the news. the views. the juice.
The Express Institute of Media Studies, set up by the Indian Express group, is inviting applications for its 2010 programme. The last date for submission of application forms is 31 January 2010.
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Also read: Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach?
Sentinel House, the book on the newspaper business by the Bangalore journalist Allen J. Mendonca, who passed away suddenly in late September, is being posthumously published by Raintree, the media company Allen co-founded with his wife, Sandhya.
The book, priced at Rs 225, will be released by Arundhati Nag at the Ranga Shankara in Bangalore on December 16, and by Pratibha Prahlad at the Ambience Mall in Gurgaon on December 19.
Below is a review of the book by S.R. Ramakrishna, resident editor of MiD-DaY, Bangalore, followed by a brief excerpt.
***
By S.R. RAMAKRISHNA
Anyone who knew Allen Mendonca also knew he enjoyed his journalism. Which is why they won’t be surprised at the earnestness and energy in Sentinel House, his novel about the newspaper business.
Allen goes about challenging readers, fellow journalists particularly, to identify real-life media people hiding behind his fictional characters. He is a satirist this moment, and a practitioner of pulp fiction the next, but there isn’t a moment he isn’t having a go at the media world. For that reason, it is likely that journalists will grasp the novel’s nuances better than those with no access to newsroom gossip.
Sentinel House narrates the saga of Harivanshrai aka Harry, a media baron driven as much by his hormones as by the opportunities afforded by the new Indian economy. In a hurry to expand his empire, he transforms his newspaper from institution to product, obscures the once-inviolable line between editorial and marketing, and elevates advertiser over reader.
Many will read Sentinel House as a dramatised chronicle of what Allen saw in the newsrooms of the past two decades. The book also seethes with media-boardroom news and gossip that never made it to print. If journalists sit around at bars and coffee shops with a copy of Sentinel House, smirking, taunting, hooting, or even getting into brawls, you know why.
And unexpectedly, running through all the masala and the action is Allen’s faith in Hindu karma and Christian compassion. When Harry’s crippled son Sid finally finds love, fulfilment, wealth and power, Allen suggests it is all because of his essential goodness. Sentinel House describes crimes provoked by lust and greed, but it is also an optimistic tribute to innocence.
But for all that, Allen’s book is vulnerable, and can be ripped apart easily by any critical book lover. Its sex scenes are inspired by Harold Robbins. Its characters are predictable in what they do when faced with a crisis. (The media czar sleeps around, his wife parties and hits the bottle, their son seeks meaning in art, and older people seek solace in religion). Sentinel House is clearly inclined towards populist fiction and Page 3 reportage.
With this novel, Allen joins the ranks of Bangalorean journalists-turned-novelists Narendar Pani and C.K. Meena, but they take stylistic routes different from his.
If anyone could write this novel, it was Allen. In the decades he spent in journalism, he changed from intrepid reporter to Page 3 heartthrob to independent entrepreneur. He knew this story from the inside. He did many diverse things, including playing the guitar. Allen died of a heart attack late in September, and it is sad that his first novel will also be his last.
I read an advance copy of the book, and don’t know if Allen would have liked to revise it before sending it out to the press, but Sentinel House, even in its present form, can deliver a satisfyingly nasty punch.
**
Here is an extract from the book, published with the permission of the publishers.
REQUIEM FOR THE EDITOR
By ALLEN J. MENDONCA
The Rip Van Winkle of Malabar Hill has woken up.
Hip, hip, hurray!
Harivanshrai Kumar a.k.a Harry, the stormy petrel of the Indian media, has given the old man from another century a brand new look.
Imagine The Indian Sentinel in the avatar of good ol’ Rip, emerging all dishevelled and confused from H. G. Wells’ Time Machine.
He steps out the door into Harry’s state-of-the-art office. He looks around and shouts, “Jeez, I need a makeover.” Harry’s attractive and superefficient secretary (Where does he hire them from?) takes charge. She guides him to the bathroom, crops his hair, gives him a shave, orders him to bathe and throws away his tattered robes.
“Excellent. Now give him one of my suits tailored in Bond Street. And don’t forget the underclothes,” says Harry as he lights up a Cuban.
She gives him a withering look. “As if I’ll ever forget!”
Rip takes on the very personality of Harry.
Harry = The Indian Sentinel.
Q.E.D.
Analyze it?
It means there is no more room for the conventional, intellectual editor in Harry’s grand scheme.
As far as he’s concerned, the editor is just a high-ranking employee who strings the news together and helms the production of the newspaper. It is the managing editor who dictates policy and content.
In short, professional managers have taken over The Indian Sentinel in every sphere of its existence.
It is limbo for the editors, for they are neither here nor there.
A degree from an IIM, better still, a doctorate in management from some fancy American University, that’s the ticket for a career in The Sentinel.
Goodbye, liberal arts.
Goodbye, Mr. Editor.
Harry’s on record: “The old order had to change and who better than I to herald it?”
Harry’s been harping about television fast replacing the print media as the most popular and quickest purveyor of news.
Five years from now there will be a dozen television stations beaming news and entertainment. We have to reinvent ourselves. Otherwise, newspapers will be relegated to the status of a poor cousin. We have already lost 23 per cent of our ad revenue to television. Our profit margins have begun to drop and will keep plummeting.
