The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands.”
Most people—those who read papers or watch TV news or scroll news portals, and those who think they are wiser by doing nothing of the kind—would agree. That today’s media are pandering to the base instincts of the public, dishing out what the masses ask for, and are being led by TRP ratings or circulation figures. That serious journalism is dead.
When did serious journalism die? Over that, there is no consensus. It was alive when some of the critics were in school, when some others were in college, when they were working, or before they retired. A few would say, it was alive during the freedom movement, till the end of the Nehru years, during and against the Emergency, post-Emergency, in the 1980s, when all the news was on DD, till the TV boom, before the corporates bought up papers and TV stations, before the internet age and so on.
The fact is, every generation has been saying this ever since news began to be printed on paper and sold to the public—that the media used to be good earlier, and that they are bad now. How else did Oscar Wilde write the line quoted above in an essay 130 years ago?
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der October 31, 2021-Ausgabe von THE WEEK.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der October 31, 2021-Ausgabe von THE WEEK.
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William Dalrymple goes further back
Indian readers have long known William Dalrymple as the chronicler nonpareil of India in the early years of the British raj. His latest book, The Golden Road, is a striking departure, since it takes him to a period from about the third century BC to the 12th-13th centuries CE.
The bleat from the street
What with all the apps delivering straight to one’s doorstep, the supermarkets, the food halls and even the occasional (super-expensive) pop-up thela (cart) offering the woke from field-to-fork option, the good old veggie-market/mandi has fallen off my regular beat.
Courage and conviction
Justice A.M. Ahmadi's biography by his granddaughter brings out behind-the-scenes tension in the Supreme Court as it dealt with the Babri Masjid demolition case
EPIC ENTERPRISE
Gowri Ramnarayan's translation of Ponniyin Selvan brings a fresh perspective to her grandfather's magnum opus
Upgrade your jeans
If you don’t live in the top four-five northern states of India, winter means little else than a pair of jeans. I live in Mumbai, where only mad people wear jeans throughout the year. High temperatures and extreme levels of humidity ensure we go to work in mulmul salwars, cotton pants, or, if you are lucky like me, wear shorts every day.
Garden by the sea
When Kozhikode beach became a fertile ground for ideas with Manorama Hortus
RECRUITERS SPEAK
Industry requirements and selection criteria of management graduates
MORAL COMPASS
The need to infuse ethics into India's MBA landscape
B-SCHOOLS SHOULD UNDERSTAND THAT INDIAN ECONOMY IS GOING TO WITNESS A TREMENDOUS GROWTH
INTERVIEW - Prof DEBASHIS CHATTERJEE, director, Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode
COURSE CORRECTION
India's best b-schools are navigating tumultuous times. Hurdles include lower salaries offered to their graduates and students misusing AI
