High flying interviews

IN Media Watch Briefs | 18/05/2015

Busy ministers have to be innovative to get maximum mileage in maximum media. Piyush Goyal, MoS with independent charge for Power, Coal & Renewable Energy, needed to oblige the financial papers with 'one year report card' interviews. So he flew with a bunch of journos to Kolkata where he had to inaugurate Coal India's new headquarters, letting each of them interview him on the way and then they all flew back the same day. Some of the journos were paid for by their papers, others by Coal India. Result: front-page splashes on Monday with different datelines. Mint said New Delhi, ET said Kolkata, Business Standard and TOI gave no dateline.

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Media Watch Briefs

Amazon resisting voluntary censorship

The new term for self censorship is voluntary censorship, as proposed by companies like Netflix and Hotstar. ET reports that streaming video service Amazon Prime is opposing a move by its peers to adopt a voluntary censorship code in anticipation of the Indian government coming up with its own rules. Amazon is resisting because it fears that it may alienate paying subscribers.

Let the games begin

Clearly, the run to the 2019 elections is on. A journalist received a call from someone saying they were from Aajtak channel and were conducting a survey, asking whom she was going to vote for in 2019. On being told that her vote was secret, the caller assumed she wasn't going to vote for 'Modiji'. The caller, a woman, also didn't identify herself. A month or two earlier the same journalist received a call, this time from a man, asking if she was going to vote for the BSP.