Thoughts on Journalism from Journalists

With changing times and changing patterns of 'content consumption,' journalism itself has undergone major changes and journalists have had to adapt to the new ways of doing things

I have no formal education in journalism, haven’t studied journalism in a college and do not have a degree or a diploma in journalism. And yet, I’ve worked as a journalist for close to three decades and have been fortunate enough to have written for leading newspapers, magazines and websites across the country. I started in the mid-1990s, when there was only print and television. Over the years, with the rise of the Internet, I saw the Web become the dominant medium, what with thousands of websites, blogs, YouTube channels, along with social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram vying for people’s attention and diminishing the power that print and TV once had.

Target Design: In Conversation with Hans-Georg Kasten

Hans-Georg Kasten was one of the three men at Target Design who were responsible for designing the 1980s Suzuki Katana. He is now the Managing Director of Target Design 

Launched in 1981, the Suzuki Katana 1100 had relatively conventional mechanicals – the engine, chassis and suspension were pretty standard for its time – but the styling was radical, and made the motorcycling world sit up and take note. The bike was Japanese, of course, but was designed in Germany by Target Design. There was a three-man team that worked on the Katana’s design: Jan Fellstrom, Hans-Georg Kasten and Hans Muth. Back in 2012, I had an opportunity to do a brief interview with Hans-Georg Kasten, who is now Managing Director of Target Design. Here are some excerpts from that conversation.

Book Review: Crypto Crimes - Inside India’s Best-Kept Secret

Everyone wants to get rich quick and some believe crypto is one way to get there

Cryptocurrency. Bitcoin. Digital assets. While the vast majority of people in India (and probably elsewhere in the world) have heard of these terms, most have very little or no understanding of what these really are, what they mean and what drives their value. And yet, many still believe that dabbling in these might somehow open the gateways to earning massive sums of money. This is, perhaps, what is truly amazing about cryptocurrencies – how little people understand these and how, despite having no idea of their underlying value (or the complete lack of it, depending on who you ask) they’re still prepared to invest in these anyway. Greed? Speculation? Yes, but given their meteoric rise in prices over the last 15 years, crypto can be an irresistible lure for some. Back in 2010, some guy named Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 Bitcoin for two Papa John’s pizzas. At that time, one Bitcoin was equal to around two or three US dollars. Today, one Bitcoin is valued at US$64,470. Can’t blame Hanyecz though; given its lack of any real, measurable value, who could have predicted Bitcoin’s crazy price trajectory?

Western Media Narratives on India: In Conversation with Umesh Upadhyay

Published earlier this year, Western Media Narratives on India: From Gandhi to Modi explores how cultural imperialism influences the Third-World nations. ‘Media in the hands of the former colonizers that wish to maintain their sway has become a tool to dictate people’s thoughts. Focussed on India, this narrative spans from the nation’s independence in 1947 to the present day, scrutinizing the relentless targeting of Indian leadership by the dominant Western English media. With time, these attacks have intensified, particularly on a resurgent India,’ says the publisher’s note.

Past Perfect: Honda CB1100RS

1980s-styling, modern-day brakes, tyres and suspension. The Honda CB1100RS, which is now sadly out of production, is my dream bike. How times change!

‘We look before and after, and pine for what is not,’ said English poet Percy Shelley, two-hundred years ago. The English poet was definitely no biker-boy, but what he said does apply to motorcycles as well. Well, at least for some of us. Let me explain. When I was young, I lusted after the latest, fastest, most powerful sportsbikes and superbikes – Suzuki GSX-Rs, Yamaha FZRs, Honda CBRs and Kawasaki ZXR Ninjas. Exotic Ducatis and Bimotas. And BMWs, which were always a bit weird. These were machines I only saw in the pages of second-hand foreign magazines like Cycle World and Bike, copies of which I was sometimes able to get in bookshops in Hazratganj, in Lucknow. At that time, I used to have a Yamaha RX100, which had an 11bhp, two-stroke engine that loved to rev its heart out. Eleven horsepower isn’t really much, but the magic was in the way in which the Yamaha engine delivered that power – instant acceleration and long wheelies in 1^st gear. I can’t begin to tell you how much I loved that Yamaha.

