The editor of the Mail and Guardian in South Africa Nic Dawes is joining the Hindustan Times as 'chief content and editorial officer'. Thats a new designation in the Indian print media universe and probably indicates a multimedia role. People are not going to be called editors any more?

Shortly after Times of India's Medianet initiative became known in 2004, Vir Sanghvi carried an editorial page debate in the Hindustan Times on this unfortunate trend to which several outside commentators contributed. Now HT has decided to go the same way with an initiative called brand promotions.

A story in the Times of India on Delhi University's trendy new foundation courses quotes a college teacher on how some web references do not lend themselves to citations and spells the word cite 'site'. Granted the new generation of reporters is more familiar with the latter word than the former. But what about the copy desk?

The Hindu carried this disclosure, 'This correspondent was in London at the invitation of the company' at the end of a London datelined report on Lumina 925 on May 15, 2013 in its business pages. But the following would have perhaps been more accurate:-- "The correspondent was on a trip sponsored by the company."

Hearing a writ petition challenging the arrest of PUCL leader Jaya Vindhyalaya for allegedly defamatory Facebook posts against Chirala Congress MLA Krishna Mohan and Tamil Nadu governor K Rosaiah, Justices BS Chauhan and Deepak Mishra of the vacation bench of the Supreme Court issued notice to the Andhra Pradesh government and sought compliance of guidelines that an IG, DCP or SP level officer would investigate complaints under Sec 66 (a) of the IT Act.

The Indian Express woke up today to an old story and made it a front page anchor. At least one other newspaper had the same story a year ago, and news magazines thereafter. The Express itself had much the same story back in February 2011.

This NDTV story is shocking....who decides that the parents are "monsters"?  The story mentions that the parents were poor and yet, they go ahead and call them monsters for abandoning a child whose treatment they could probably not afford.

Now scams can be understood better. Amnesty International India, Greenpeace India and Mines, and Minerals and People have set up a Coal Scam   repository which contains information related to allocation and functioning of over 200 coal blocks including company ownership, political links and environmental clearances. Affected people will be asked to directly upload their stories here.

 As they strategise to oppose TRAI's 12-minute per hour cap on advertising on TV, broadcasters are  coming up with a variety of rationales. At a Delhi meet today Jawahar Goel of Zee said that advertising is content and  since TRAI can regulate only carriage not content, it has no locus standi to propose advertising caps. (ORF roundtable)

On May 3 a division bench of the  High Court of Allahabad   upheld the invalidation of the election of Umlesh Yadav, MLA, to Bisauli for inserting  paid news in the  Dainik Jagran and Amar Ujala newspapers and not declaring this in her election expenses. The election commission had disqualified her, and she had appealed the disqualification. 

The spat between Rahul Dravid vs Gautam Gambhir and Manvinder Bisla in last night’s IPL match between KKR and RR, is all over the social web. TOI  put up a story in this regard quoting tweets from a @SirJadeja twitter account taking   it for  cricketer Ravindra Jadeja’s account. The description of the account clearly says “Form is temporary, I'm permanent. Parody Account.” The owner of the account later tweeted: “ So TOI and PTI thinks I'm the real account? Go home, you're drunk.”  

Is the public sentiment whipped up by TV channels in case after case driving government action? On the day after Sarabjit Singh's state funeral only one newspaper, the Indian Express, had the gumption to ask why the government provided a state funeral to a man convicted of involvement in bomb blasts in Pakistan which killed 14 people. 

The Delhi Press club has banned smoking in all its inside rooms, including the main hall where the bar is located. So expect a pall of gloom instead of smoke. Those who like to inflict nicotine on their lungs and do so outside in the lawns. So it will be "lawn smoking" and puffing in the corridors of power outside. Looks like the smokers paradise on 1 Rasiana Road has been cut to size. Good for the lung power of journalists  but bad for cigarette companies.

Loksatta, an Express Group Marathi daily on Sunday (May 1, 2013) published a page-one item that its Dombivli reporter, Bhagwan Mandlik had bought his 340 sq ft flat from Hari Om Builders Developers with a loan from the State Bank of India in 2007, and detailed the registration details. The reason: BJP MLA, Ravindra Chavan had publicly accused the journalist who had written about illegal constructions in that city in Mumbai's neighbourhood, of living in a house 'given free' by someone.