The 21-day lockdown imposed by the Narendra Modi government on March 25 to combat the #Coronavirus pandemic had an immediate impact on an already beleaguered print media which suddenly found advertising and circulation revenues plummet. Now, the 15-day extension of that 21-day lockdown, which was to end on April 15, has seen India’s most successful…
The relationship between politicians and journalists is usually an after-dark activity in India, with neither participant ready or willing to put the other’s involvement on the record. Wise heads in politics will counsel newcomers against getting too close to journalists, because, well, you never know when the snake could discover its fangs. Grey beards in…
The elevator implosion of Tarun J. Tejpal and the plight of Tehelka as a result have been discussed ad nauseam after the first emails were leaked on 20 November. But the commentary, outrage and sympathy have come from the usual set of bold-face colleagues, rivals, friends, socialites, feminists and lawyers, among others. But how is…
Three weeks ago, V. Gangadhar (in picture), the well-known Bombay satirist who created the character Trishanku, wrote a diary in Outlook* magazine, in which he lamented his inability to meet K.B. Ganapathy, the erudite editor of India’s most successful English evening newspaper, Star of Mysore, on a visit to the southern city. Gangadhar wrote: I…
Stories of newspapers running blank editorials and news columns during the censorship era of the Emergency in the mid-1970s are legion. But in this day and age, when space is calculated in square centimetres? Star of Mysore, the 35-year-old evening newspaper from Mysore, ran this front-page on March 3 to protest the murderous assault on…
sans serif records with regret the passing away of M.R. SHIVANNA, an unsung hero of Indian journalism, in Mysore on Saturday. He was 55, and is survived by his wife and daughter. For 30 years and more, Shivanna slogged away in remarkable obscurity and was one of the pillars on which stands India’s most successful…
The passing away of journalists and editors barely gets a mention in Indian media outlets these days, not even in their former or current places of work, under the rather specious and cynical belief that journalists and editors should report the news, not make it. It’s even worse, in the case of faceless non-journalists, like…
As the Indian media gets larger and more corporatised, the voice of the small newspaper editor (and owner) is slowly but surely getting snuffed out. It’s almost as if the trials and tribulations of the editors (and owners) of big papers, magazines and TV stations are the only ones that matter. Star of Mysore, published…
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