Weeks End

Short, quick post. I had an interesting morning meeting today with an independent MP who dabbles a bit in the media. The money quote, "A channel can break even, they can spend a lot of money for eyeballs, but it takes a special kind of genius to lose 200 crores quarter after quarter and still stay in business." Of course, this was interspersed in between comments about the media's lack of credibility, but that was like a preacher talking to the choir.
But I will write a post tomorrow about more interesting things, but this weekend I really do plan to watch Liefenstahl's Triumph of the Wills, one of the most revolutionary movies of all time but also a masterpiece of propaganda. Then again, the Congress does not need to pay for propaganda here.

Passion

Honestly, there are times that I wish I can piss people off to the extent that they write angry yet erudite mails explaining their anger to me. Usually all I get are some silly comments (and some nice ones too) but while my articles have generated a lot of anger in some readers, usually people in PR, I've never seen such a passionate letter. And a bloody good one too!
And there is a very interesting report out by ICICI Securities on the state of teh Indian Media, including the televised news media. Which will not make for good reading for the folks at ET Now. I can't post it because of copyright issues, but try and get your hands on it.

Remembrance Day

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, World war 1, 'The Great War' came to an end. Every year since, most former British and Britain itself colonies which lost their young men on the battlefields of Europe, and subsequently in battlefields across the world in World War 2 have always marked this day as 'Remembrance Day'. I say 'most' former British colonies because there is one former colony that in a perverse display on supposed anti-imperialism, which is the way I can possibly excuse it does not give this day the honour it deserves. That colony was the erstwhile 'Jewel in the Crown', a former colony that is yet to live up to its potential 62 years after it stopped being ruled from Westminister. That colony is India.
Four years ago, a very close friend who happens to be a prominent anchor on TV and a war-buff dragged me to the graveyards at Monte Cassino. This monastery town a hundred clicks or so south of Rome was the site of one of the most ferocious battles of the Italian campaign as the resolute Nazi and Facist defenders of Rome. Hundreds of young Indian men died. On a field in Italy. In 1943. Fighting for a foreign King. The names are unmistakably South Asian on the memorials. I went to Monte Casino unwillingly, I returned chastened and respectful.
The sad thing is that while we do remember the dead of World War 1 in one of the nicest war memorials anywhere in the world - India Gate - many people and children forget this fact. That on the Somme and Gallipoli, 93 years ago (1916 was the first battle of the Somme, Gallipoli was 1915 if I remember correctly) thousands of Indians died. But we forget even the dead of our recent wars - Kargil for example. And some wars we choose to forget ever existed - 1962. Weirdly enough the Chinese do have a point, we as a collective have wiped out that war from our collective memory and only when China rumbles about Arunachal Pradesh do some remember.
I am no fan of war, yes like many other people I am fascinated by the technology of military-industrial complex, because much of this tech, such as the internet itself, will have some civilian application someday. I am just disgusted at the ability of our forgetfulness. There might be a billion of us today, but we should always remember the millions who died so that we could be here. I am not being a right-wing lackey, I am not being a nationalist, I am just being a respectful citizen and child of India.
And keep in mind, while your civics and history textbooks would like you to think that it was Mahatma Gandhi's non-violence movement that won us freedom, do not forget the impact of either the devastated British economy or the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny - a mutiny which showed the British that they had lost control of the only thing that had made the empire possible - The Indian military. That, and not 1942, was the final nail in the Empire's coffin.
Remember those who died for you and salute them.

PS: I am not saying that we should also observe 11th November as 'Remembrance Day', but any day - 16th December perhaps, the day the 1971 war ended. If we mark the birth and death anniversaries of our political leaders who led us astray, why can't we mark one day for the millions who fought for us? Of course, the TV channels today will be talking about the impending deluge in Mumbai, or why Sheila Dixit felt it fit to let a cold-blooded murderer out on parole. That said, why was Manu Sharma out of parole? And Manu, we are not biased. You ARE a murderer, you murdered a girl because you wanted a drink or wanted to get laid. You almost got away with it, and we didn't let you. So rot in jail.

