Okay, folks. The now-regular MxMIndia special on the last day of the year: the Mediaah! Dubious Achievement Awards 2013.
Before we set out to presenting them, a request: these ought to be taken in the right spirit and wherever required, be seen as indicators for improvement. As they say in Bambaiyya: dil mein mat lena
The NitiCentral Award for being Always Right
to Firstpost.com
for well, do we need to really spell it out?
The Sachin Tendulkar will-he-wont-he Award
to Sam Balsara
Every time a Martin Sorrell and Maurice Levy come to India, that’s the question which they are asked: are they buying Sam Balsara. But like the master blaster, Sam is also keeping the entire industry and will do it when he thinks the time is right
The N ‘BCCI’ Srinivasan Award for Not Budging from his Kursi Award
to Colvyn Harris
for continuing to stay on as CEO of JWT even after the Ford Figo fake ad scandal rocked his agency
The Angry Bird Award for Terrorising the Media, okay pigs
to Twitter
for doing to the media what governments, underworld, corporates have not been able to do
Runner up: Facebook
The Andha Kanoon Award
to Soli Sorbajee, Ombudsman of NDTV
for ducking the real issues afflicting the news network (and the news media) and giving inane responses to complainants
The S Sreesanth Award for being a ‘kalank’ on the fraternity
to Tarun Tejpal
The tag of corruption and unethical practices has been plaguing news media for a while and Tarun Tejpal took the rep of editors to a new low with his alleged act with a young journalist who treated him like her father
The Datta Samant Award
to Saira Menezes and the People Magazine team
for fighting for their rights with the Outlook management even if it meant doing it via the Labour Court
Runner-up:
Indrajit Gupta & team, former Forbes India editor and his team of senior eds
The Main Chup Rahoongi prize
to Churumuri/Sans Serif
for keeping quiet when it needed to be most vocal on the sudden closure of the Outlook group’s People, Marie Claire and GEO magazine and the forced resignations of most of the staff because the blogger is also Editor of flagship Outlook magazine
The Sachin Tendulkar record-breaking performance
to Srinivasan K ‘Sundar’ Swamy
for showing the other ad & marketing associations/clubs how it’s not too difficult being hyperactive and purposeful
The Modi Xerox Copy is Better than the Original Award
to DNA’s Page 2 Society Special
for turning out to be better than the more than just inspired from Mumbai Mirror’s dna’s page 2 society-watch column
The Albert Einstein Award
to various creative gurus
for plagiarising from international creatives and then saying great minds think alike
The Bata Hawaii Chappal Award
to Rajdeep Sardesai
for flip-flopping on whether to turn left or right.
The Mulayam Singh Yadav Blood is thicker than Water Award
to N Ram and family
for reinstating his family to helm the business a year after bringing in top-notch professionals to steer the ship
The Bernard Madoff Award for getting rich and screw all principles:
to most media managements
for putting making money above the basic tenets of journalism and newsgathering
The Mine is Bigger than Yours Filmi Khans Award
to news channels
For all claiming to be the number one news channel at the same time, confusing the hell out of viewers.
The Push Me-Pull You Dr Dolittle Award
to The Times of India and Hindustan Times editions in Delhi
for each claiming that they are The One.
The Tehelka Award for Tell-Alls on Media Houses
to Caravan Magazine
for revealing everything you wanted to know and even what you didn’t about Arnab Goswami, The Jains, Network 18…
The Red Bull Award for Energizing Employees
to Abhijit Avasthi
for the first man in advertising to talk about how the Creative Abbies weren’t energizing his team any more
The Who-Cares-About-Brevity-Being-the-Soul-of-Wit Award
also to Caravan Magazine
for saying in a 100,000,000,000 words what could be said in a 1000.
The Invisible Man Award
to NDTV’s Prannoy Roy
for playing hide and seek with viewers.
And finally
The Not Manmohan Singh Award for Staying Silent when the Nation Wants to Know
remained with Arnab Goswami
for deafening the people of India most successfully again. The pointing finger points… and heaven help Meenakshi Lekhi if it’s pointing at her.
also awarded to Arnab for the same reason:
The Vicks ki Goli Award for Shouting at the Mighty and not Losing his Voice (and job) Award
Contributed by Ranjona Banerji and Pradyuman Maheshwari