Indian Media's Dickensian Age
50th Floor Conference Center
601 Lexington Avenue
(formerly known as The Citigroup Center)
New York, New York 10022
About the Speaker:
T. N. Ninan is the Chairman and Chief Editor of Business Standard Ltd. During a quarter century at the helm of different publications, he has been the editor of Business Standard (where he was also the publisher from 1996), The Economic Times and Business World, bringing about radical change and achieving rapid growth in all of them during his stewardship, and was also the Executive Editor at India Today. Mr. Ninan is a television commentator on economic and business issues. He has served as chairman or member of the governing boards of a number of non-profit bodies and trusts, in the fields of media, environment, education, and public affairs. He is currently President of the Editors Guild of India and is a recipient of the B.D. Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism. In 1972, Mr. Ninan earned an M.A. in Economics from the University of Madras.
About the Lecture:
The Indian mass media have had a good decade, with growth in numbers, reach and financial muscle; indeed, this has been true for newspapers as well as TV. The second decade of the century is equally promising, with an explosion of Internet use still some years away. But amidst the growth and fierce competition, new challenges have surfaced: financial, ethical, and professional. Are new media practices like “paid news” undermining the fairness of Indian elections? Do “sponsored” business programming and barter deals of ad space for company space raise credibility questions about the business media? Are financial pressures and unbridled competition driving the media to adopt practices that will not stand up to scrutiny? In this lecture, Mr. Ninan will address these and other questions.