Uncle M pulls a fast one

You have to love Uncle M. Just because he could not convince Google to fork over more bribe money like they did with MySpace, he wants his newspapers to stop being indexed on Google. Now, I don’t quite buy into Google’s ‘Don’t Be Evil’ philosophy. Any organization where people can have the food that Google offers along with unlimited Red Bull has to be doing something evil. I mean, I’m convinced Uncle M is fearful of them as The Emperor was of Luke, only this is a double-headed Luke. OK, this is going nowhere is it?
The problem is that Uncle M is treated as a God by several media moguls in India, even though he cannot understand why FDI isn’t allowed in newspapers. The future of the net and how content will be distributed online is an area where Indian media groups are hopelessly behind the West and they don’t have a frikkin’ clue either. The argument is not a easy one, there is a serious issue of ‘content stealing’ that happens in India. Citizen Journalism, other than the occasional lucky video is nothing more than wild opinions masquerading as journalism, or is that Times NOW? Most ‘Citizen Journalism’ is nothing more than second or third hand reporting. Anyone who followed Twitter during the events of last November in Mumbai would know that.
Listen I am not defending traditional journalism, I still maintain that most journalists in India are either dumb or lazy, sometimes a horrible mix of the two. I can’t honestly say that I do not fit into either category, even though chances are another editor will make a third category for people like me – ‘fat’. Back to the point, there have been far too few discussions on how the internet will change journalism in India. Do I know? Nope, I have no clue, but I can pretty much assure you that journalism will be drastically different even by the time my father retires (if he does), let alone ten years time.
I don’t know if I want to poll blog readers for opinions, because I’m afraid much of it as usual will be vitriol directed towards me. And I will give people more and more reason to hate me even more soon enough. Alongside my image of a seriously mentally disturbed potential psycho-killer, I am quite hatable! As for being a 'jealous hater', yes, I do not like certain people, but 'jealousy' is an attribute that I don't think I have unless it concerns women.
And for the record, why on earth would I want to suck up to (an evidently suit-hating) Suku? And the first comment on the last post mentioned, I genuinely enjoy where I currently work because I get to do things I love doing, I possibly have more fun on the job than any peer of mine. Sure, I’ve never worked for the money, but I can run a blog like this. Why would I want a strait-jacketed job which I would want to leave at the first opportunity I got to leave. I believe the secret to good journalism is a happy journalist. You might or might not agree with me, but I don’t give a flying eff!

Exodus

Will someone please explain what the heck is going on in The Economic Times? For those of you not aware, in the past two weeks there has been an exodus of sorts from the country’s largest business newspaper. And the exodus is limited to overpaid editors but some of the papers best reporters, who would rather commit what some of us consider career suicide rather than continue in ET. I can see the grin on Sukumar’s face!
By career suicide, I mean FE – I know some of the guys joining FE are loyalists of the new FE Editor MK Venu, but honestly that paper only exists for the tender adverts, it is not bad or anything but ask yourself (if you are not in PR or in the Indian Express group) when was the last time you read FE for a sustained period of time. I just about manage to glance through it in office. That said, I wish the new team in FE all the best towards achieving the ‘high profile’ that Shekhar Gupta wants, but Mint won the ‘profile’ wars long ago. That said, I just wonder how many people are ‘parking’ themselves to break the ridiculous and anti-employee ‘no-poaching’ pact between BCCl and HTMedia.
Some of the seeds of chaos were sown by the concept of an integrated newsroom but differential pay structures for print and TV. My reporter friends in ET have expressed their displeasure with this over and over and they were just waiting for an uptick in hiring to jump ship. But I laughed this away, a couple of people of people here and there, the scale of this desertion is mind-boggling. But then again, I have to admit a couple of Editors I have worked with saw this coming, along with the plunging ratings – which isn’t surprising when they send a vapid but pretty face to interview the CEO of a company that Robert Noyce founded.
Admittedly the business news space is more robust than general news, but the attendant chaos is limited to the second floor of 7, BSZ Marg and not the third floor. Puzzling, or maybe because ToI staffers aren’t jealous of Times NOW staffers as ET staffers seem to be of ET NOW staffers. Maybe people in ToI just take a look at Arnab’s zeal for war with China and/or Pakistan and thank their lucky stars!
Oh yes, and an apology for not writing over the past few days, I’ve acquired a new Editor and he has been flogging this slightly thinner reporter. And I’ve been enjoying myself quite a bit at work.

On another note.

I just love this line.

At their heart, most pseudonymous identities are collaborations between the author, who provides the outline of a persona, and the audience, which fills in the blanks. The result is a sort of virtual superhero, an oracle more accurate than any mortal could hope to be. Compared to the elusive mastermind of the collective imagination, the real author inevitably disappoints.

