Is Decline of the Fourth-Estate Here and Happening?

VRV:

It's futile to blame slyder; chowk wants to maintain a certain flavour to this website and slyder, along with many others, provides that flavour. It is not his fault if he excels in that genre or that he is on the opposite side.

Dostji,

Lemme make a confession. I too like ali's provocative style, esp on UP.

Mahesh,

This is not new. Living in the US we had to disconnect all the indian news channels from our dish network seeing the quality of the reporting. It is gross tabloid journalism. The sacking of MJ Akbar, who in my opinion is one of the best figures in the news media is not surprising. It confirms the trend. Dost had written an article on the pakistani news media being better than ours and he's right on his money.

Sadna,
Lemme add to sonia aunty and her chamcha's list of praiseworthy deeds. Remember Rajasthan anti-conversion bill and how the then governor of Raj. Smt. pratibha Patil refused to sign it. And now she's the president in place of Abdul Kalam. You can put 2+2 together.

This is the state of affairs of our country. One 12th class pass foreign woman runs the indian show with jokers replacing excellence be it in media or governance. But the best part is that these things are not even touched in media as Mahesh correctly points out. Instead we are made to feel proud that we have a woman president before even US.

Adios

I think, what is meted out to M J Akbar is perfect. In his recent book, he had revealed how "Islam" has added value to his ancestors, and his focus was mostly concentrated on moslems and anti-india activities. How can a Govt./secular institution will tolerate such a person? If you see Indo-US civilian neuclear deal from the angle of muslim anger( Iraq, Palestine, Iran, Afghanisthan... so many places on earth, but India. This fellow does not bother to use Internet and other US technology to publish his views), then you are better placed to represent Jamat..., SIMI,some mosque etc. The journalism has changed to worse side. I really miss The Statesman. In , India there are 1000s of issues, which needs to be looked into. Excessive highlighting of moslem poverty and misery (I was quite surprised how this valueable Islam was not able to guide the moslems to better placed in a society, where upward mobility is very much possible for everybody). Congress has several times assured that Indo-US neuclear deal is not against any community. With it, we will be provide flurry of technologies, which we have failed to create. He is kind of Joker( or Jakir) Naik. There is no place for such person in Govt./public institutions.

#36:

". I really miss The Statesman."

That makes two of us.

Re: # 35
President of India is mostly a decorative post. Pratibha tai is no inferior than A P J Abdul Kalam. Some, neuclear test (with the technology provided by USSR), does not prove anything. He was part of DRDO and the technical failure of DRDO is quite well known.

I am dead against Sonia Gandhi. She has dubious record and Congress people tries to project her in different way, but she has brough couple of nice changes in congress party.

Re: # 27
Man Steve Jobs of Apple ( the founder) was fired from Apple. He had used that opportunity to form NeXT Computer.
I have read couple of Swami Vivekananda writings. After Chicago Religious parliament (in 1893), he had toured Europe and North America. He was amazed by the people's attitude in those continents. The positive energy and "wrok hard, part hard" attitude (the path documented in Vedantas).

Something or the other some major incident on the opposite of this is eclipsed, surely.

The Indian Missile supposed to reach Beijing, disintegrated at only 12 Km; the event which should have brought the Scientists to their knees was skillfully covered by Prince, a farmer boy, who slipped into a 'deliberately' made small manhole barely 7 feet deep and the event was covered like a ceremony; when the emotions from the 'BOMB 2 BEIJING' resigned as media was counting and measuring , prince remained in that Gutter, rather kept there for that many days and captivated every stupid watching eye.
Smart Media and Stupid Sheep public.

36 nkg,

I dont agree with u fully but the advertisements for Deccan Chronicle (under MJA) ran something like this:

An arab man (Iraqi, I think) with a keffiyah and the caption is - MY IDENTITY, MY NEWSPAPER (i.e. Deccan Chronicle).


What a laughable advt? Wasnt he advertising for Muslim readership though 90% of his readers are not Muslims? In anycase the newspaper has nothing 2 do with the religions in the first place.

How a kala chamda Hydi Muslim has anything to do with an arab Iraqi and using such irrelevant motifs for advertisement of a newspaper (supposed to be a normal newspaper)?

These newspapers also carried out headline photographs and newsitems that are used by the 24*7 anti-Indian guys on Chowk. MJA, obviously prmomoted a bunch of 'we ruled these niggers' type Muslims in his newspapers. Farzana Versey is one such namoona.

Same goes for SNM Abdi who contributes to foreign newspapers from Calcutta (I think). He always writes - never he contributes normal news/analysis - abt a woman marrying a donkey or that kinda stuff.

He always write....

Re: # 41
I know that, for any human, it is extreamly immoral to critisize (harmful) a person, from whom you have received favour. If you have any suggestion, please inform him/her. This moslem was provided parliamentory ticket from Congress from Bihar (Kishangunj). Courtsey Mr. Rajiv gandhi (he never bothered about party. The Last Emperor). So, he should (by normal human standard) keep quite as per as Sonia Gandhi is concerned. He is not sparing her also regadring some issues which pertains to moslems (Sonia Gandhi has not taken contract to speak on belalf of moslems alone.).
To Mr. Mahesh Prabhu,
Sir, if you are really good and touch people's heart, you will definitely win.

Re: # 40
The Indian Missile supposed to reach Beijing, disintegrated at only 12 Km; the event which should have brought the Scientists to their knees was skillfully covered by Prince, a farmer boy, who slipped into a 'deliberately' made small manhole barely 7 feet deep and the event was covered like a ceremony;

Ans: People are not bothered about Missile nowadays. These Prithvi,Agni etc... are far bellow the standard of USA/Russian products. In a globalised world, when you are exposed to best of the products (like Camera, Watch, automobile), why will you bother about a missile, which is far inferior than EU,Russia,US counterpart?

Re: # 41
MJA is fully avaibale in Bangladesh, Pakisthan and Middle East (Khaleej Times...) news groups. His topic will be similar to most of the moslem writers - Moslem oppression in Iraq, India, Israel, UK, France etc...
(How peaceful Hamas/Hezbollah actvists are tortured by Israel. How police/army tortures peaceful Kashmiris and their Pakistani friends. How moslems are discriminated in UK, France etc...)

Re: # 37 DM
[...". I really miss The Statesman." That makes two of us...]

I don't... anything that came out of calcutta has been equivalent of loud intellectual farting, big in sound and fury but stank to high heavens, that's putting it mildly...

I mean - all those years heavy "intellectualism" and "substance" - what exactly did it give us?... poverty of all kinds in general, poverty of imagination in particular... all the heavy-minded "analysis" of everything under the sun never led to better governance, administration, policies... Not even common sense - these "intellectuals" couldn't even gather common sense... forget about any deeper or long term thinking or planning...

I am sorry to be so harsh - but Good riddance with these fools and their fellow-travellers...

I would rather see air-head bimbo from bollywood on the front page, rather than these dour-faced geriatric air-head from Janpath or wherever these losers live... these bumbling fools who have no idea, shouldn't even be appointed to be dog-catchers in a decent country....

Media may have gone overly commercial - but I also see more human-interest stories in the front page, more coverage of business, on leaders in commerce and otherwise... Not the grinning photos prime minister that we always used to see in good old days of "heavy analysis" - full with all sorts trivia about movements and rantings of the politicians...

India is in serious need of makeovers in various ways... May be the media is a start... Hopefully the over-commercialism will be balanced out down the road... but we don't need no more bull from "intellectuals" like MJ Akbar, Kuldip Nayar and their kind...