it’s news

When a politician’s wife goes to college, it’s news

The BJP leader Arun Jaitley is widely speculated to contest the next general elections from Amritsar, causing much grief to the three-time sitting BJP MP Navjot Singh Sidhu. And as naturally as night follows day, newspapers and news agencies show that the schmoozing has begun in right earnest.

It’s all happening at Doordarshan, All India Radio

So, who says government-owned radio and TV stations are boring places, where nothing happens?

Read the full article: DD Urdu in soup over pork recipe

AIR officials sacked for sexully harassing RJs

Arnab Goswami finally—finally!—joins Twitter

Times Now editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami has done the unthinkable.

After resisting the charms of social media for seven years, the social anthropologist from Oxford has joined his colleagues, competitors and compatriots in Twitterosophere, reports The UnReal Times. 

Above is a screenshot of his first tweet; below is his second.

***

Read the full story: Arnab Goswami on Twitter

Follow Arnab Goswami on Twitter: @arnabgoswami

Also read: What is sans serif?