From this month’s Wired.

Back to regular programming now. Which over here usually means clearing up masses of spam comments placed by guys who run Search Engine Optimisation firms. Other than that what news? Well, some Undies have been left out to dry as Undie is getting rid of Imagine – which should actually be known as the Sameer Nair family show (with Rakhi Sawant on the side). With Turner exiting Real, effectively the second flop channel after Peter and Indrani Mukerjea’s INX whatever, they’ve decided to get into used Undies. Not that I watch much of what are termed as General Entertainment Channels, though I must admit I did see a bit of Rakhi’s show and I will watch bits and pieces of ‘Who wants to be beaten up by an abusive husband?’ where Rahul Mahajan fritters away whatever little is left of his father’s legacy.
But good for him, everybody has the right to make money. And abuse substances. Even Andre Agassi. Listen the guy did drugs at a low-ebb of his life and I don’t know why the entire contrite moral brigade – hypocrites that they are – are condemning him. I actually found myself agreeing with Rick Reilly’s assessment of Agassi on his blog and I will buy the book. I liked Andre Agassi as a kid, his was a player with heart and not like a robot – both the one Agassi played against and the other one today. The robots are good but dull. And Agassi is the one that married Steffi Graf!
In other news, well it seems that the media’s horrible tradition of personal life destruction continues. And we stick with the same network, I’m not surprised at marriages breaking up and the fascination for older people, but the cast involved sometimes baffles me. To take a guess, there is a reason why some people call the evening prime time talking-head shows on NDTV (other than the 9PM news itself) the ‘boyfriend’ shows. I won’t be a hypocrite and pass comments on the lack of stability in people’s lives, but the sooner that both media bosses and HR inside the companies realize that, particularly their ace reporters/anchors, in both print and television do not have healthy and/or steady personal lives, that is a problem. This is worse than alcohol, well and in many cases it is pretty much responsible for alcohol abuse.
People can call journalists names, accuse us of biases and you know what, we all have biases. I try my utmost to not let my opinion of something affect something I’m working on, but any journalist, even the dumbest ones would be lying if they said that their biases did not impact them. The fact that some of us have been brought up the way we have comes through in the way we write or present. The fact remains that this is a job, and if you are good at what you do, and this is the sad part, you are usually asked to do more than you can handle simply because you are good.
The fact is that most journalists in most organizations would be what club football calls squad players, average for lack of a better word. If you are ‘an International’, and sorry for the football analogies here, you life is destined to be a horrible one. Yes, you will enjoy great professional success, meeting some really important people and your phone-book will bulge, or in some cases your mobile is so full of numbers that it pretty much stops functioning properly. It is a great feeling believe me, but man that completely screws up your sense of priorities and in many cases your life, because above all else it gives you a tremendously inflated opinion of yourself and sometimes you just can’t see clearly of who does matter. This is not about cracking a sale or becoming a General Manager, you really have access to power.
I should know, believe me. Thankfully, most of those closest to me in this profession, other than one notorious hold-out have managed to piece together their lives. Somewhat. But, honestly unless some action is taken, and taken soon things will only get worse. And the action should start from an organisation that needs it more than any other. The one in a disused cinema hall.

So who would you rather win tonight? The soul cricketers from T&T or the cricket machines from NSW. I’m not biased against the Aussies, I think their ruthless efficiency and Simon Katich’s captaincy has to be learnt from. New South Wales is the winningest domestic team of all time and has always been the heart of Australian cricket. But I really do want Trinidad and Tobago to win. This has possibly been at the same time, the most interesting and most pointless cricket tournament of all time. Then again, it also proved that the IPL is a bit a blunderbuss tournament, and the sight of Lalit Modi waving the Trinidadian flag was quite a bizarre one.
Enough cricket, and for that matter enough sport for now. Some people would gleefully be looking at yesterday’s election results and feeling rather pleased with themselves. Other than ordinary Maharashtrians (and Bhupinder Hooda) I’m sure. The Maharashtrian voter might have rejected the Shiv Sena, but the fact remains that one of the most inept state governments in India outside the Communist ruled states has been re-elected.
Unlike Bengali’s who had a clear death-wish for their state (and still do, by backing the Whacky Mammy!), Maharashtrians I guess had to choose between the Devil and Deep Blue Sea, pardon the cliché. Some voters struck Faustian deals and gave Raj Thackeray quite a few seats, but I sincerely hope that one of India’s great states finally gets good government with good policies. And not suffer five more years of suicides and power-blackouts and what not. I’m not saying that the SS-BJP combine should have come to power in Maharashtra, they had no clear policies in place and did not deserve power. But, Maharashtrians just had to look at the other end of NH-6 to see what years of constant power does! Change if it must happen, has to start now and not a few months before the election and to give credit to Raj Thackeray, he did (aided by the Hindi channels in particular – who demonized him to the extent that he became the victim) build an organization.
OK, another weekend has come about and I’ve had a rather fruitful week I must admit. I’m feeling hungry right now, so I am leaving with a little-wittle link to a rather interesting blog. I have no idea who runs it, too much detail for a journalist, I think it is a money man of some sort. But extremely interesting nonetheless. Do read it.
Or you could read this. Only if you want. Don’t blame me, I warned you.
Have a great weekend.

