“As the year closes, one must with sadness and shame pen a lament for the Indian media…. We must lament a disgraceful fall in standards as revealed by well documented stories of the sale of electoral coverage by sections of the news media through ‘packages’ relating to the kind of treatment sought.
“What earlier seemed an isolated, low-level viral outbreak appears to have gained virulence and epidemic proportions.
“Alarm bells have sounded. The matter is too serious to be left to drift. Maybe the Press Registration Act needs review to entrench the position of the editor who is even now responsible for everything published, including advertisements.
“Can the law require public interest directors to be appointed to boards of all media houses from tiered panels to act as guardians of the public interest? The establishment of self-regulatory bodies for the broadcast media by no means precludes the necessity for mandatory broadcast regulations as found in every part of the world. This need not curb media freedom. Fast driving requires good brakes. Should ‘private (ads for shares) treaties’ be required to be mandatorily disclosed by the paper/channel concerned? Can the Election Commission compel separate accounting of all advertisements and advertorial support for candidates under election expense?
“These are obviously extremely sensitive and complex matters that impinge on freedom of expression. But when freedom becomes license, democracy is in peril.”
Sheela Bhatt of rediff.com reports that Delhi-based journalist Rahul Bedi, longtime defence correspondent of Jane’s Defence Weekly, and an occasional contributor to the The Daily Telegraph, London, and Irish Times, Dublin, has abandoned his sport utility vehicle and now cycles all around town.
“I have taken to cycling since the last three to four years. In the last two years, I drove my car almost 300 to 400 km a month, but I cycle about 900 km a month. Sometimes I cycle more than 1,000 km a month. I cycle for work and also for pleasure. I surely cycle for 40 to 50 km for about five days a week.”
A barely disguised front-page ad in today’s Daily News & Analysis (DNA), the joint venture between Zee News and Dainik Bhaskar, on the “paid news” syndrome that has ganied enormous traction in recent weeks.
The Hindu exposed the discrepancy between the Maharashtra chief minister’s ad expenditure and news coverage; The Indian Express did a two-part series on the institutional transgressions; and Outlook* has a cover story.
sans serif records with deep and profound regret the passing away of the legendary photo-journalist Tamabarahalli Subramanya Satyanarayana Iyerbetter known as T.S. Satyan in Mysore this afternoon.
Mr Satyan was five days away from his 86th birthday.
He is survived by his wife Nagarathna, children, grandchildren and a City (and a profession) he dearly loved till his last breath.
Mr Satyan belonged to a golden generation of the Maharaja’s College in Mysore in the 1940s, from which almost everybody ascended to reach great heights in life. He took to photojournalism at a time when neither photography nor journalism was the first-choice profession and communicated with images the way another famous co-townsman of his (R.K. Narayan) did with words: simply and honestly, without any frills.
His work chiefly appeared in Deccan Herald and The Illustrated Weekly of India, and in Time, Life and Christian Science Monitor.
Fittingly, for someone who was full of zest, Mr Satyan titled his memoirs In love with life. In the last few years, the octagenarian developed a love for the wired world, and wrote several pieces for sans serif, whose friend, wellwisher and guide he remained from the day of its inception.
The Week’s senior correspondent Bidisha Ghosal and senior correspondent Kavitha Muralidharan have been honoured with prizes from the International Press Institute and Press Institute of India for their work—along with a full-page announcement in the latest issue of the magazine.
If Medha Patkar was the “box item” girl of the Narmada anti-dam saga, Himanshu Kumar is fast emerging as the poster boy in the Maoism story.
No newspaper, magazine or television article on “the gravest threat to internal security” is complete without a mention of (or quote from) Kumar, whose non-governmental organisation Vanvasi Chetna Ashram in “ground zero” of Maoist activities, Dantewada, was torched in May this year.
After holding forth eloquently for 30 minutes on tribals, poverty, disease, despair, neglect, pro-people this, anti-people that, surely Himanshubhai’s heart should have skipped a beat, as he slung his jhola over his shoulder, to hear the emcee—Tehelka executive editor Shoma Chaudhury—announce that cocktails would be served on the on the other lawn?
Ankur Chawla, the son of India Today editor Prabhu Chawla*, who was named in a bribery case concerning the Hindi newspaper Amar Ujala 10 days ago, has had a “status update”.
Chawla junior, a Supreme Court advocate, has now been inducted into the CBI team probing the bribery case involving the acting head of the company law board (CLB).
In other words, the accused has turned approver, with a difference—he will now probe the very case he was a part of.
