Readers Inc: Media

Showing posts with label Media. Show all posts

Friday, February 4, 2011

Expose

One word which suitably describes the book is brave! It is bold, courageous and out and out. It is well documented and honest. The president of CBS News, Andrew Heyward told Goldberg says, “of course there’s a liberal bias in the news. All the networks tilt left. We all know it- the whole damn world knows it- but that doesn’t mean that we have to put it on air!” Well Goldberg did.

He could have said all the things he said in the Wall Street Journal and a lot more, without using his name, but he had the guts to attach his name to what he believed.

Alan Keyes discusses media bias with Bernard Goldberg

The reaction at CBS was predictable: Goldberg, who had worked his way up to the top of CBS news, winning several Emmys, was almost fired, given no assignments for several months, and then marginalized to bouncing from one forgotten news magazine to another for four years, until he retired in 2000.

However, outside the media world, and even with a few quiet voices of support inside the media, Goldberg gained a national voice - all for saying what everyone else could see and yet what the media continues to deny.

The book is quirky and is heaped with sarcasm and is hence an interesting read. Goldberg has written his mind without as such sparing anybody, breaking ranks and naming names.

Liberal Media Bias - Bernard Goldberg on O'Reilly Factor

However, the book blatantly attacks not just the liberal bias but certain former colleagues of Goldberg’s as well. At times the criticism comes across to be greater than required, almost as if the book is a platform to get back at them. However the book is an invaluable aid and helps in carefully contemplating the implications of what we see in the media. We can use the knowledge gained in this process to challenge the media themselves.

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Sanhita Sinha Chowdhury

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

The Weaker Voice

In Waves in the Hinterland, Naqvi talks about the barriers that Dalit women – uneducated, poor, schedule caste, female – broke through to be journalists. It would have been very easy for these women to just accept that they were dealt bad cards in life. But they chose to gamble (and win) using those cards. The issues of being a woman – the sexual innuendoes constantly thrown, the derogatory once-overs and the condescending attitudes are ubiquitous. But if these women, who are far more disadvantaged than I, can do it, I have no excuses.

Naqvi’s chronicling of Mahila Dakiya (MD)’s story serves as a lesson in elementary journalism. Very simply she addresses the problems that MD faced in its lifetime and emphasizes many basic premises – “the written word is permanent”, conversion of oral narratives into the written form without compromising on meaning or essence, writing simply, interviewing skills, the difference between a writer and a journalist, “ethics and perils of journalism” and language versus not so much dialect but colloquial speech. Even more practical are the Nirantar Workshop Reports that detail exactly how they dealt with these issues.

With the stories of MD and KL, Naqvi manages to allay my cynicism to a certain extent with respect to the journalism industry. The journalism seen in MD & Khabar Lehriya (KL) is true, honest journalism which Naqvi quotes, “is not guided by commercial interests … But the paper, like all the others before and since… has an agenda: To empower the women … to give them a voice, to strengthen their fragile literacy skills, and give them power to construct their own wor(l)ds”. She makes you believe that even in an age of commercialisation, true journalism can still make waves – in the hinterland or the urban jungle.

http://www.flipkart.com/waves-hinterland-farah-navqi-story-book-8189884565

Monday, January 31, 2011

Femina’s Leading Lady

Vimla Patil’s motivation for penning her memoirs My Times is to tell “the story of the impact of such a journal [Femina] and … [paint] the portrait of an organisation which made such a journal possible. I don’t feel that she manages to do either in entirety.

Patil’s book seems to be divided into two; the good and the bad. In the first few chapters successes seem to be around every corner. She appears to have Midas’s touch. Femina does well consistently, with almost no pitfalls. And so does the Miss India venture. Any problems or hindrances that might have been there are usually skimmed over or overcome. This makes her memoirs appear not entirely genuine, like a part of the story is being withheld. I feel her achievements would have had a greater impact on the reader if equal importance had been given to shortcomings and successes.

Furthermore, her intention was to tell the story of the impact of Femina. This she does only in one chapter when she talks about eminent doctors demystifying women’s health issues in the journal. In many of the other chapters she details what how women’s status changed in three decades but does not clearly outline Femina’s contribution to the cause.

The last half a dozen chapters all focus almost entirely on the negative. She writes about Samir Jain and his abhorrent management policies, and has dedicated an entire chapter to Pritish Nandy’s inadequacies. She did have to deal with Nandy quite a bit but not so much with Jain. Thus most of her criticisms concerning Samir Jain are just hearsay and not based on first hand knowledge.

As the editor of one of India’s longest running women centric journals, I expected much more from Patil’s memoirs. But unfortunately, My Times fails to deliver an impact the way it was intentioned.

prevent-shopping-cart-theft-loss-200X200 http://www.a1books.co.in/my-times-memoirs/itemdetail/8174761489/

Jerusha Chande

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Behind the Scenes

The first thing that one tends to notice about the book is the honesty with which it has been written. Simonelli and Frumkes do not shy away from acknowledging their short comings, doubts and mistakes. The book doesn’t unnecessarily glorify them. From the very beginning, Simonelli, recovering from surgery, is ensnared by Frumkes, his partner, into agreeing to direct The Sweet Life. He openly accepts that at the beginning he underestimated the project and even admits that he lacked knowledge of direction. Laid out in a logical, methodical manner, the book takes the reader through the way, step by step, the movie takes shape. It includes dozens of legal forms, checklists, sample budgets, and other ready-to-use tools and describes the daily challenges faced while producing an “indie” shoot on a budget. Since it’s a book about serious film making, a normal reader might find certain chapters a little boring and may not always be able to connect with the script. However being witty, the book will not bore a movie fan with some amount of interest in the back-story or behind the scenes of a movie. For an aspiring film maker on the other hand, the book is the closest they can be to getting an insider’s perspective of producing an “indie”. The book also acts as an eye opener for all. It breaks the stereotypical notion of film making being all about artistic self realisation, but also introduces the difficulties faced and the business acumen and inner growth demanded. However, at certain points, the book comes across as whiny and too detailed about the difficulties faced, most of which can be easily overcome by some amount of planning, thick skin and an optimistic attitude. But then again, this simply helps to reaffirm a number of things that you simply should not do when making a low-budget movie.