Sunday, January 08, 2006
Rediff is just another TOI
Not an earth-shaking discovery by any means at all. The slide happened looong back.
Haven't read rediff for months. Checked it out today. Looked upto B.Raman's article here
I guess Rediff's slide started around 2002. They were excellent right from their inception in 1997, very incisive in their analysis and sharp in their reporting. The superficiality started 3 yrs ago. The quitting of Raju Bharatan and Prem Panicker were merely the symptoms. Now it looks more like an annoying pop-up site with a handful of news awash with ads.
Although I am a fence-sitter as far as politics is concerned, knowing the tremendous uncertainties involved, it is possible to assess the credibility and quality of a reporter if one were to prudently and diligently go through a piece, looking for some pointers.
Raman has stuffed this article with fillers such as Kadirgamar's killing and Karuna's revolt. Those events happened way back in Aug 2005 and April 2004 respectively. Those events are meaningless when it comes to interpreting the current scenario and speculate on happenings in the future. There is absolutely nothing first-hand about the the current tensions in North Sri Lanka which is now spreading to the North East. As such from what I have noticed, pretty much everything reported in the Indian press about SL needs to be taken with doses of salt.
I'm both surprised and disappointed that Indian journalists really suck when it comes to covering events in Lanka(Anita Pratap is an honorable exception). Even N.Ram's editorials are ridden with cliches with little cognizance of the ground realities. A surprise given that the man was actively involved in the events of 1983-87 and in the late nineties as well.
Read 'The Broken Palmyrah' by Rajan Hoole, Dr.Rajani Thiranagama, Daya Somasundaram, Sritharan of Jaffna University last week. Amazing how four Medicine/Mathematics/English university teachers can write a well researched and excellent book while established journalists are floundering and bullshitting in their reports. Sad to observe Dr.Rajani was gunned down by the LTTE in Sep 1989 as she had described them in unflattering terms. [The Tigers claim she was shot by the SL govt as part of its 1989 winter campaign to eliminate the JVP rebels - Rajani's wife being a core JVP member who went underground for upto a decade ]
Stumbled upon Dr.Brian Senewiratne's writings as well last week. Pleasant surprise. Dr.Senewiratne is a cousin of Chandrika and is a doctor settled in Brisbane. Has written several insightful articles and is a very well balanced writer. Also went through the writings of Rohan Gunaratne, DBS Jayaraj, SJ Tambiah, Srikantha, Sabaratnam...they carry a semblance of bias this way or the other but all in all, have much better awareness compared to the Indian scribes.
Haven't read rediff for months. Checked it out today. Looked upto B.Raman's article here
I guess Rediff's slide started around 2002. They were excellent right from their inception in 1997, very incisive in their analysis and sharp in their reporting. The superficiality started 3 yrs ago. The quitting of Raju Bharatan and Prem Panicker were merely the symptoms. Now it looks more like an annoying pop-up site with a handful of news awash with ads.
Although I am a fence-sitter as far as politics is concerned, knowing the tremendous uncertainties involved, it is possible to assess the credibility and quality of a reporter if one were to prudently and diligently go through a piece, looking for some pointers.
Raman has stuffed this article with fillers such as Kadirgamar's killing and Karuna's revolt. Those events happened way back in Aug 2005 and April 2004 respectively. Those events are meaningless when it comes to interpreting the current scenario and speculate on happenings in the future. There is absolutely nothing first-hand about the the current tensions in North Sri Lanka which is now spreading to the North East. As such from what I have noticed, pretty much everything reported in the Indian press about SL needs to be taken with doses of salt.
I'm both surprised and disappointed that Indian journalists really suck when it comes to covering events in Lanka(Anita Pratap is an honorable exception). Even N.Ram's editorials are ridden with cliches with little cognizance of the ground realities. A surprise given that the man was actively involved in the events of 1983-87 and in the late nineties as well.
Read 'The Broken Palmyrah' by Rajan Hoole, Dr.Rajani Thiranagama, Daya Somasundaram, Sritharan of Jaffna University last week. Amazing how four Medicine/Mathematics/English university teachers can write a well researched and excellent book while established journalists are floundering and bullshitting in their reports. Sad to observe Dr.Rajani was gunned down by the LTTE in Sep 1989 as she had described them in unflattering terms. [The Tigers claim she was shot by the SL govt as part of its 1989 winter campaign to eliminate the JVP rebels - Rajani's wife being a core JVP member who went underground for upto a decade ]
Stumbled upon Dr.Brian Senewiratne's writings as well last week. Pleasant surprise. Dr.Senewiratne is a cousin of Chandrika and is a doctor settled in Brisbane. Has written several insightful articles and is a very well balanced writer. Also went through the writings of Rohan Gunaratne, DBS Jayaraj, SJ Tambiah, Srikantha, Sabaratnam...they carry a semblance of bias this way or the other but all in all, have much better awareness compared to the Indian scribes.
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Rajini was not killed by the LTTE. She was killed by a murderous group called EPDP on the orders of the Indian army.
After Rajini’s death, her organization was hijacked by two individuals who had personal grudges against the LTTE and the propagated the lie that the LTTE killed Rajini.
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After Rajini’s death, her organization was hijacked by two individuals who had personal grudges against the LTTE and the propagated the lie that the LTTE killed Rajini.
# posted by 
: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 7:43:00 PM
: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 7:43:00 PM<< Home
