Newspapers are alive and kicking -- in Delhi

So you thought newspapers are sinking? Not in Delhi--look what I clicked at the news-stand this morning...and none of them is Delhi's main paper. Amazing language range as well!

The Me Video: Musings on business journalism

In my long journalistic career, I usually have been on the side asking questions, not on the one giving (or pretending to give) answers. But there are exceptions in these strange times.
I was interviewed -- sort of -- last week, by a most interesting blog called Murali Listening.
I was on a visit to Chennai, and ended up as a guest in the office D. Murali, who is Deputy Editor at The Hindu Business Line. Murali, I am told, has one guest a day, to whom he shoots gentle but probing questions and records the responses on his Nokia N73. Believe me, over a period of time he has built quite a collection of stuff under "Food For Thought", and the blog runs like a TV channel.
I was fodder for his cannonball run, and fielded questions on business journalism.
I should have smiled more, but then, these are difficult times and those were difficult questions.
Here is the video link.

And then, I must add that Murali's blog is another proof on how theme-based blogs can blaze a new trail in the media.

When Bangalore was bombed, Twitterers turned reporters

I thought I had seen it before.
But I was not sure.
Where have I seen this before, I wondered.
Oh, it reminded me of my days in Reuters, when the editorial system saw cluttered reports from correspondents and stringers piling into a box, similar in topic but diverse in style and datelines.
Only, this time, the loop was not closed and secure.
When bombs went off in Bangalore last Friday, the savvier techies were turning to a social media "friendfeed" to make sense.
This is what I read on Ashish Sinha's pluggd.in

"People:

"There are ~8 bomb blasts reported so far. Since telco networks are jammed, please use this twitter id to share your status (so that your near and dear ones can know your well being).Or else, use spy to track the bangalore news across social media.

Word of advice: if you are in your office, stay there. Please do not add to the traffic jam/chaos by leaving for home right now!"


What is "spy"?
It turns out that this link is what he was talking of
http://spy.appspot.com/find/bangalore/
Click on that, and you are officially evesdropping on stuff related to Bangalore.
On that eventful day, this was like a reporter's dream come true.
Of course, like in all cases, reporters can face hoax calls, crank messages and sundry useless stuff coming their way. And this was no exception.
But it was educative to see how "citizen journalism" had at least come somewhere near reasonable tip-offs for mainstream reporters.
A lot of the messages that day were get-well-soon type twitters or inane kill-those-terrorists rants..but some of it made a lot of sense, as eyewitnesses and alert citizens fed information from the ground -- for ANYONE who cared, ANYWHERE on the planet.
This is what newsrooms must be alert to in the Digital Age.

When corruption thrives, so does satire

Stumbled on this funny take-off talking about allegations of bribery in the vote of confidence in the parliament.
Just a little while later, it was bizarre to see members of parliament waving wads of currency notes on live television. I am waiting to see equally bizarre SMS polls on the mushrooming news channels.
Meanwhile, I decided to do a spot of do-it-yourself cartooning on the Net. A fantasy come true..and a tool just right for the moment.

Editor & Publisher mag to offer electronic edition

I remember my days 20 years ago, when I used to visit the American Center library and thumb through a magazine that stood for a vibrant newspaper industry in North America. It is now available in an electronic "same-as-print" edition, thanks to a partnership with Hyderabad-based Pressmart. Pressmart is an amazing company which is putting some of the world's leading newspapers into online editions that look the same.
Here are some details from the media statement:

E&P Publisher Chas McKeown said "the Pressmart state-of-the-art solution will provide our readership access to Editor & Publisher on multiple digital distribution channels including eEditions; Podcasts; Mobile devices and eArchives."


Editor & Publisher is the authoritative journal covering all aspects of the North American newspaper industry, including business, newsroom, advertising, circulation, marketing, technology, online and syndicates.

Based in New York City, the magazine dates back to 1884, when The Journalist, a weekly, was founded. E&P was launched in 1901 and merged with The Journalist in 1907. E&P later acquired Newspaperdom, a trade journal for the newspaper industry that started in 1892. In 1927, E&P merged with another trade paper, The Fourth Estate. In January 2004, E&P switched from weekly to monthly publication, while revamping its Web site to offer more breaking news and content on a daily basis.

E&P Online (www.editorandpublisher.com) offers breaking news free to all visitors in our Top Stories section. Each week, selected proprietary stories from E&P staff are made available free to all visitors, but the majority of our analysis, industry news, features, columns, and trends are restricted to E&P subscribers.

The Logic of the Four Screens

The "Silver Screen," television, PC and now mobile handsets --media convergence is increasingly about converging these four and optimising their mix. I am not even talking about print here. My friend Ajay Jain makes an interesting analysis of the four-screen play in his site here

The dilemma of business journalism -- or how the US media messed up on corporate woes

A perceptive article in Newsweek talks of how the US media failed to predict corporate troubles lays threadbare the intricacies of business reportage -- which the writer remarks suffers from the same syndrome as sports journalism. You celebrate what you need to examine, and forget looking deep into something because you need to cultivate the sources or hang out with them.