How to change Indian News: Let us establish a public fund for scoops, stings...
No online news outlet does better
checkbook journalism than Gawker. Gizmodo paid around $5000 for the iPhone story (13 million views). Gawker paid a similar amount for the Christine O’Donnell story (1.2 million views), and almost $20,000 for a scoop on Brett Favre pics (4.6 million views).
How about we create a public fund to support sting journalism in India? How about going after the habitually corrupt? And after every 10 public service journalistic stings, we bring one Bollywood celebrity down. After all, as Gawker has successfully proven, nothing beats pageviews.
Labels: checkbook journalism, gawker
Arundhati Roy: Indian News TV has been captured by a small clique of columnists, editors and TV anchors, an incestuous little coterie
Booker-winner Arundhati Roy, the writer whom the middle class urban Indian loves to hate for her contrarian 'truthisms', points out what's wrong with Indian news television in an interview with The Times of India Crest (paid) edition:
Q: Does the Indian media offer sufficient space for dissenting voices?
A: Much of the mainstream media has been captured by a small clique of columnists, editors and TV anchors, an incestuous little coterie with shows on each others’ channels and interviews in each others’ newspapers. Even the guests on the TV shows are the same old people.
Day in and day out, they chatter away, saying things that comfort each other even when they appear to be shouting at one another. It’s amusing and grim at the same time. Sometimes, it’s like watching an interminable cocktail party. But all is not lost. There are good editors, good journalists, people who are very comfortable with what’s going on.”
Labels: india