Chawla had been named as a “middleman” in the CBI first information report (FIR) after the CLB chief R. Vasudevan was caught on the night of November 23 while allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 7 lakh from Manoj Banthia, a company secretary of Amar Ujala, to settle a dispute in the family running the regional daily.
Ankur Chawla feigned innocence claiming he was “out of the country” but his house in New Delhi’s Defence Colony was raided and a file relating to the case was recovered “establishing his links with the case“.
Chawla’s name was also missing from the CBI press release.
The Hindu reported that CBI had registered a case against Vasudevan, Banthia and Ankur Chawla under 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 7 (public servant taking bribe other than legal remuneration in respect of an official act), 8 (taking bribe, in order, by corrupt or illegal means, to influence public servant) and other sections of the prevention of corruption Act.
Although The Times of India reports that Banthia “has all along maintained that it was Ankur Chawla who had allegedly handed over the cash to him asking him to further hand it over to Vasudevan,” a Delhi court was told a different story on November 30.
# “It is submitted that accused Ankur Chawla (the lawyer) joined investigation today,” additional sessions judge O.P. Saini noted, while entertaining a petition seeking policy remand of another accused Manoj Banthia for one more day, reports The Times of India.
# Press Trust of India reports that CBI wanted to quiz Ankur Chawla with the statements made by Banthia during his custodial interrogation but the judge allowed CBI to interrogate Banthia for one more day on the ground that Ankur Chawla had “joined the probe“.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has named advocate Ankur Chawla, son of Prabhu Chawla, editor of the leading English newsweekly India Today*, for allegedly acting as a conduit to pay a bribe to a quasi-judicial official for “a favourable verdict in a case concerning a media house”.
The Hindustan Times reports that junior Chawla represented one of the two feuding factions of the Hindi daily newspaper Amar Ujala, and had arranged for Rs 10 lakh to be delivered to the acting chairman of the company law board (CLB), R. Vasudevan, who has been arrested for taking the bribe.
The Times of India, quoting CBI sources, says Ankur Chawla had approached Manoj Banthia, a secretary with the Ujala management, with Rs 10 lakh to get the case settled in favour of the daily’s management. “Banthia kept Rs 3 lakh. Chawla’s name is also in the FIR.”
According to Press Trust of India, Banthia was nabbed while he was emerging from Vasudevan’s house in South Delhi after allegedly paying the bribe. A further sum of Rs 55 lakh was also recovered from the residence of the 58-year-old officer.
The Economic Times quotes a CBI spokesman as saying it was “a double-trap”, in which the bribe-giver and the bribe-taker were arrested.
Atul Maheshwari, managing director of the Amar Ujala group, has clarified he had no connection with the case, but Chawla’s house in upscale Defence Colony was raided and a file relating to the case was recovered “establishing his links with the case“.
Indo Asian News Service reports that Chawla, who was reportedly out of India for two days, has professed ignorance about the bribery but has said he will co-operate with investigators.
However, Financial Chronicle reports that Ankur Chawla was among the three arrested along with Vasudevan and Banthia. But the official CBI press release makes no mention of a third arrest, much less the name or pedigree of Chawla.
The Hindu reports that CBI has registered a case against Vasudevan, Banthia and Ankur Chawla under 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC and Section 7 (public servant taking bribe other than legal remuneration in respect of an official act), 8 (taking bribe, in order, by corrupt or illegal means, to influence public servant) and other sections of the prevention of corruption Act.
To its credit, Mail Today, the tabloid newspaper owned by the India Today group for which Prabhu Chawla writes a weekly Monday column, gave the most space to the story among all Delhi dailies without, however, revealing the link.
It quoted the CBI spokesman as saying “an advocate acted as the conduit for giving this bribe,” and that “raids at the advocate’s house revealed documents belonging to multiple offices of the media house.”
MEDIA RELEASE: “Advertorial: Selling News or Products?“, a documentary film on the blurring of the line between editorial and advertising in Indian news media, will be telecast on Wednesday, November 25, at 10.30 pm on Doordarshan News.
The film, directed by journalist and academic Paranjoy Guha Thakurta (in picture), has been produced by the Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT).
The full text of the press release issued by the Foundation for Media Professionals (FMP) of the address made by Prabhash Joshi at a seminar held in New Delhi on Wednesday, October 28, 2009, on the blurring of the line between editorial and advertisements in the Indian media. Joshi, a former editor of the Hindi daily Jansatta, passed away last week, nine days after the address.
MEDIA RELEASE: “Advertorial: Selling News or Products?“, a documentary film on the blurring of the line between editorial and advertising in Indian news media, will be telecast on Wednesday, November 25, at 10.30 pm on Doordarshan News.
The full text of the press release issued by the 
