2005-2014

Advertising in publications owned by Bennett, Coleman & Company - the parent company of the Times of India - are often indistinguishable from news and editorial content, according to an article on mid-day.com, a Web site based in Mumbai, India. The World Press Institute (WPI) confirmed that businesses can buy news articles featuring the advertiser, news photo placement and feature interviews in...

For the Dainik Jagran Group, who are publishers of the Hindi daily of the same name, it is not only print, but also television that has a significant role to play in its business plans this year. The group is looking to launch a 24-hour, free-to-air, Hindi news and current affairs channel by December 2004, and according to Siddharth Gupta, director, Dainik Jagran, the foray is a natural extension...

Sandesh is the current number two newspaper in Gujarat, and it isn't very happy with the arrangement. The Gujarat-based paper is serious about becoming the first choice among readers and advertisers in the state, and has already set its ambitious plans in motion. The topmost priority is to strengthen the product in terms of editorial quality, says Kumar Nirmalendu, senior vice-president, Sandesh...

If uplinking of Rupert Murdoch’s Star News forced the government to change its television rulebook last year, the recent controversy over reprinting of International Herald Tribune (IHT) may lead to a new set of laws for the print media. At present, the government’s focus is on "enforcement", as the current guidelines have no provision for penalising the dafaulters. So, the government is weighing...

The government has decided to take the legal route in the International Herald Tribune (IHT) case. According to a representative of the information and broadcasting ministry, the government is ready to file a caveat in the Andhra Pradesh and Delhi high courts. This move would ensure that the government view is considered in case the printer of International Herald Tribune in India, Midram...

The information and broadcasting ministry has taken the view that the printing of the International Herald Tribune in India violates the existing norms regarding the print media. It also thinks that the government has a strong case to ask the printers to stop publication of the newspaper. "This is a complete violation of the norms. Besides, the government was taken by surprise. The paper has kept...

It will be interesting, now that the presidential campaign is over, to see if the nonfiction bestseller list gets back to its usual diet of biography and history and sex. Surely the Swift Boat guys will float away and the Kitty Kelleys and the Lies and the Lying Liars will hibernate for another four years. Or will they? Maybe a taste for partisan prose and image has taken hold. The number of...

You have probably noticed by now that journalism is being phased out. Our once noble calling is increasingly difficult to distinguish from things that look like journalism but are primarily advertising, press agentry, or entertainment. The pure news audience is drifting away as old readers die and are replaced by young people hooked on popular culture and amusement. We used to think the young...

When political bloggers bay in the blogosphere, do political reporters hear them? The answer, I quickly learned, depends on four factors: how you define "political blog"; which political bloggers you mean; which political reporters you mean; and--not to go all Bill Clinton on you--what the meaning of "hear" is. Blog, for the uninitiated, is shorthand for "Web log," online journals of thought and...

Two weeks ago, I assessed the readability of the electronic editions of the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times in this "Press Box" column. If you're joining the discussion late, electronic editions differ from standard Web renditions of newspapers: Rather than throwing up individual stories from a long list of headlines, they impose the complete look and feel of a print...