Why Barkha Dutt or Vir Sanghvi aren't important
1. Because they don't do important things: One is actually a glorified reality-TV host (Re:'We the people' - more explanation in the note below) and the other writes breezy, cheery articles on good food and luxury living ('Counterpoint' is pure fluff in comparison), something most Indians, including this writer, just cannot afford.
2. Because none of them is a serious journalist: Endangering soldiers in name of war reporting or having 24-hour-access-card to the inner sanctum of crony-democracy-meets-capitalism does not cut it [aka Access Journalism] , as far as I am concerned. P. Sainath, they just are not.
3. Because they are not the voice of real India: Both work for elitist brands. NDTV English and Hindustan Times, both cater to the Urban Indian Elites.
'Hunt down the elites': And, if anyone in our young nation becomes too important in his/her deluded estimation, it is our national duty to hunt them down.
Note: Some have asked me how 'We the people' is a Reality Show. Truth is it is hard for me to accept TV shows of the kind as a news show. Multiplayer Talk show is a better name for them, don't you think? Moreover, most TV news anchors are not journalists. They just read off the teleprompter. Cruel, but is true.
Labels: controversey, india
Which is the most trusted media outlet in India?
I trust my news sources to go and bring all the information they can find for me on a topic. I do not trust my news sources to be balanced. I trust my news sources to be honest with me. I do not trust my news sources to be truthful, however they might claim. Trust in news media is an oxymoron. You do the truth-finding yourself. You do not outsource it to some self-appointed gate-keeper.
Having said, the image above is an early snapshot of an Ongoing poll on "
India's most trusted media outlets". As expected Indian Express and Hindu have the most votes. NDTV is taking a beating.
Note: I am sorry for the tiny text size in the image. The list of items in the poll was large and it was tough to get a readable screenshot. Click on the image and zoom for the names.
Labels: media ethics, poll
Why much of what investment bankers do is socially worthless
"
Banking is important, banks are not". Translated for the field of education, this prescient dictum would say "
Education is important. Schools are not." It doesn't surprise me that both banks and schools are ripe for revolution. This must-read New Yorker article correctly describes
banking as a utility:
Most people on Wall Street, not surprisingly, believe that they earn their keep, but at least one influential financier vehemently disagrees: Paul Woolley, a seventy-one-year-old Englishman who has set up an institute at the London School of Economics called the Woolley Centre for the Study of Capital Market Dysfunctionality. "Why on earth should finance be the biggest and most highly paid industry when it's just a utility, like sewage or gas?" Woolley said to me when I met with him in London. "It is like a cancer that is growing to infinite size, until it takes over the entire body."
Labels: education, finance, trends
How to Make Money on the Internet: The Mind-map Edition
Doogie Horner does a nice
mind-map edition of "how to make money on the internet". The thing I liked about this mind map is that Amit puts a small block of editorial paragraph at start of the map, thus putting this graphic ahead of most others graphics in the genre.
Errata: Earlier, by mistake, I had written that Amit Agarwal had done the above map. Error regretted.
Labels: infographics, making-money-online, mind-map
