Reporting or self promotion?

IN Media Watch Briefs | 06/08/2015

NDTV.com reported with a straight face on the investor funding obtained by NDTV Ltd for its new ecommerce ventures, and in the course of the story said several flattering things about the performance of its sister website NDTVGadgets.com, and the car and bike content on Ndtvauto.com. It added for good measure that "the bedrock of the Company's digital content ndtv.com has grown from strength to strength and is now India's leading pure news site with 65 million users in India and across the world, clocking a growth of 40% YOY." Is this going to be a new trend? Media outlets writing glowing reports on themselves?

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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.