A Romantic Realist

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Posted by Livemint Community at 
Raju Narisetti stepped down as Mint editor effective 1 January 2009. His Mint blog, A Romantic Realist, will be archived after this last post. Thank you for reading and reacting to it and we look forward to your continued involvement with Mint's blogs. Livemint Share this post: email it! | del.icio.us! | digg it! | newsVine!

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On open letters and media ethics

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
Readers of this Romantic Realist are used to seeing a lot of posts on Indian media. Since there is now some published debate on this particular issue, I thought it might be interesting to post this open clarification that ran on the front page of Mint on 22 December in relation to a previous "Open Letter" by an unnamed IAS officer that had...

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Why Anil Ambani wants $2.1 billion from his brother, Mukesh Ambani of Reliance; Arthur Sulzberger Jr of The New York Times and the Romantic Realist

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
Stories in Indian media about estranged billionaire brothers, Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries Ltd , India's most valuable company by market capitalization, and Anil Ambani , of Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group , shaking hands at a meeting of industrialists, and resulting, usual speculation of a potential thaw between them, reminded me of this legal...

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When Kalam doesn't cut it

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
In one of those typical company-wide emails that only IT people can send, one landed in my in box a little while ago, titled " How Can I Contribute in Saving Corporate Costs?" The IT department has decided that sending me an excerpt from a speech, supposedly given by former Indian president and now major gadfly , A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, titled...

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Is Obama's Time but also the era of Wall Street scammers

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
In what was a predictable pick, here is what Time magazine had to say in naming Barack Obama as its 2008 "Person of the Year": "For having the confidence to sketch an ambitious future in a gloomy hour, and for showing the competence that makes Americans hopeful he might pull it off, the President-elect is TIME's Person of the Year...

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The Page 3 culture's deep roots

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
While the pervasive Page 3 approach (a less newsy Page 6 for those New York Post fans among the Romantic Realist's readers) focusing on "who attended wearing what on their sleeve and on their body" rather than "what was show there" is how most Indian metro newspapers cover art these days, just how deeply entrenched this has become...

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We were wrong but you are still wronger!

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
Being a believer in newspapers having a clearly articulated and transparent corrections and clarifications policy, this Romantic Realist was delighted to see Hindustan Times promote a very prominent Clarifications/Corrections column that asks readers to alert htreporters@hindustantimes.com for any "bloomer" in the paper and promising that...

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Pakistani Editor Najam Sethi Awarded 2009 Golden Pen of Freedom

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
Hot off the press is news from the World Association of Newspapers/World Editors Forum of this prestigious award. The Romantic Realist , who is on the board of the World Editors Forum , is delighted that a South Asian journalist has been recognized for standing up to authoritarian regimes. Here is the citation from WAN/WEF, though I think it should...

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The intellectually bankrupt Indian Left

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
Muntazer al-Zaidi , the Iraqi journalist who threw shoes at US President George W. Bush during a press conference, in what is typically an act that ranks among the worst possible insults in the Arab world, was at least making a direct--and risky--public political statement about Iraqi deaths following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Indeed, the television...

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When the No. 2 is really trying harder

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
Readers of Romantic Realist might remember he is partial to Jet Airways despite all the over-the-top allure of relative upstart Kingfisher Airlines. But here is a vivid example of how being No. 2 to Naresh Goyal's Jet, Vijay Mallya's Kingfisher does try harder and is much more acutely aware of the need to go the extra mile: Exhibit 1 4.07 am...

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Tech Sex

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
Every once in a while a new word or phrase is coined, usually by a researcher or by the media, that has all the ease-of-use and shorthand built into it to quickly become a word that will get widely used and end up in a dictionary. This morning, from Agence France-Presse comes this story and headline, and the Romantic Realist suspects " tech sex...

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Arianna Huffington and The Laid-Off Journalist, the yin and yang of Western journalism

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
I Want Media , an online media resource, recently named Arianna Huffington co-founder of the online news and opinion site, The Huffington Post , as the 2008 Media Person of the Year in a poll that saw her easily trump the likes of Rupert Murdoch of News Corp, Tina Fey, the dead-on US television impersonator of Sarah Palin, the Twitter trio of Biz Stone...

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When journalists make a business case for why their rival newspaper is also a must-read

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
It is not unusual in New Delhi to get marketing pitches for why The Times of India or Hindustan Times are the essential morning reads. I don't know what the overlap of readership is between both papers but each one does try to say they are the must read and not the other. What is interesting to me is how journalists and editors at both papers seem...

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The (un)intentionally offensive Indian?

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
There has been a lot of renewed debate in India this past week about Muslims, Hindus, Pakistanis, “true” Muslims, Jews, Americans and Islamists, as India and Indians come to terms with the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. It is only natural that issues of race, religion, ethnicity and skin-color, all of which are deeply rooted in the Indian psyche, bubble...

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A Prime Minister Who Should Be An OpEd Writer

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
Usually, it is the opinion page editors of newspapers who are in the habit of telling the government and the people as to what ought to be done. In India, however, it is Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's speciality as the man who can get things done and who is supposed to get things done has increasingly turned into an editorial writer (or editorial...

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