Notes on the India Today - Daily Mail paper

I thought I would do a post on how the Indian media has created this 'moral police' monster, something that it has promoted and in the case of Star News has come to bite it hard on the ass. Talking about Star, Uday Shankar has certainly gone a long way from heading TV Today, however, I do have this unnerving feeling that G-Ban might suddenly become the lead actor in a Star serial, isn't that a scary thought.
Anyway, that post would take a lot of time and brain power, and time I certainly don't have and the brain is still processing the 500 emails that PR agencies filled my inbox with in the past six days. I don't know how long it will be before I get a Press Release celebrating International Jerk-Off day, because some releases come deathly close.
Anyway, as the first comment on my last post said, Bharat Bhushan, formerly of HT and The Telegraph, an unabashed jholawallah is taking over as Editor of the yet to named paper. I found this a particularly surprising decision, because between them, both partners on the deal are swing heavily to the right, and given the fact that certain people at IT are obsessive compulsive about the final product, I don't know how independent a time BB will have. I mean honestly, given though in HT people had to carry news items when "Madhavrao sneezed" as a former senior editor there put it, SB did give her editors a fair amount of leeway. It also remains to be seen if BB will bring along his team of dinosaurs to the new paper, and how much India Today's editorial team will and scupper the paper.
Plus, on the Gautam Adhikari front - it is reliably known, from all sorts of sources that Gautam is joining either ToI or HT. People at ToI are convinced he is joining HT and vice-versa, and the topic continues to bemuse several people. Why, I have no clue though. But that said, Sudhir continues with his hunt for a replacement for the man, and even though he got the editor's office 'purified' - no I have no clue if cow urine was used - several senior editors have turned down Sudhir, politely, because as one editor put it, "Sudhir ain't no Samir Jain. In fact, he ain't no Vineet Jain either."
Anyway, there are also reports that after the fire at HT was doused, the simmering discontent over there continues. Anyway, this was a quick gossip round-up, but given that I try and stick to large umbrella topics - like concerning how aviation journalists try and wrangle free flights and what not - I wish the listed carriers would put these flights in one of the appendices of their annual reports, that would be fun. Anyway, I have to rush for an evening dinner, so more later!