PTI reporter has a kiss with death at Delhi HC

A Press Trust of India (PTI) reporter had a narrow escape when the deadly bomb went off outside gate number 5 of Delhi high court today, shortly after he had picked up his entry pass.

The news agency’s legal reporter Upmanyu Trivedi had collected his pass from the reception counter and was moving towards the court building when he heard a deafening sound at 10.14 am.

He looked back and was shocked to find death and devastation on the steps he had just crossed. A PTI story says Trivedi quickly recovered his wits to call the office and break the news of the blast.

“It was a strange kind of emotions. Happy to have survived and broken the news but deeply disturbed to see the gory blast site with scores of people lying in a pool of blood, right in front of the reception counter from where I had got my entry pass seconds ago,” Trivedi said later.

Reporters have on the Supreme Court beat have recently had a run-in with authorities over accreditation following the notification of new rules.

Read the PTI screed: PTI scribe escapes blast by a whisker

Also read: ToI food writer Sabina Sehgal Saikia dies in 26/11 attack

Reports of scribe’s death are grossly exaggerated

Three words that cheered up Reuters journo, Sourav Mishra

Newspapers used to bribe voters in Tamil Nadu

The second tranche of American diplomatic cables published by The Hindu today in collaboration with Wikileaks, throws light on how newspapers—yes—have become a delivery vehicle for politicians and parties to deliver cash to voters at the time of elections.

The paper quotes from a cable sent by Frederick J. Kaplan, acting principal officer of the US consulate-general in Madras, to the State department, after meeting M. Puttarajan, an aide of Union chemicals and fertilisers minister M.K. Azhagiri, son of the Tamil Nadu chief M. Karunanidhi:

“In an instructive and entertaining section titled ‘Can I get another morning paper?’ Kaplan explained the modus operandi for cash distribution adopted by the DMK in Thirumangalam: “Rather than using the traditional practice of handing cash to voters in the middle of the night, in Thirumangalam, the DMK distributed money to every person on the voting roll in envelopes inserted in their morning newspapers.

“In addition to the money, the envelopes contained the DMK ‘voting slip’ which instructed the recipient for whom they should vote.” This, Kaplan noted, “forced everyone to receive the bribe.” Patturajan , he wrote, “confirmed the newspaper distribution method of handing out money, but questioned its efficiency. He [Patturajan] pointed out that giving bribes every voter wasted money on committed anti-DMK voters, but conceded that it was an effective way to ensure the cash reached every potential persuadable voter”.

The Kaplan cable reports that Patturajan expected difficulties in replicating the Thirumangalam model in the 2009 parliamentary election because the Lok Sabha constituency was seven times the size of the Assembly seat.

According to the cable:

“Azhagiri has been forced to ratchet the payment back down to more typical levels, but he still plans on giving it to every voter through the newspaper distribution method.”

Little wonder every politician and political party wants to start a newspaper?

Cartoon: courtesy Keshav/ The Hindu

Also read: How The Hindu got hold of the Wikileaks India cables

How the US hunted down Reuters’ staffers

Why a ‘serious’ Reuters journo reads a tabloid

Although India’s print media market is booming, be it in English or the languages, the truth is that it is still the broadsheets that get bowels moving in the morning.

Despite the best efforts of managers, there is a palpable resistance to smaller sized newspapers, regardless of whether they want to call it a tabloid, Berliner or a compact.

The Daily is dead, Mid-Day is struggling, and Mumbai Mirror still rides piggyback on The Times of India in Bombay while Bangalore Mirror comes free with ToI in Bangalore.

Although the brand-wallahs are in thrall of the 5F formula (food, fun, film, fashion, forecast, fornication), most discerning readers, especially journalists, turn their noses at them.

Only Mail Today and Mint seem to have gained some editorial acceptance but at huge cost.

Robert MacMillan, a journalist who works for Reuters in Bangalore, says most people, who hear that he reads the Bangalore Mirror that comes free with The Times of India in that City, exclaim: “But it’s a tabloid!”

In other words, size instinctively colours perception of news sense, although the broadsheets may be guilty of the same crime as “redtops”, which is to dumb down to the lowest common denominator.

It need not necessarily be the case, writes MacMillan, who hails from Jersey City:

“In the case of the Bangalore Mirror, I find plenty to chew over in the morning. The headlines are a little New York Post/ New York Daily News, but there’s a reason people read those papers. More importantly, they’re jumpy and flashy because they often herald good journalism — the kind of stuff that people want to read. No doubt, they likely contribute to the tired “India! Ancient yet vibrant and modern!” PR campaign that has entranced my U.S. media colleagues.”