Sure, Harry has a case.
Sure, television is seducing our readers. Should we get worried? Is there a need for radical change? Should we change our editorial and management modules?
Should we look at alternative revenue streams to compensate for the drop in business?
Yes and No.
Packaging is only one aspect of presentation. Readers expect news and views. The written word is a habit. You can’t carry your television to the park. Or into the crowded bus or train.
Harry is young and in too much of a hurry.
He doesn’t understand what a newspaper is all about.
He’s a Young Turk who has been handed over a venerable institution on a platter.
Here’s wishing he won’t trip on his own predictions. For in his mad rush to be ahead of the times, he just might lose all touch with the present.
And stumble!
Two young journalists, Teresa Rehman (left) of Tehelka and Bahar Dutt of CNN-IBN, are among five winners of the Sanskriti Awards for 2009.
Now in its 30th year, the Sanskriti Awards are given to young talents between 25 and 35 years of age, and will be presented in New Delhi on Novemebr 20, according to a press release. Each award carries Rs 50,000 in cash and a citation.
# An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Teresa Rehman is Tehelka’s principal correspondent in the Northeast. Her photo-story on an alleged fake encounter in Manipur in June 2009, won global acclaim and was picked up by newspapers and magazines worldwide.
# Bahar Dutt, a trained wildlife conservationist, has worked for the last ten years on key wildlife issues in India and abroad. She played a key role in working with and rehabilitating the Bahelias, a community of snake charmers in Rajasthan and Haryana.
Photographs: courtesy Sanskriti Pratishtan
An exhibition of cartoons by Balraj K.N., in Bangalore, from October 31 to November 14. Daily from 10 am to 6 pm. Venue: Indian Cartoon Gallery, No. 1, Midford House, Midford Garden, off M.G. Road.
The names of the key engineers who demolished the great wall in Indian journalism—the proprietors, the publishers, the brand managers, the spineless editors and journalists who refused to stand up to the advertiesrs and space sellers—are missing from the gabfest of the Foundation for Media Professionals.
Were they not invited?
Or did they decline to come?
Also read: Pyramid Saimira, Tatva & Times Private Treaties
Times Private Treaties gets a very public airing
SUCHETA DALAL: Forget the news, you can’t believe the ads either
Does he who pays the piper call the tune?
SALIL TRIPATHI: The first casualty of a cosy deal is credibility
Selling the soul? Or sustaining the business?
PAUL BECKETT: Indian media holding Indian democracy ransom
Does he who pays the piper call the tune?
PRATAP BHANU MEHTA: ‘Indian media in deeply murky ethical territory’
NEWS RELEASE: The John F. and James L. Knight Foundation has extended upto 15 December 2009, the deadline for the the global Knight News Challenge that awards up to $5 million (approximately Rs 25 crore) for ideas that use digital experiments to transform community news.
The Knight News Challenge is open to innovators worldwide and has three rules: “Projects must use digital, open-source technology, distribute news in the public interest and be tested in a local community.”
The contest, now its fourth year, has chosen 35 winners from 7,000 entries.
Applicants can enter under the “open category, which allows the public to view and comment on their submissions, or the “closed” category, for those who are not ready to make their ideas public.
For more information: see the video, read the FAQ
For applications: click here
Outlook special correspondent Amba Batra Bakshi and Indian Express principal photographer Renuka Puri join hands to bring home the life and lives of the women behind the walls of the largest complex of prisons in South Asia, Tihar.
*Also read: Prisoner without a name, cell without a number
For days and weeks, New Delhi was abuzz with rumours of the return of Sanjaya Baru (in picture). Would he go back to the Prime Minister’s Office, where he had served as media advisor? Would he be sent to the Planning Commission? Would he be in charge of programme implementation?
Well, it turns out he will be the new editor of the business daily Business Standard from January 2010 in place of T.N. Ninan, who is a minority share-holder in the paper along with his wife, the media critic Sevanti Ninan.
Baru will report to Ninan as editor of the paper and then as editorial director of the company.
Also read: Sauce for a paper ain’t sauce for a TV station?
Conflict of interest and interest in conflicts
External link: Sanjaya Baru on H.Y. Sharada Prasad
Foundation for Media Professionals
Dialogue: Undercover reporters, scam busters or abettors?
Thursday, August 20, 10.30 am to 1 pm
India International Centre, New Delhi
Partner: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung
A number of Indian media houses have set up media schools over the years, partly to give something back to the profession, partly because they think existing journalism schools do not turn out recruitment-ready products, but largely to ensure a steady inflow of journalists at a time of heightened competition when everybody is poaching.
The Times of India set up the Times School of Journalism in Delhi, closed it, and then reopened it in Bombay as the Times School of Media Studies. The Indian Express started the Asian College of Journalism in Bangalore which moved to Madras when The Hindu took over. The Malayala Manorama group opened the Manorama School of Communication. The Pioneer has the Pioneer Media School. And so on.
Into this crowded space, the northern faction of the Indian Express group has bounced into the academic space by launching the Express Institute of Media Studies.
Visit the website: www.indianexpress.com/exims
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