Book Review: India’s Most Legendary Restaurants

Across the length and breadth of the country, India has one of the richest, most diverse food cultures anywhere in the world. For committed gastronomes, some of the most authentic, soul-satisfying food experiences can often be found in people’s homes. But these aren’t always accessible and certainly not to everyone. And that’s where restaurants come in – almost every city in India has a selection of eateries that have made a name for themselves over the years, specialising in the local cuisine, with the flavours amped up and taken to whole new level, achieved via a mix of carefully selected ingredients and cooking techniques developed over many years, sometimes many decades. And the best part is, you’re just as likely to find such legendary eateries inside a five-star hotel as on a nondescript streetside corner.

Why We Die: Book Review

Death is the final frontier, the inevitable end. We know that and yet most of us find it difficult to deal with thoughts of dying and of death. With major advances in medical science over the last 100 years or so, doctors and scientists have been able to increase human lifespans, but in the end, we have to accept that human bodies simply aren’t built to last forever. Ultimately, death still wins. Always. For those who might be inclined to ask why, Nobel Prize winner, molecular biologist Venki Ramakrishnan’s recently published book, Why We Die: The New Science of Ageing and the Quest for Immortality has some answers.

‘We are living through a revolution in biology. Giant strides are being made in understanding why we age—and why some species live longer than others. Could we eventually cheat disease and death and live for a very long time, possibly many times our current lifespan? Venki Ramakrishnan, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and former president of the Royal Society, takes us on a riveting journey to the frontiers of biology, asking whether we must be mortal,’ says the publisher’s note. ‘Covering recent breakthroughs in scientific research, he examines the cutting edge of efforts to extend lifespan by altering our physiology. But might death serve a necessary biological purpose? What are the social and ethical costs of attempting to live forever? Why We Die is a narrative of uncommon insight and beauty from one of our leading public intellectuals,’ it adds.

Book Review: The Pursuit of Reputation

Let’s start with an honest admission. While I’ve worked as a journalist for most of the last 25-30 years, I have also worked in Public Relations and Corporate Communications for a few years. With a German car manufacturer, in Formula 1, with India’s only F1 and MotoGP circuit, and with a leading agency that’s headquartered in Bombay. So, I can claim to have seen both sides of the coin as a journalist and as a PR professional. And yet – and this is the surprising part – even after having spending a few years working in PR, I don’t think I’ve ever been able to fully understand what PR is all about. 

At one time, in the distant past, PR used to be mostly about sending out press releases and then following up with newspapers and magazines for media coverage. Now, what with the rise of bloggers, vloggers, social media influencers, YouTube, smartphones, apps and a thousand other digital doodads, I’m told PR is much more complex – a ‘strategic’ function that’s at least as important as marketing. These days, we have highly-paid specialists who ‘craft’ ‘PR strategy’ for companies and going by the terms they use – content marketing, earned media, owned media, paid media, positioning strategy, messaging strategy, share of voice, advertising equivalence value and many more – the PR pros are giving MBA types a run for their money when it comes to using buzzwords.

Book Review: Fluke – Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters

In his book, Fluke, author Brian Klaas presents some powerful ideas that might make you reconsider the way you approach life and its many complexities

Think about this for a second. There are currently more than a billion websites in the world, about 200 million of which are active. Two hundred million active websites. And here you are, on The Lucknow Wallah, reading about Fluke. In the larger scheme of things, how random is that? What might have been the probability of you ever visiting this website and spending 2-3 minutes of your life reading this particular article? Infinitesimal, perhaps. And yet, here we are. Pure chance? Think about the biggest movie stars, the richest businessmen, and the most successful people in the world, regardless of what their profession might be. How did they get there? Are they necessarily the smartest, brightest, most talented, most knowledgeable, most hardworking people in the world? Sure, they probably do have one or more of those qualities, but there may well be many others with at least as many – and perhaps more – of the qualities that are required in order to succeed, and yet they don’t achieve the same levels of fame, success, money etc. Ever wondered why that might be?