2001-2018—what The Hoot’s long haul captured
IN Media Practice | 2018-08-26
It never did have its own reporters, so what came is what we used. But once the space was created it captured what had not been captured before.
Amateurish sting traps gullible media managements
BY A HOOT COMMENT| IN MEDIA BUSINESS |26/05/2018
That so many fell for this sting says a lot for the amorality that may have begun to pervade the media business.
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |23/04/2018
In the explosion of fake news, where one report is worse than the other, social media users were taken aback to see a post with the Republic TV logo quoting journalist Rana Ayyub to the effect that the government ordinance to hang rapists of minors was directed at Muslims! Ayyub..
BY HASEENA SHAIK| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |14/04/2018
TV9 Telugu does not need to be taught lessons on women’s rights, ethics or the right to privacy. We know what we are doing.
Character assasination by Telugu media and its fallout
BY PADMAJA SHAW| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |03/04/2018
In pursuit of scandal, a Telangana channel invades the privacy of upright police officers who are then removed from crucial cases. Did the channel also serve a political agenda in the process,
Postcard news founder arrested
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |29/03/2018
Karnataka police arrested Mahesh Vikram Hegde, founder of the right-wing site Postcard News, often called out for carrying fake news, for its news report that a Jain muni was attacked by a Muslim youth..
BY PADMAJA SHAW| IN OPINION |18/01/2018
Mevani’s rejection of Republic TV raises a question: if media houses operate as hate-mongers, are they entitled to professional access?
BY GEETA SESHU| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |29/12/2017
On triple talaq, the channel imputed nefarious motives to an NGO for ‘contacting’ MPs and later took down the video to alter the look and feel of the debate. Why?
BY THE HOOT| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |13/10/2017
In the Aarushi Talwar murder case, the media had scaled new heights of irresponsibility by spreading canards and defamatory stories. The Talwars have now been acquitted by the Allahabad High Court.
BY SARADA LAHANGIR| IN REGIONAL MEDIA |24/07/2017
Media kits at Nitin Gadkari function had Rs 500 tucked inside.
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |30/04/2017
The Bombay High Court granted anticipatory bail to journalist Poonam Agarwal and triple amputee war veteran Deepchand on 26 April in the Quint sting operation case. They were both charged under Section 3 and 7 of the Official Secrets Act and under the IPC for abetting suicide by police in Nashik Maharashtra. The..
The Supreme Court petition on the Quint sting
BY PRASHANT REDDY THIKKAVARAPU| IN LAW AND POLICY |26/04/2017
The Quint’s Poonam Agarwal petitions the apex court on the OSA charge, defends her sting on the army’s sahayak system, and demands a court inquiry into a soldier’s death.
Mangalam TV, the Minister, and media ethics
BY RAJEESH KUMAR| IN REGIONAL MEDIA |28/03/2017
The debate was initiated by the media itself as many leading media professionals came out publicly to say that this broadcast by Mangalam TV was a criminal act.
Falsely implicated by a newspaper
BY MOAZUM MOHAMMAD| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |20/03/2017
After 11 years in jail, Rafiq Shah asks the Hindustan Times why it swallowed the police version in the 2005 Delhi bombing.
The ethics of reporting hate speech
BY ETHICAL JOURNALISM NETWORK| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |11/01/2017
As elections get under way, the prospect of political hate speech looms large. A five-point test for journalists on how to minimize damage when they report.
Fake, and increasingly dangerous
BY SHUMA RAHA| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |26/12/2016
An alarming proliferation of fake news that managed to outstrip fact-based news, threatens to topple the credibility of the media
TV reporters turn crude voyeurs
BY RAKHI GHOSH| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |26/07/2016
In reporting sexual harassment in the film and TV industry, Odisha’s news channels highlighted sex-for-favours but showed insensitivity towards the victims.
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |26/07/2016
In the unfolding saga of the extortion sting which exposed blackmail by the OHeraldo newspaper in Goa, and the retaliatory case of data theft filed by the paper, the latest is that the police are pressing the journalist who uploaded the sting to reveal his source...
An extortion sting implicates Goa's Herald
BY DEVIKA SEQUEIRA| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |14/07/2016
The revelations, accompanied by the serialised release of a video recording, concern Goa’s boldest and most visible daily.
The dubious ethics of linking to dubious videos
BY SHUMA RAHA| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |05/07/2016
The case of Hasan Suroor, the British vigilante group Unknown TV, and the mainstream Indian media.
Was India Today's Mathura sting ethical?
BY SHUMA RAHA| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |14/06/2016
By naming and showing two policemen who exposed the UP government’s lies, India Today’s sting operation put the men at risk of retribution,
Mainstream media’s collective fictionalising
BY THE HOOT| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |03/06/2016
How on earth did so many media outlets propagate a totally baseless story about a young woman killed in a seafront accident?
BY GEETA SESHU| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |26/03/2016
The picture of the Jet Airways employee has gone viral but what about her privacy and how the picture was used
How Zee TV fuelled state action against JNU students
BY HOOT| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |21/02/2016
Local police filed their FIR not on the basis of the information they gathered on campus on February 9, but on the basis of Zee TV footage made available to them.