Link via K.K.

Read the full blog: Don’t hate mate because I read Bangalore Mirror

The light goes out of Selvan Shiv Kumar. RIP.

sans serif records with a heavy heart the passing away of photojournalist Selvan Shiv Kumar in Bangalore today. He was in his early 40s and had been ailing for some time. He is survived by his wife and son.

Shiv Kumar had worked in The Times of India, Deccan Herald, Hindustan Times and DNA in Bangalore, Delhi and Bhopal, covering the hunt for Veerappan and the manhunt of Rajiv Gandhi‘s killers among other assignments.

In July 1997, Shiv became the first Indian photojournalist to be selected for the Reuters Foundation Willy Vicoy fellowship for the fall term at the University of Missouri, USA. As photo editor of the newly launched Bangalore edition of DNA in 2008, Shiva was responsible for a five-days-a-week picture page.

He was photo editor of Bangalore Mirror at the time of his demise.

Last active on his Twitter account in May, one of his tweets reads:

“Photojournalism has lost its sheen of spontaneous pictures to the present day of posing and the subject looking into the camera.”

Read his profile: Light Stalkers

Visit his blog: http://shivselvan.blogspot.com

View some of his pictures: Flickr

How US forces hunted down Reuters staffers

In July 2007, two employees of the Reuters news agency were among several killed in Iraq when US military forces opened fire on them. Saeed Chmagh, 40, a driver with the agency with a wife and four children, and Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, a war photographer, were among those killed.

The US military claimed the victims died in battle between US forces and insurgents, and that the conduct of the pilots and guncrew was “in accordance with laws of armed conflict and rules of engagement”. Reuters filed for the video of the attack to be made public under the US’s Freedom of Information Act.

The full video, shot from the primary helicopters, is now up on wikileaks and it is blood-curdling for the casualness with which civilians are hunted down. James Fallows of The Atlantic magazine calls the video the “most damaging documentation of abuse since Abu-Ghraib”.

“As you watch, imagine the reaction in the US if the people on the ground had been Americans and the people on the machine guns had been Iraqi, Russian, Chinese, or any other nationality.”

From 2003-2009, a total of 139 journalists have been killed in Iraq in the line of duty.

Visit the site: www.collateralmurder.com

Eric Steward reveals Plan B to save newspapers

Reuters news agency throws kindly light on the kind of folk likely to respond to the prayers of newspaper publishers, managers, editors and journalists:

81-year-old Australian man goes out to buy a newspaper.

Takes a wrong turn onto a major highway.

Drives 400 miles in 9 hours.

Buys newspaper.

Read the full story: Lost man drives nine hours to get paper

When a music magazine takes on Goldman Sachs

It is probably applicable to other spheres of journalism as well, but it is surely no exaggeration to state that business journalism has completely lost the ability to tell it like it is.

Unless, it is some small, worthless, unimportant target.

Reporters, writers and editors, fearful of losing “access”, are held hostage by PR, freebies, and worse. Publishers and proprietors, trying to squeeze every dollar, are indebted to advertising. Etc.

Result: readers, viewers, listeners, surfers are served up numbers and theories held up by hope.

Little wonder it took a comedian (Jon Stewart) to buttonhole a “mad” CNBC anchor (Jim Cramer).

Little wonder it has taken a music magazine to throw light on the “great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”

Take a bow, Matt Taibbi (in picture).

The Rolling Stone columnist, who has been compared to Hunter S. Thompson, sticks a long, sharp knife into the investment bank in the latest issue of the magazine, calling it a “planet-eating Death Star of political influence”, accusing it of engineering every major market manipulation since the Great Depression of 1929.

The internet bubble, the housing bubble, the oil-price bubble, and the coming “carbon-credit” bubble (hello, Jairam Ramesh) are all the handiwork of Goldman Sachs, writes Taibbi, accusing the company of an incestuous old boy network to shut out competitors, prevent regulation, and stay out of trouble in perpetuity.

“They achieve this using the same playbook over and over again. The formula is relatively simple: Goldman positions itself in the middle of a speculative bubble, selling investments they know are crap. Then they hoover up vast sums from the middle and lower floors of society with the aid of a crippled and corrupt state that allows it to rewrite the rules in exchange for the relative pennies the bank throws at political patronage. Finally, when it all goes bust, leaving millions of ordinary citizens broke and starving, they begin the entire process over again, riding in to rescue us all by lending us back our own money at interest, selling themselves as men above greed, just a bunch of really smart guys keeping the wheels greased.”

