Saturday, October 15, 2005

Media Picks Up the IIPM story

The mainstream media has picked up the IIPM story. They have been very slow and they have done a really bad job of covering the story.

Here is the Indian Express story. They didn't even get the complete picture and don't mention the JAM article at all. Same goes for the Delhi Pioneer article (accessed through Google cache). The Hindustan Times article does a better job. Incidentally, Delhi Pioneer and Hindustan Times seem to have contacted the same lawyer to weigh in on the issue. NDTV story does mention JAM article fleetingly. NDTV also featured the story on its TV channel.

All this is good but these stories are appearing in city editions and obscure places where very few people will read them. Further none of them actually try to check veracity of IIPM's claims in the print ads, which is what mainstream media is actually supposed to do - unravel the truth. Instead they are simply narrating a bunch of events.

All the blog posts (including this one) are fine. All these posts will ensure that anyone searching for any information online about IIPM will come across this story. What will really change things though, is some mainstream newspaper or TV channel verifying the claims made by IIPM in their ads. Irrespective of the outcome of such a fact-finding enterprise, it will take this story to its logical end by bringing the facts out in the open. Sadly Indian media doesn't seem to be ready for such a thing yet!

Technorati Tags: , , , ,

2 comments:

Mridula said...

The Pioneer story makes a pathetic read!

Transmogrifier said...

Mridula: Thanks for your comment.
Pioneer story sucks! It potrays Gaurav as if he is the culprit "scurrying for legal help". Overall the coverage has been bad. I don't know how the NDTV coverage was though.
People: Please post something about NDTV coverage on your blog if you happened to see it on TV.