Friday, September 30, 2005

Tagged, and the story of the PM's letter

...what to say when I first saw it, but as one friend nicely pointed out, "Yet...
That was the fifth line from the 23rd post (that I made on this blog, skipping Snake's posts) - which was back on April 5th. Now this was me bitching about the then latest Pepsi ad - 'Be my Lover, Bubbly' - talking bellybuttons and all - copied as I later discovered shamelessly from a Michel Gondry advery for Levi's. The less said about the latest Pepsi advert (which was planned as a web viral) where SRK is a sapera, the better. There have been 230-odd posts since then, which is rather crazy. Anyway this was all about Rums tagging me - which involved me counting past posts - man, I should go to the archives section more often you get to see some rather wild comments. Anyway, since the name of the game is having to tag five people - let me tag the few regular readers of my blog. Which would be - Bonatellis, Rahul, Swati, Shivangi and Shivam. These are the rules.
1. delve into your blog archive.
2. find your 23rd post (or closest to).
3. find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
5. tag five people to do the same.
Heck, because half the people who come here don't leave comments I don't know who they are.
Anyway, on to more important things - I got a lot of feedback for my last post where I discussed the incestutous nature of the desi media where everybody screws everybody - just look at NDTV which is like a communal sex farm - a la Hippie farm commune from the 60's. Don't ask why I know such useless bits of information.
Now, lets proceed onto more important matters - like how the PMO's Media advisor tried to be too clever by half and got screwed in the process. This gentleman a former editor of pink paper planetde stories in the papers about how worried the PMO was getting all hyper about the stockmarkets. To cut a long story short, the PM then castigated all the pink papers and CNBC for carrying such stories and the Media advisor sent out a letter to all the papers saying 'very bad!' essentially. The problem is while the inconsequential pink papers said, 'sorry sir!', the the only pink paper that matters wrote back and told this gentleman to shove it up where the sun don't shine. Which put the man in a quandry - after all he had played a role in planting the stories. Though that said, the pinkest paper never carried the story involved.
Since the person involved is such a pompous dickweed, like most media advisors to the PM generally are, I don't have much sympathy for the man. However, the PMO is right when saying that the pinkest paper also played a role in the market comedown - Terrible Thursday they call it. Even though the information printed in that paper and its sister publication were true, the spin put onto that was highly suspect - playing with a doctored ball one could argue. Anyway, I always suspect the pinkest papers credibility because they did say that the PM would quit two months ago, didn't they? Anyway, the markets are see-sawing now and have reached a altogether higher plane and really no matter what you write or say - it is unlikely that the will go below the 8000 mark in the foreseeable future.
Chalo, I have a ton of work to do.
EDIT : The second-last item on this gossip post on Rediff has me a bit befuddled. I know that God is on his way out and he might do a straight swap with the suave newspaper editor who was mentioned - because that suave newspaper editor already does shows for the group in question and has failed somewhat in Bombay. However, there are reports also that a certain editor of a business publication (also within the group) might also be in the running as god-replacement. God only knows.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

intriguing ... I really need to know this logic as to why SB would go around planting those stories!!!
Do help ... i need all the theories available on this!!!

I am finding the Rediff thingy about editors slightly befuddling, given my limited intelligence ;-)

Anonymous said...

Since my intelligence is limited too, can you tell me which is 'the the only pink paper that matters' and the 'pinkest pink' paper?

Anonymous said...

I have an even more basic question
are the above mentioned newspapers
The Economic Times
The Business Standard
The Financial Express
??

The pinkest of pink (salmon pink if you will) I guess; would be The Economic Times.

But why is financial materials on pink paper; an obscure mission to demystify ? Or just that sometimes even printed material are not in the proverbial black-and-white realm, so better paint them pink rather than gloomy gray.

Anonymous said...

K, thanks for the tag, and I responded to it just now (in a very long-winded way).

I'm so dismayed to hear that SB is a pompous dickweed. Years ago, I had invited him to come and speak at a seminar forum in our department on the Human Development Report (he was the only Indian journalist who covered it regularly). I thought he spoke very well, with a lot of common sense. And he was a very gracious man too. Appearances, appearances!!

Anonymous said...

Just read the Rediff link. Ok, how much of an Indian media gossip junkie am I, that I got both the "god" and the "suave" reference. By the way, what really surprised me is that the owner-editor is gradually withdrawing from day-to-day affairs. I mean, this is the man who wouldn't let a comma be inserted in the magazine without his approval!

K said...

Ah but you see there is the flower-bud now who will run the show. Owner-Editor will continue to be OE, but flower-bud will now run interference. God knows when OE's dikra will take over.

Anonymous said...

OE has a dikra? And how in control is flower-bud (I mean how interfering is flower-bud's husband?). K, how do you compare their situation to that of another dikri who calls the shots at a workplace that you were intimately familiar with. Is she really incharge or is her "Indian" husband the real master there?

K said...

The second place - I really don't know. OE's son is quite a nice guy, I don't know what the term would be for him - maybe 'loafer'. Flower-bud's husband, what can I say about him, after all we did get drunk at a function at Jaipur (after OE and Flower-bud had left) while ogling at women - he is a really nice guy. I actually feel sorry for him. And the thought of Flower-bud and him spawning is - ugh! Poor guy! Flower-bud on the other hand will prolly end up driving the group into oblivion - there are lessons here for me to learn.

Anonymous said...

amazing stuff indeed.. never knew this existed in the news world too :-)
thanks for opening my eyes.

Gaurav said...
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