Hi Newslaundry team,

I am Sandeep, a software engineer, a news buff, AAP-tard  in Canada. Thanks for the alternative news media you have been. I was an occasional consumer of Newslaundry until a few weeks ago but recently I have found myself hooked to NL Hafta and have heard almost 10 NLHaftas at a stretch. It’s amazing how some of the analysis of news you have done still sounded fresh to me even after the tide of that news had died down.

Complaint: I have tried to subscribe at least 5 times using my Indian, US and Canadian Credit cards and always have errors and cannot proceed!.

Suggestion: You tend to miss out on discussing some topics that you mention in your ‘list’ of topics to be discussed at the start of the podcast. E.g. You mentioned during podcast 47, that you will discuss Istanbul attack,  Salman Khan’s rape comment coverage, Water tanker, FIR scam against AK, but you missed them. It will be good if at the end of the podcast, you go through the list to find out if some topics have been missed and set a future date for them.

Request: Please discuss about AAP’s bills being rejected by the center, and its constant fight with the center. I know Anand doesn’t like AAP, but it will be interesting to know how he thinks about this whole center-state fight in Delhi. Also, please do discuss about the works of some of the anchors you don’t seem to be talking about i.e.  Vishnu Som, Vikram Chandra – who as someone called  “the Rahul Dravid of ‘Instudio’ Journalism”, investigative journo – Srinivasan Jain and intellectuals like Purshsottam Agrawal.

Your opinion please: Below I list down some of the stuff discussed from the last few NLHaftas and want to know your opinion on them,

1. Bad Reading experience of the newspapers due to ads: While ads are only one kind of disruption, TOI has in my view, another pathetic kind of disturbance –  and that is the ‘Latest Comment’ or ‘Top Comment’ feature. They capture all sorts of abuses and dumb comments right in the middle of the story on the webpage and that really breaks the chain of thought. Another  one that they have is the ‘mocktale’ ,that’s like putting page 3 kind of pun on page 1.
2. Referendum: I was surprised at the Newslaundry‘s and Abhinandan’s lack of arguments to Anand’s stand on referendum. As mentioned (not exact) by Abhay Dubey on Times now, why can’t referendums be done on topics on which all political parties have agreements, but is only stuck due to delay? Delhi Statehood is one such issue. Issues like Ram Mandir can’t be decided by referendums because they infringe on minority rights – a constitutional arrangement. I think Kejriwal is doing the right thing now by asking all the political parties, their stand on the ‘Delhi Statehood’ issue. AFAIK, there is no constitutional provision that disallows referendum even if we are a representative democracy. Please let me know your views on it.
3. Arnab’s Interview of PM: Don’t you think Arnab’s response to journos questioning his softball interview with PM smacks of arrogance?.  He thinks everything he says and does is right because he ‘commands’ viewership and ‘sets’ the news agenda. His arrogance is like that of political parties when they say “Since we win the elections every time , we are clean and those who lost shouldn’t question us”.
4. On Barkha Dutt: I think both Venu’s and Hartosh both are on extreme when it comes to judging Barkha on Radia tapes. I agree the Vir Sanghvi’s conversation “Do you want this, I will write this. Do you want that I will write that” kind of conversation between a journo and a lobbyist is pure sellout! But on Barkha, to counter Venu’s point if we really judge her by what she delivered, then how will we judge if indeed what she delivered matched whatever the lobbyist wanted and was also at the same time in public interest? To counter Hartosh’s point, we can’t judge by why she didn’t carry the ‘right’/ ‘real’ news because for all its faults, ‘access journalism’ really does serve some purpose. In my humble opinion, one should judge access journos only one question in mind –  what was the end goal? Do they use access journos to simply show off power circle connections or do they actually critique them. For example, Barkha for all her interviewing skills did a crap interview of Vadra a few years back. Goswami for all his access (although he claims distance) did a crap interview of Modi but had done an excellent interview of Raj Thackaray, Rahul Gandhi.

Sandeepraj Tandon (Sandeep)

Dear NL team

Statutory disclosure: I’m not a subscriber (though I hope to be, ASAP).

I’m a regular listener to Hafta, though. For the last year or so, your podcasts have been my most regular source of Indian news, while I’ve been working abroad. What I like about the show is that it manages to encapsulate different opinions in a way that I find newspaper articles (or their web-equivalents) don’t manage to do. One is forced to read from multiple outlets, or spend too much time on social media, to get the same range of perspectives on the news. the format is really working for you as well, as one side effect (intentional?) is that the fact that you disagree on so much, lets the reader know where each of you is coming from, and humanises the news, and I think it’s led to my reading your pieces more regularly, if it’s by someone I know from the Hafta.

Obviously, I’m not writing just to praise you. 🙂

I’m writing to you immediately after reading Outlook‘s latest profile of Arun Jaitley, and it made me think that I’ve not read a clear narrative of what it is that Jaitley does with the media. Everyone seems to think that he’s got a number of journalists in his pocket, and uses them to spread tales of his cabinet colleagues. If this is common knowledge, surely the reading public needs to be made aware of it? Even if it’s not possible to name names, I wonder if you’d be willing to do an explainer on the markers of a Jaitley-plant story. What is the process, what are the purported consequences, how does one spot it. Do you think you’re able to identify those stories independently?

More specifically about Jaitley, do you think the fact that magazines are wiling to discuss him now? Is that further evidence of his decline in his power? Wish you’d do a story about this, or at least talk us through the various sides of the argument.

Thanks,
Vijay Krishna

Hello NL team,

I am indeed delighted to hear that I can listen to your podcasts on Stitcher, the preferred app for me.

Abhinandan, I not only enjoy your PJs, but also agree to your standpoints. Madhu is being missed in recent podcasts. I hope we’ll have a chance to get her views on the next podcast. Manisha is the budding champ. Anand is a rare gem Newslaundry has. Not that I always support his point of views, but because we need more scientists with journalistic flavor. Please do a story on GMOs and the various positive/ negative claims people make.

I understand that being a media critic, Arnab needs to be discussed. Sometimes, I feel the NL team discusses him more than he deserves. In a way, he is being popularised unnecessarily. What if we initiate a silent campaign to ignore him? Perhaps, this may help him get back to his sanity.

Regards,
Komal