Goldman Sachs responded to Taibbi’s article through Reuters blogger Felix Salmon, calling the Rolling Stone piece “hysterical”; “a compilation of every conspiracy theory ever dreamed up about Goldman Sachs”.

“We reject the assertion that we are inflators of bubbles and profiteers in busts, and we are painfully conscious of the importance of being a force for good,” Lucan Van Praag, Goldman Sachs’ top flack, writes.

Matt Taibbi responds in kind, answering every spineless reporter/editor’s feeble excuse about “giving the other side a chance”, about being “balanced” and “objective”.

“My feeling is that companies like Goldman Sachs have a virtual monopoly on mainstream-news public relations; for every one reporter like me, or like far more knowledgeable critics like Tyler Durden, there are a thousand hacks out there willing to pimp Goldman’s viewpoint on things in the front pages and ledes of the major news organizations. And there are probably another thousand poor working stiffs who are nudged into pushing the Goldman party line by their editors and superiors….

“Goldman has its alumni pushing its views from the pulpit of the U.S. Treasury, the NYSE, the World Bank, and numerous other important posts; it also has former players fronting major TV shows. They have the ear of the president if they want it. Given all of this, I personally think it’s absurd to talk about the need for “balance” in every single magazine and news article. I understand that some people feel differently, but that’s my take on things.”

There have been even wild accusations of “anti-Semitism” in Taibbi’s piece (he is Arab-American) against “the most prototypically Jewish firm around.”

Taibbi has also been accused of picking on Goldman Sachs when there were plenty of other bandicoots with their hands in the loot, like, say, Morgan Stanley.

“Why didn’t we write about Morgan? Because we didn’t. Because it’s your turn, you assholes. Maybe later someone will tell the story of the other banks, but for now, while most ordinary people are only just learning about the workings of the financial innovation era that blew up in their faces last year, the top dog in that universe is going to be first in line to get the special treatment.”

Read the Rolling Stone article: The great American bubble machine

Read Matt Taibbi’s blog: Taibblog

Read an interview with Matt Taibbi

Visit Goldman Sachs’ unofficial blog

When magazine editor marries starlet, it’s news

Journalists marrying movie stars and celebrities is not unheard-of but is not routine.

The editor of San Francisco Chronicle Phil Bronstein did a stint as Mr Sharon Stone, and various Hollywood flicks (think Roman Holiday) have also immortalised celluloid romances between hacks and bold-faced name.

But generally the scrappy job and miserable pay, not to speak of curmudgeonly faces, have rendered journalists unmarketable on the romance/ marriage market.

“Not tonight, darling, I have a deadline.”

Take a bow, Che Kurien.

The editor of the Indian edition of the men’s magazine GQ is rumoured to have tied the knot with the starlet Antara Mali. Antara, the daughter of the film photographer Jagadish Mali, was the muse of the Bollywood movie maker Ram Gopal Varma.

Kurien was earlier with Reuters, Time Out and the Indian Express.

Photographs: courtesy photobucket (top); Campaign India

Three words that cheered up Reuters journo

Sourav Mishra, the Reuters journalist who was reported dead in the shootout at Leopold Cafe in Bombay on November 26, has survived to tell the tale:

“I heard what seemed like a blast and something hit me hard on my back. I panicked and ran out through the nearest door. Out on the road, I touched the wound and found it was bleeding profusely. I could hardly move my right hand.

“I shouted for help but no one paid any heed. Tried to move ahead but couldn’t and fell down. As I lay there, I felt someone grab hold of me and help me to my feet.

“The Good Samaritan hurried me towards a nearby cinema where we clambered into a taxi and rushed to the hospital. I could still hear the gunfire in the street and my companion told me there was some sort of gang war going on.

“The doctors at the hospital were reluctant to admit me but the stranger beside me begged them to take me in. As I removed my shirt and pressed against the wound, a copper-coated bullet fell out. The woman treating me smiled and uttered the three words I’d been waiting to hear : ‘You will survive’.”

Photograph: courtesy Facebook

Read the full article:  ‘Dead’ journalist recalls 26/11 nightmare

Reports of scribe’s death are greatly exaggerated

All’s well that ends for a news agency reporter.

From The Telegraph, Calcutta:

“Sourav Mishra, a Reuters reporter injured in the Bombay attack, was declared dead on the Maharashtra government website.

“My sister who had called my number was not ready to accept that I was Sourav Mishra… I had to scream to bring her back to sense,” the 29-year-old said from his hospital bed.”