Dubious ethics in Bengaluru assault reporting
BY GEETA SESHU| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |08/02/2016
The media hypes up racism, but who will call out the racism that Deccan Chronicle and others displayed,
‘But aren’t you going to pay?’
BY HOOT DESK| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |21/09/2015
Reporters asked questions, took exclusive bites and even exchanged numbers during the event. But it became clear after the press meet that local reporters of the Telugu print media and TV channels wanted cash for their pains.
Unethical use of unrelated videos
BY MAANVENDER SINGH| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |14/09/2015
Footage used by India Today and News24 purporting to show Manipuris attacking Biharis was unrelated to the so-called `story` being reported.
Sheena Bora case: Where is the media headed?
BY KAKOLI THAKUR| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |29/08/2015
We are experiencing a kind of journalism that has thrown all media ethics, morality and laws to the wind.
Ethical issues in the use of eyewitness material
BY NATASHA AHUJA| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |20/07/2015
The new world of journalism includes the use of raw footage and eyewitness videos but the ethics of attribution lag behind.
Trial by media: how journalists are used
BY REBECCA JOHN| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |27/10/2014
The media must cross-check information put out by investigating agencies or else journalists could prejudice the rights of accused persons and influence trials,
BY AAKANKSHA SHARMA| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |18/08/2014
Zee News master class in bad reporting - interviewing the child of a woman who committed suicide.
Flagrant violation of media ethics
IN MEDIA PRACTICE |29/10/2012
The gang-rape of a law student in Bangalore recently has raised disturbing questions about sensationalized and irresponsible media coverage,
BY Hoot| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |02/02/2012
Free speech reports don't upset anyone in the profession--they only underscore the journalists' sense of being brave, vulnerable and important to society. But how many annual reports on media ethics have you come across?
Action demanded in Goa paid news case
BY Mir Ubaid| IN REGIONAL MEDIA|30/10/2011
Entrapped by a sting operation earlier this month, the Herald and its editor are protesting their innocence. The local journalist who conducted the sting has complained to the Press Council, and the Goa Union of journalists is calling for action again
TNN again, but it sounds suspiciously like Medianet
BY Sourav Barman| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |20/02/2011
Yesterday the Times of India made news in the Sunday Times, London, with a story called "India’s media demand cash to run favourable news."
IN BOOKS |24/12/2010
The Hoot excerpts a second passage from Madhu Trehan’s Tehelka as Metaphor.
BY sevanti ninan| IN OPINION |05/12/2010
Every editor who counts in the English media, pink or white or electronic, pops up in the transcripts... Every editor also understands that you need to meet them to get a fix on the issues. ??
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |01/12/2010
A visibly disturbed Barkha Dutt decided to let herself be questioned by four journalists on her controversial role in the Radia Tapes, on Nov. 30. While it was a brave performance she did not answer two crucial questions adequately. One, posed repeatedly by Manu Joseph, Editor,Open -why did she fail to report..
BY Muralidhar S| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |28/11/2010
The Radia Tapes debate: Is defining clear guidelines a solution to prevent recurrences? No. The issue is not about defining a code, but its implementation.
The Radia Tapes debate: working journalists introspect
BY POORNIMA JOSHI, RADHIKA RAMASESHAN, AMMU JOSEPH F| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |26/11/2010
Every hack covering government formation in May 2009 knew the PM didn't want Raja and TR Baalu because they were "tainted". Were Sanghvi and Barkha--the former gave the impression he had a hot line to the Gandhis--unaware of this?
The Radia Tapes debate: journalists and others write in
BY SAIKAT DATTA, ANURADHA RAMAN, SADANAND MENON, ANAN| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |24/11/2010
So let us build a "What If?" argument here. What if, I am a journalist covering the ministry of defence? What if, an arms dealer (or lobbyist) becomes one of my "legitimate sources" for news?
Radia Tapes: Media ethics at the crossroads
IN MEDIA PRACTICE |23/11/2010
"From as far back as I remember in my 20 year career as journalist, the primary rule has been: cultivate your source, listen to all his woes, extract information from him, but don't promise to ‘fix’ anything for him." Starting a debate on the Hoot.
BY Hoot editorial| IN OPINION |19/11/2010
Politicians are these ordinary guys doing a difficult job. They sometimes need help from those who can see things as they are. Like us hacks.
BY Jasmine Shah| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |15/01/2010
NGC's documentary takes us back to the old question of whether media has any moral responsibility. Can any Hindi general entertainment channel beat the reality show they presented,
Media ethics and the SIT report on Gujarat
BY Siddharth Varadarajan| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |12/05/2009
Reporters should be careful about claiming to have "access" to explosive confidential documents when all they might have are a few paragraphs selectively planted on them by vested interests.
Book extract: History of Media Ethics
BY PARANJOY GUHA THAKURTA| IN BOOKS |24/03/2009
Ethical issues have had to be confronted by those working in the mass media ever since the media came into being.
