2005-2014

The big difference between the general elections of 1999 and this year's elections is that this time round, a large number of news channels - especially Hindi news channels - covered the elections fairly exhaustively. While allied media such as radio, the Internet and newspapers played a part in giving a blow-by-blow account of developments at the hustings, given the fact that political drama...

New York, May 17, 2004–Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq began in March 2003, twenty-seven journalists have been killed covering the war and its aftermath. Nearly all of those killed in 2003 were foreign correspondents, from the United Kingdom, Spain, Australia, Germany, the United States, and elsewhere. In 2004, however, 12 of the 14 killed to date were Iraqis. Six Iraqi media workers have also...

While evening papers (or eveningers) are extremely popular in India's commercial capital, the concept has never quite clicked in Delhi. As per IRS 2003-04, while 7 per cent of readers in Mumbai keenly follow eveningers, in Delhi, a mere 1 per cent of readers (12+ age group) read evening papers. Of course, the percentages for Delhi are likely to have risen since the time these findings were made...

The trouble with the future is that it never arrives–or by the time it does, we fail to recognize it as such. The Internet is one such creature of the future that now fails to impress. Had you told me 15 years ago that by 2004 I could retrieve any one of 13 billion pages of free content–newspapers, all the great books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, catalogs, weather reports, political writings...

The pattern emerges, strong and sharp. Hindustan Times is vigourously appealing to the youth. And to that end, starting today, the Delhi-based publishing group has rolled out a new newspaper - Hindustan Times NEXT - targeted purely at readers in the mid-teens and early twenties (essentially, late schoolers, college students and non-working adults). "Hindustan Times NEXT would be radically...

Journalists have been making history. In big, fat volumes. It’s getting harder and harder these days to tell the difference between books of history and books of journalism. Dozens of current or former journalists – like David Halberstam, Anne Applebaum, David Maraniss, Melissa Fay Greene, Richard Kluger, Stanley Karnow, and Robert Caro – have been writing meaty books about events they may not...

In a 29 April 2004 letter to Indian Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the IFJ expressed deep concern over the death of freelance journalist Asiya Jeelani and the injuring of Khurram Parvez and Kumar Bharti. On 20 April, Asiya Jeelani, a freelance journalist, was killed in a mine explosion in India-controlled Kashmir, while working with the Coalition of Civil society to prepare a report on...

Asiya Jeelani died en route to the hospital after the van she was traveling in, which was being used by an elections monitoring team sent by a local umbrella organization, the Coalition of Civil Society, detonated an explosive device on a rural road in northern Kashmir. Jeelani was a freelance journalist who frequently contributed to local newspapers. According to local sources, she was helping...

The sheer flood of news channels on Indian television prompts one to speculate whether there is scope for any more players in the news broadcast space. Popular news anchor and broadcaster Rajat Sharma, who recently threw his hat into the ring by launching news channel India TV, thinks there is. "Though there is no space for just another news channel, there is certainly a market for a responsible...

The publishers are splashing optimistic colours on the canvas of niche magazine space. Cementing this fact is that large publishing houses and corporates alike are all eyeing this space in a big way. The launches of special interest magazines are tailored to fit the needs and desires of varied segments of the literate society. Infomedia India, the erstwhile Tata Infomedia from the Tata Group...