June , 2009
TV news: Good, Bad and Ugly
Within hours of India's defeat in the 20-20 world championships, the headlines on some television channels were screaming : should Dhoni be sacked. Just 24 hours earlier, Dhoni was the captain who could do no wrong. But round the clock news television needs a target, an enemy figure who can be the hate object of the day. On the day of the Indian defeat, it was Dhoni's turn to cop it. Perhaps, its my cricketing genes, but more likely the journalistic conscience that felt troubled yet again at the high pitched reporting. So, in this season of introspection and mea culpa via media columns and letters, I am tempted to do my bit. Let me say that as a practitioner of 24 hour television news journalism, it is a task I attempt with some trepidation. One simply doesn't want to be identified with the growing tribe of television-bashers,....
NCP's dilemma: To exist or not to exist
If a week is a long time in politics, then a decade is truly an eternity. That ancient political truism has been driven home this week yet again as the Nationalist Congress party 'celebrated' its tenth anniversary. Only days before the 'celebration' one of its senior leaders and party MP, Padamsinh Patil was arrested for murder, a grim reminder of the creeping criminalisation of Maharashtra's political elite. And just a fortnight ago, one of its founders, P A Sangma, had apologized to Sonia Gandhi for raising the foreign origins issue. If ever there was ever a prize for a political somersault then this was a gold medal winning effort. Ah, Mr Sangma! A decade ago, the ever-smiling former Lok Sabha speaker from Meghalaya had been the driving force behind the anti-Sonia campaign, using every forum to target the Congress chief. Yet, at the ministerial swearing in of....




More about Rajdeep Sardesai
Rajdeep Sardesai is the Editor-in-Chief, IBN18 Network, that includes CNN-IBN, IBN 7 and IBN Lokmat. He comes with 22 years of journalistic experience during which he has covered some of the biggest stories in India and the world. Prior to setting up the IBN network, he was the Managing Editor of both NDTV 24X7 and NDTV India and was responsible for overseeing the news policy for both the channels. He has also worked with The Times of India for six years and was the city editor of its Mumbai edition at the age of 26. During the last 22 years, he has covered major national and international stories, specialising in national politics. He has won numerous other awards for journalistic excellence, including the prestigious Padma Shri for journalism in 2008, the International Broadcasters Award for coverage of the 2002 Gujarat riots and the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award for 2007. He has won the Asian Television Award for best talk show for the Big Fight on two occasions and his current flagship show on CNN-IBN, India at 9, has been awarded the best news show at the Asian awards for the last two years. He has been News Anchor of the year at the Indian Television Academy for seven of the last eight years and won more than 50 awards in this period. He has also been the President of the Editors Guild of India, the only television journalist to hold the post and was chosen a Global leader for tomorrow by the world economic forum in 2000. An alumni of St Xavier's College, Mumbai, he has done his Masters and LLB from Oxford University and has also played first class cricket for the Oxford University team. He has contributed to several books and writes a fortnightly column that appears in seven newspapers.



Recent Posts
Archives

























displayed with permission. Use of the CNN name and/or logo on or as part of CNN-IBN does not derogate from the intellectual property rights of Cable News Network in respect of them.