How private treaties influence reporting
BY CLIFTON D’ROZARIO| IN MEDIA BUSINESS |17/06/2008
The Times of India was careful to leave out the name of its Private Treaty partner while reporting a worksite accident in Bengaluru.
OTV’s telecast offends viewers
BY elisa patnaik| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |26/09/2008
Orissa TV, owned by a leading BJD politician’s family, repeatedly telecast the explicit sexual content of a porn CD involving a young college girl, who had already committed suicide.
Sensational story, dubious ethics
BY Hoot Desk with Nava Thakuria| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |09/09/2008
Bangladesh’s leading English daily was linked with ULFA by two publications, neither of which sought a response from the people and publications named in the story.
BY Hootl Editorial| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |13/07/2008
Arushi’s father is out on bail, pleading for the media to leave their family alone. Will a day come when trial by media becomes a cognizable offence
BY Augusto Pinto| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |17/07/2008
People who read newspapers in the naïve faith that the journalists are batting for them, will get a rude shock after reading such accounts.
Dubious ethics of TV talent shows
BY s r ramanujan| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |01/07/2008
It is not just phone-in programmes or reality shows which are not what they seem. There is something rotten in the ethics of TV broadcasting.
Assam journalists discuss corruption in media
BY Nava Thakuria| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |28/06/2008
Speakers in the meeting were unanimous in asserting that Mukul could never be the only or the last tainted reporter, working in Assam for various media
Scrutiny of private treaties builds up
BY hoot| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |20/01/2008
The Times Group pioneered this trend, and others are eager to follow.
BY Mannika Chopra| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |30/12/2007
Now the fake Khurana sting has triggered a credibility crisis in the world of spycams, secret recordings and phone tappings.
BY Seetha| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |22/03/2007
A corporate espionage case has thrown the spotlight on whether the media can use material that has been illegally accessed from a computer.
Goan blog stings a local daily
IN MEDIA PRACTICE |12/09/2007
Increasingly blogs are keeping a sharp eye on the mainstream media. Here is a whopper from one of them, called Penpricks.
BY sevanti ninan| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |11/10/2007
So what should one conclude about the message from NDTV India’s new fictional pulpit
IN MEDIA PRACTICE |14/06/2007
A reconstruction from available accounts of how a film maker fought and won a copyright case against a leading TV channel.
BY darius| IN OPINION |20/03/2006
The big boys who cannot resist a lamp-post did not even realize they had passed by a rather large one.
Media intrusions into aborginal reserves
IN MEDIA PRACTICE |15/01/2005
We have definite information that the media did not take special permits required to enter these reserves.
| IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |11/12/2004
Was it ethical of the police to release a video grab of the Kanchi Shankaracharya breaking down during interrogation to the press? Was it ethical of the Asian Age to carry it and then say in the caption in its own defence that Nakkeeran had also published it.
| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |05/12/2004
BY Tarangini Sriraman| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |24/07/2004
Are journalists in the business of grief-mongering? Are they perverse creatures on the prowl for morbidity and misery
IN MEDIA PRACTICE |25/08/2004
Nafisa Joseph provided fodder for the sensation seekers
BY haritsa| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |01/05/2004
The newspaper report cleverly combines the sources and techniques of journalism and fictional narration to ‘establish’ and pronounce judgment on ‘what really happened’.
BY dasu k| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |16/06/2004
People could bring down tyrannical regimes like those of the Shah of Iran or Idi Amin. But history has no instance of people dethroning a newspaper.
Freebies for obliging hacks –but you had better oblige
BY Lalitha Sridhar| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |14/06/2003
An interviewee I once thought a possible friend was completely put off when I returned the lovely designer dupatta she couriered to me.
PRESS COUNCIL OF INDIAS REPORT ON FAVOURS TO JOURNALISTS
IN MEDIA PRACTICE |13/04/2002
Buying children in Orissa : A valid way to focus on starvation deaths?
IN MEDIA PRACTICE |01/09/2002
BY Mannika Chopra| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |27/11/2003
Does this new brand of journalism point to a lack of ethics in the media or is it the beginning of a different kind of ethics
Insensitive Scoops And Devastated Families
IN MEDIA PRACTICE |31/08/2002
A newspaper scoop on the unsolved case of a dead journalist raises serious questions about harming the reputations of those who have survived her, particularly her child.
IN MEDIA PRACTICE |03/09/2002
The notoriety attending this high-profile case can have negative repercussions for Indian women in journalism..
Who is afraid of conflict of interest?
BY ninan| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |21/07/2003
It sometimes seems as if educated Indians grew up without any consciousness of conflict of interest being dinned into them at any stage.
The frenzied coverage of Natasha Singhs death
IN MEDIA PRACTICE |22/04/2002
The coverage violated all norms. Isn`t the media travesty of her death our chance to acknowledge how urgently we need to change, asks her TV journalist friend, Sonia Verma.
BY Dasu Krishnamoorty| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |01/01/1900
Let us see if there was any higher purpose for which the TV crew barged into Manu Sharma`s place by disguising their identity.
