VINOD MEHTA
Vinod Mehta is India’s Last Great Editor.As puppy publishers, egged on by tobacco peddlers, softdrinks salesmen, and milkpowder accountants with calculators, strip Indian journalism of its relevance and conscience with a vengeance, the editor-in-chief of Outlook holds a mirror to what could have been.
And as puppet editors sway with the wind and sidle up to the powers-that-be for Rajya Sabha seats, ambassadorships, advisory posts, and the other loaves of office that politicians dangle before salivating journalists, Mehta’s fierce independence is an object lesson of what should be.
Former editor of the men’s magazine Debonair; founder-editor of India’s original weekly newspaper, The Sunday Observer; and editor of The Independent and The Pioneer dailies, Mehta is a master brewer who, over 30 years, has perfected the art of making the important interesting, and shown that good journalism needn’t be bad business.
Alive and articulate, quirky and contrarian, and never boring, Mehta can also write. In this 12-minute churumuri video, the 63-year-old editor talks on the critical reading journalists and journalism students should do; and on how they should approach the craft of writing.
31 May 2007 at 4:32 pm
not at all audible
12 June 2007 at 3:05 pm
It sure is audible…
23 June 2007 at 2:49 pm
That’s a load of rubbish from a man who peddles Congress more subtly than Chandan Mitra peddles the BJP.
25 June 2007 at 4:16 am
He is one of the very best of journalists that one can get in India. Has done an yeoman service to both the journalists and the readers alike. He’s the super hero amongst the lot.
15 September 2007 at 12:15 am
I have followed Mr Mehta in the course of his journey from one magazine or newspaper to another because he has his own way of bringing interest and freshness to his magazine. Though he is a very good writer, he is much better editor, perhaps the best in the field. But for such an outstanding editor, his political perceptions surprisingly border on naivette and I have hardly ever found myself in agreement with him.
19 May 2008 at 12:26 pm
One of the greatest editors Indian has ever seen. A great quality I have seen in him is his receptive nature in accommodating criticisms of all hues including personal, which you can’t find in any other Indian publications.
4 June 2008 at 12:55 pm
It is astonishing when people say Vinod Mehta is one of India`s greatest journalist.Without doubt he is one of India`s most biased. I dont know if any of you here have read his article “EYES EARS AND MINDS CLOSED”. That was one of the most outrageous articles that could ever be written by a free thinking journalist.I dont understand how he got the guts to call the Indian
Middle class self centered.I think he has forgotten that in a few decades the Indian middle class will dominate Indian politics, will contribute to a majority of our Income tax revenue and will contribute to the whole country`s prosperity as a whole.
Please read that article first and then give your comments….
21 June 2009 at 1:14 am
For a magazine like “Outlook” and an editor like Mr Mehta, “balance” should surely be a crucial metric.On this metric, Mr Mehta has been doing rather badly – particularly post May 16. See my more pointed response:
http://eone.vox.com/library/post/june-14-mr-vinod-mehta-i-am-disappointed.html
The sudden fall in the Left’s tally seems to have caught him off guard. The fact that he cannot bring himself to objectively examine reasons for their fall – as he gleefully does for the BJP – is sad and unbecoming. In fact, h esomehow wants to credit them for “saving” India from the economic crisis!
27 June 2009 at 2:06 pm
This sorry piece of work has served the Gandhi family for more than a decade and has little to show for it; even lowly journalists have managed to get Padma awards. You should watch the way he squirms and fumbles when challenged on TV (most channels profess the views of his political party so that is a rare event). His claim to fame : on being pilloried by readers of his magazine through letters and comments for being a mouthpiece of Congress, he decided to give evidence of fair news reporting by citing an article that had a few negative comments about the Congress government in Tripura(yes)!