And today...

The funny thing was the sniggering I heard from some journalists when they heard about America’s ‘Balloon Boy’ story. How could, they claim, the American media be taken up by something so patently untrue and then harp on it for hours on end? Evidently they don’t either watch or read what passes for news in this country, though that said, India TV and IBN 7 do take some beating for their alien abduction stuff. Thankfully, we were not subjected to too much ‘Balloon Boy’ in India but the hype did ensure that our channels forgot the fact that there is a low-intensity civil war going on in parts of the country. Then again, between the Americans, us and the British, you wonder who is plumbing the depths of trenches the deepest.
This is a country where a large percentage of the population scrapes by at under a dollar a day, but the gossip pages see fit to show pictures of Delhi’s money-swirling card parties – ‘Ohhh! look at my black money’. OK, I won't be too much of a hipocrite, I also played some cards but I lost money. For the cause of entertainment. So there! Before angry commentors pour scorn on my stupidity/hipocrisy/ass-licking whatever. generally, for me personally this was a arather subdued Diwali as my brother wasn't around, being in a phoren-land. And after my adventures with an old girlfriend, whom we shall call Gin and Tonic on Friday, I really couldn't drink that much the rest of the weekend without feeling sick. Or possibly that was from eating the expired foods that get packed up into Diwali gift-packs. Or breathing the fumes from poisonous Chinese firecrackers.
The only thing that was good this weekend was the Trinidad and Tobago T20 team. Man, they rock!

Happy Diwali

Yes, the festival has become crass, at least in the richer parts of Delhi - a celebration of money and sulphur dioxide, even though I have to admit I do like to blow up a few (just a few) crackers every year, but, say what you will, it one of those things that just so Indian. Like poverty and rampant police brutality. OK, enough of the depressing tone, but if you do make some money while gambling this Diwali, or even if you don't please do give some money or some time to those less fortunate. I've not become a softy, and nor will I advocate social causes like some a businessman who is building the world's most extravagant mansion. I'm just saying Happy Diwali. Enjoy it and keep the inhalers close by!

Down, down, down...

Well, circulation figures are down and unlike the constantly changing readership numbers, circulation numbers are slightly better audited. But 'slightly better' means what it does, these numbers do not include 'free' copies, but newspaper companies have for a long time managed to pass off free copies as paid copies, usually by discounting them to the extent that they became free. Things like the papers distributed at the airport - something that has ended, at least in Delhi thanks to a combination of high newsprint prices and GMR-DIAL's greed.
That said, the first point is possibly the biggest reason for the large drop in circulation for most papers - notice teh sudden absence of schemes like free shoes or what not along with papers. So the drop in circulation must also have led to a decline in the sale of cheap Reebok shoes - must check on that one. And in a weird sort of way, a decline in circulation is a good thing for everyone - prices of raddi paper completely diverged from each other as more and more newspapers flooded the market. The loss of pages also meant fewer crap stories got printed, not that crap stories have stopped in any which way but they're fewer of them. The downside is that the ads that promise clean male-to-male massages have become more prominent - sometimes I wonder if HT and ToI will survive without those ads? eriously, even the sex sites don't have such brazen adverts. Talk about 'family' newspapers.
Anyway, back to the point, even though things are picking up and there are signs of people movement all over again, I think the high-water mark was reached last year and subsequent floods will never be the same.