2005-2014

Since 1896, four generations of the Ochs-Sulzberger family have guided The New York Times through wars, recessions, strikes, and innumerable family crises. In 2003, though, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., the current proprietor, faced what seemed to be a publisher's ultimate test after a loosely supervised young reporter named Jayson Blair was found to have fabricated dozens of stories. The...

The Right to Information Act is showing results in Maharashtra. So far, 32 officers in various departments have been fined aggregating to Rs 1.43 lakh for not providing information to the public or for giving incorrect or false information. In an instance, 19 officers attached to the Thane Municipal Corporation have been fined Rs 60,500 for violating the provisions of the Act, while five officers...

The Delhi High Court on Thursday allowed an appeal by the Indian Express challenging a trial court order restoring a criminal defamation complaint filed by the Narmada Bachao Andolan leader, Medha Patkar, against the daily in 2000. Justice B.D. Ahmed dismissed the order passed by the Metropolitan Magistrate, Bimla Kumari, in April 2003, restoring the complaint after dismissing it earlier due to...

After the pioneering and successful initiative of the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) to highlight the problems of Small and Medium newspapers and publications on Monday in Delhi, INS is planning to take this initiative to other regions of the country. INS is planning to take the initiative of creating a forum to articulate issues that impact Small and Medium newspapers and publications initially...

Some of the chattering heads on television would have you believe that journalism in the USA is falling apart. It's not. Instead, it is assuming a new form. The recent reporting scandals are not a sign of new corruption as much as a sign of new transparency. First The New York Times, then USA TODAY, and now CBS have been under fire for failing to exercise close-enough supervision over errant...

Every news channel has at least one, if not more, crime show, daily or weekly slotted for its viewers. The channels claim that these shows garner good viewership numbers. But with so many of them, is there an overdose of crime? Alka Saxena, Editor, Zee News, said, "The response to these shows are amazing, crime shows get the top ratings across all channels. Data show crime shows are very popular...

For an observer from afar, there were three ways to experience the horrible 9.0-magnitude underwater earthquake and resulting tsunamis that wrought biblical destruction just after Christmas in Southeast Asia. First, you could read accounts in the newspaper or online, or you could hear them on the radio. Second, you might see still photographs from the scene. Third was the gripping amateur video...

Director General, DAVP, Swagat Ghosh denied that the Government body has been unfair to the small and medium newspapers in distributing social message advertisements. Ghosh, at an INS seminar on the small and medium newspapers, held on Monday, said that 67 per cent of DAVP ads went to small and medium newspapers last year, the rest going to the big dailies. "It’s just that the amount given to the...

The print media is alive and kicking. And the electronic and web media seems hardly a threat to the print media – this was the overall consensus at a seminar on small and medium newspapers organised by the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) on Monday. The daylong deliberations highlighted the survival concerns of small and medium-size newspapers, and experts pointed out that newsroom and production...

The earthquake and tsunamis that swept across South Asia nearly two weeks ago have killed almost 150,000 people, by the latest estimate. But with each passing day, fresh numbers of the dead and displaced continue to emerge. The television screens showed footage of water-logged coastal cities and towns along the Indian Ocean and there was talk of thousands of people, vehicles and furniture swept...