MxMIndia

Tag: Jessica Lal

  • Beleaguered English news channel NewsX has finally found a suitor in the Piccadily Group

    NewsX finds a benefactor in owners of India News & Aaj Samaj [updated]

    By A Correspondent [updated]

     

    The ITV Group promoted by Kartikeya Sharma and its associates have acquired control of INX News Pvt. Ltd. which owns and operates the English news channel NewsX.

     

    Speaking on the occasion Mr. Sharma, Managing Director, ITV said, “This is a logical market expansion for us and enables us to enter the English news domain while strengthening our presence in the broadcast and digital media space.  NewsX has emerged as a quality news provider with great growth potential and making it part of our group’s network of seven regional news channels will bolster news gathering abilities and create multiple synergies all around.”

     

    In 2009, Mr. Vinay Chhajlani and Mr. Jehangir S. Pocha had joined hands to run NewsX.  In a joint statement Chhajlani and Pocha said, “We are happy to hand over the channel to the ITV Group and acknowledge the contribution of the team that has earned NewsX much recognition.  Being part of the ITV Group will help NewsX transcend the limitations of being a stand-alone channel and give new thrust to the channel’s editorial and commercial development.”

     

    Our earlier report:

    Indi Media Network-owned English news channel, NewsX has finally found a suitor in ITV Media (Information TV). The details of the financial transaction are not known yet, though sources close to the development have confirmed the news to MxMIndia.

     

    ITV Media is the parent electronic media company which broadcasts 24/7 Hindi news channel, India News. ITV Media is part of the Piccadilly Group which also runs a print division that publishes a daily Hindi Newspaper, Aaj Samaj as well as a weekly Hindi magazine, India News. Headed by Mr Kartikeya Sharma, the company also has two regional news satellite channels, India News Haryana and India News Bihar. Mr Sharma is son of leading Haryana Congress leader Venod Sharma and the brother of Manu Sharma, a convict in the Jessical Lal murder case.

     

    NewsX which was earlier owned by INX News, was launched with much fanfare in March 2008. Later in January 2009, it was bought over by Indi Media Network, a partnership between the then Nai Dunia CEO Vinay Chhajlani and Businessworld Editor Jehangir S Pocha.

     

    Mr Pocha is currently CEO and Editor-in-chief of NewsX. An official announcement was made by Mr Pocha to the existing staff about the transaction in the afternoon and the new management is likely to speak to the team later today. MxMIndia learns that Mr Pocha reassured the team that he will continue as Editor-in-Chief. There were indicators that some resource sharing may happen with IndiaNews. A press communiqué is also to be issued.

     

     

     

     

  • In Freaking News, which will now appear every Tuesday and Friday, Ranjona Banerji reviews the fare in the morning papers and the nightly news. And sometimes the afternooners, the newsmags and all that's on the Web

    [MJR] TV arguments that go nowhere

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Few crimes have been more astonishing and more bitterly fought over in the public domain than the murders of 14-year-old Aarushi Talwar and the domestic who worked in her home, Hemraj. Unlike the Jessica Lal murder case – where everyone know who the murderer was and the scandal was the cover-up – everything about this double murder remains open-ended four years later.

     

    The role of the media, however, came into question from day 1. it started with the intrusive and speculative reporting about Aarushi’s own life – with ridiculous segments on TV channels about how Aarushi would have celebrated her next birthday, had she been alive. Then, the initial police investigation added more grist to the rumour mill – were the parents swingers, had Aarushi and Hemraj become too close because of the parents’ activities and as a result, had the two been shut up because they knew too much? No evidence was presented to prove any of these speculations, yet the Noida police had no problem putting all these theories into the fray.

     

    Then the expected happened -various domestics were blamed. it didn’t help that Hemraj himself was blamed, by the parents as it happened. His body was found the next day since neither the police nor the family even bothered to check the whole house after the murder of the girl was discovered. His body was on the terrace – not really that far away.

     

    The media at this time, rather than focus on the salacious aspects of the case and dramatising this young girl’s life, perhaps should have put the police under the scanner for destroying evidence, for not treating the Talwar home as a crime scene and for careening between believing the Talwars implicitly to treating them as criminals.

     

    Television on Monday night revisited the Aarushi case as her mother Nupur finally appeared before a court after giving the authorities the run around for a year and was sent to jail. We have seen the Talwars presented as both victims and perpetrators. The media has taken sides and many have sided with the Talwars. The arguments presented have been sweetly naive -how can parents kill their children and neighbours say the Talwars are nice people. The dentist couple also had high profile patients like historian Patrick French who have launched a spirited defence.

     

    On NDTV, there was some soul-searching about whether the media had gone too far, Headlines Today enjoyed chasing Nupur Talwar all over Delhi and told us all about the jail she would be staying in and how she would be treated. On Times Now, we were treated to an expected fight fest. One of the lawyers for the Talwars, Pinaki Mishra, historian French, activist Ranjana Kumari and TV journalist Ashutosh Tiwari and Arnab Goswami himself slugged it out. Or rather, Mishra and French batted for the Talwars, Tiwari for the media, Kumari hardly got a chance to speak and Goswami seemed unsure whose side he was on. He did however ask why no one was bothered about the domestics who were accused at the Talwars’ behest and then let off. Mishra wanted everyone to know he was taking no money – how this impacted the case was unclear. Should his paying clients now feel that he only pays attention to cases he does free. French said that everyone said the Talwars were nice people. imagine writing a history of, say, Hitler, and then telling us many people liked him. it’s hardly a defence.

     

    The Noida police and the CBi, who really should be under the microscope, were not grilled. So one more TV argument that goes nowhere.