Friday, January 30, 2009

Awards and journalists

P. Sainath, a journalist who has led a one-man crusade against the bias of Indian media coverage towards the celebration of money, success and excess, said this some time ago.“Journalism should not be judged by government and journalists should not accept awards from governments they are covering or writing about."
I wonder if the bunch of journalists (a friend posed a question recently, what would you call a collective of journalists - I think the terms 'gaggle' and 'irritation' come to mind) who have collected Padma Vibhushan's, Padma Bhushan's and Padma Shri's would refuse them. Nope, if the Indian Express' coverage on the fraudulent award given to a Kashmiri exporter is anything to go by, not quite likely. Did I mention that Shekhar snagged a Padma Bhushan this year?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

The self-appointed upholders of journalistic values in India not just receive awards from the government, given a chance they even receive awards from Pradesh Congress Committees.

Shekhar Gupta received the Rajiv Gandhi Award in 2007. http://sify.com/cities/mumbai/fullstory.php?id=14509427

The award was given by the Maharashtra Congress Committee, a fact that was conveniently ignored when Financial Express reported the event. http://www.financialexpress.com/news/rajiv-gandhi-awards-given-away/210078/

Gayatri Jayaraman said...

oh btw.. business writer and author Adam tinworth on hie blog also admits the term 'a decline' as a collective term for journalists - a decline of journalists - but only as applicable to print media.... ironic hunh?!

Anonymous said...

K,
That NDTV link via Retributions has been removed from the NDTV site. What was it about and can u link to a google cache of it?

Anonymous said...

K,

I have posted a pdf file of the article in the same post. See update at bottom.

Anonymous said...

how does sainath justify the other awards including the ramon magsaysay

Anonymous said...

Magsaysay gets you a trip to the Philipines where the kabayan will do wonders with the balot pasok they feed you on, besides, they also eat rice.