MediaVigil, Journal of Global Communications and Justice

Note: There is circumstantial and documentary evidence that suggests that Jawahar Lal Nehru was either taking instructions from UK based politicians or was reporting to them. Nehru paid his first and the last visit to China in October 1954 after its 1949 revolution. He was there from October 15- 19, 1954, when he was in China after a stopover in Vietnam. Nehru had a long meeting with Mao Tse-tung. Nehru wrote a top-secret note on his visit to China on November 11, 1954. Nehru had sent a copy of his top-secret note to Winston Churchill, the UK Prime Minister which was declassified at the expiry of 30 years and is available in Britain’s Public Records Office. In India, it was published first in Nehru’s Letters to Chief Ministers first and then in the Selected Works in the 1990s.    Gopal Krishna      Interesting disclosure Neville Maxwell who outed the Henderson Brooks report has another disclosure in The Times of India . A "couple of years ago I ...

Note: Indeed Open magazine has no business to apologise on behalf of Vinod Mehta and Hartosh Singh Bal without either speaking to them or taking consent from Manu Joseph, the then editor of Open . Was the magazine forced to apologise? Media Vigil    Mehta and Bal on Open magazine's "regret" Following the item carried on the Hoot – “ Vindication? ” -- about Open magazine's “regret”  regarding an interview it carried in 2012, Vinod Mehta and Hartosh Bal have asked that we carry this letter they have written to the editor of  Open .   April 1, 2014 S. Prasannarajan Editor Open Magazine New Delhi Dear Sir, This is with regards to the ‘clarification’ published in the last issue of Open Magazine expressing regret at the hurt caused to The Indian Express by an interview of Vinod Mehta that referred to a report in The Indian Express on Army troop  movements towards Delhi.  We the undersigned Vinod Mehta, e...

March 18, 2014, The Kremlin, Moscow  Federation Council members, State Duma deputies, good afternoon.  Representatives of the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol are here among us, citizens of Russia, residents of Crimea and Sevastopol! Dear friends, we have gathered here today in connection with an issue that is of vital, historic significance to all of us. A referendum was held in Crimea on March 16 in full compliance with democratic procedures and international norms. More than 82 percent of the electorate took part in the vote. Over 96 percent of them spoke out in favor of reuniting with Russia. These numbers speak for themselves. To understand the reason behind such a choice it is enough to know the history of Crimea and what Russia and Crimea have always meant for each other. Everything in Crimea speaks of our shared history and pride. This is the location of ancient Khersones, where Prince Vladimir was baptized. His spiritual feat of adopting Orthodoxy predetermined t...

An Appeal to Indian Journalist Fraternity by a Group of Media persons, released in Chandigarh, 16 March, 2014 In a terse comment, Aam Aadami Party leader Arvind Kejriwal said that a part of the media, particularly some TV channels “sold itself to Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) and is indulging in running a propaganda spree in favor of BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi”. As has happened earlier in many cases relating to deprived and unprivileged sections of the Indian society, that section of media took an undue offence to the comment that was completely out of proportion, and it launched a virulent campaign against AAP. This section of media is peeved at Arvind Kerjriwal’s remarks that if his party came to power, a punitive action would be taken against those media outlets which have been biased in their news coverage and suppressed the anti Modi news stories projecting his false claim to an ‘unparalleled development of Gujarat’. During his field tour t...

The report of that 2 member subcommittee of the Press Trust of India, authored by Paranjoy Guha-Thakurta and Srinivas Reddy: The ‘Medianet’ and ‘Private Treaties’ phenomena In pursuing its quest for profits, it can be argued that certain media organizations have sacrificed good journalistic practices and ethical norms. Individual transgressions — reporters and correspondents being offered cash and other incentives, namely paid-for junkets at home or abroad in return for favourable reports on a company or an individual – were, until recently, considered more of an aberration than a norm. News that was published in such a manner was suspect because of the fawning manner in which events/persons were described while the reports gave an impression of being objective and fair. The byline of the journalist was stated upfront. Over the years such individual transgressions became institutionalised. In the 1980s, Bennett, Coleman Company Limited (BCCL), publishers of the T...

The report of the sub-committee appointed by the Press Council of India, following widespread allegations of paid news after the 2009 general elections: The fifteenth general elections to the Lok Sabha took place in April-May 2009 and in order to ensure free and fair coverage by the media, the Press Council of India issued guidelines applicable to both government authorities and the press. After the elections , a disturbing trend was highlighted by sections of the media, that is, payment of money by candidates to representatives of media companies for favourable coverage or the phenomenon popularly known as “paid news”. The deception or fraud that such “paid news” entails takes place at three levels. The reader of the publication or the viewer of the television programme is deceived into believing that what is essentially an advertisement is in fact, independently produced news content. By not officially declaring the expenditure incurred on planting “paid news” items...

On July 15, 2009, Shri S. Ramann, Officer on Special Duty, Integrated Surveillance Department of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) wrote to the Chairman, Press Council of India, Justice G.N. Ray observing that many media companies were entering into agreements called “private treaties” with companies whose equity shares are listed on stock exchanges or companies that were coming out with a public offer of their shares.  The media companies were picking up stakes in such companies and in return, were proving coverage through advertisements, news reports and editorials. The SEBI, which has been set up under the Securities and Exchange Board of India Act, 1992, and is mandated to protect the interests of investors, felt that such promotional and brand building strategies in exchange for shares, “may give rise to conflict of interest and may, therefore, result in dilution of the independence of (the) press vis-à-vis the nature and content of the news...