Research

The website of Infosys Technologies has been ranked the most Press-friendly in India. The ranking was done at the end of a study which identified gaps in Indian corporate websites that do not allow for a productive interaction between companies and journalists. The Newsability of Indian Corporate Websites, released by Newswatch on Thursday, ranked 100 websites of Indian companies based on the...

The Indian media by and large ignored the indigenous tribals living in the Niyamgiri Hills of Orissa while according lopsided, voluminous coverage to Vedanta during recent developments over the corporate giant’s controversial mining and refinery projects in the eastern state, an independent study has found. Indian newspapers made passing or no mention of the Dongria Kondh tribals whose very...

In late February last year, we carried out an informal survey of freelance journalists in India. The questionnaire itself was ad hoc, but the trends that emerged were clear—most freelance journalists in this country are perceived to be the stepchildren of the Indian news media. Though some indications are there, we want to come up with concrete numbers. Hence, this—the first ever research study...

Shortly after it dawned on all and sundry that what was initially thought of as only a gang war, was in fact a concerted attack by terrorists on the night of November 26, 2008, all eyes of the nation, and the world, were trained on Mumbai. The coverage of the attacks was to become a watershed in India’s television history. But hardly had the first night wore on, signs of criticism of the coverage...

Every time the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) announces its Red List of Threatened Species, the event is awaited with bated breath by wildlife conservationists worldwide. So it was even this year, given the fact that the situation seems to worsen with every passing year. The current species extinction rate, according to IUCN, is estimated to be anything between 1,000 and...

After two months of silence, the nun who was raped and paraded naked by a frenetic mob of Hindu rightwingers in Kandhamal in Orissa, chose to speak about her horrifying experience at a press conference in New Delhi on October 24, 2008. She narrated her ordeal, and issued a signed statement. Many news outlets reported the heart-wrenching tale. But there were others who threw elementary media ethics...

The last few years have seen a number of high-profile cases in Indian courts wherein the rich and mighty have been held guilty and sentenced to prison. The news media, in many cases, has been accused of conducting its own shadow trials. The news media coverage these court cases have derived has been phenomenal. This year saw Delhi courts passing verdicts in the Shivani Bhatnagar murder and BMW hit...

Early October came the news that ethnic clashes had broken out in Assam. The two groups in question were the indigenous Bodos and Bangladeshi migrants. Sectarian violence in Northeast does not always make it to the front page of newspapers. But this one did — coming as it was in the backdrop of the attacks on Christians by Hindu rightwing elements in Karnataka and Orissa, and a palpable sense of...

On September 22, 2008, the chief executive officer of a firm in the industrial town of Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh was killed by some sacked workers. Gory incidents like these, usually, bring out contentious issues that form the backdrop — provided those are contextually highlighted by the news media. Newswatch decided to look at the news media coverage that the incident generated. The study...

In early 2005, wildlife officials in the Sariska Tiger Reserve discovered that poachers had wiped out the entire tiger population in the protected area. Once the lid was blown off, the tiger remained in the media limelight. Through the constitution of the Tiger Task Force to the launching of its controversial report on the status of tigers in the country, the big cat kept making headlines. Sariska...