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Business Standard
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Business Standard
Wild Fictions: A literary journey with Amitav Ghosh through time, terrain
Often, collections like this can be read in whatever manner the reader desires, without losing any of the essence. You dip in, read what you fancy and then skip to another part Ranjona Banerji Listen to This Article Wild Fictions: Essays by Amitav Ghosh Published by Fourth Estate 471 pages ₹799 This is a collection of articles and essays, and 'presentations', which the writer emphasises are something other than the first two. There is an epistolary exchange, there are comments on other writers, and there are lectures. Most have been published in journals. Therefore, it is possible that the reader may have come across some before. At the outset, a full disclaimer: I am a fan of Amitav Ghosh's writing, both fiction and non-fiction. The extent of his research and understanding, coupled with his fluid and evocative style of writing, makes him
Chicago Tribune
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Laura Washington: Journalism jobs may be in decline but local news still has a bright future
Everywhere I go, I hear, 'What is happening to the media? What will become of it?' I am asking too. Journalists are filled with fear and loathing over the threats facing the Fourth Estate. Money has corrupted national media icons and poisoned the waters for news consumers. Some, including the once-vaunted Washington Post, have bowed down to the illicit demands of President Donald Trump. '60 Minutes,' the once-hallowed CBS newsmagazine, appears to be kowtowing to Trump, who has sued the network for $10 billion, accusing it of 'unlawful and illegal behavior.' Too many buy into Trump's claim that we are the arbiters of 'fake news.' Trump signed an executive order commanding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to 'cease federal funding for NPR and PBS.' On Truth Social, he labeled those public networks 'RADICAL LEFT 'MONSTERS' THAT SO BADLY HURT OUR COUNTRY!' Legacy media operations are enduring debilitating buyouts, layoffs and shutdowns. The nation has lost more than one-third of its newspapers since 2005, with 130 newspapers closing in the most recent 12-month period, according to a 2024 study by Medill Local News Initiative at Northwestern University. The current political climate has made journalists the boogeymen for all that is wrong with our nation. When Democracy is at its greatest threat, the media is at its weakest. So, Chicago Women Take Action, a multigenerational activist group, convened a discussion with prominent media makers and communicators. Last week's virtual program, 'Is the Press Still Free?' posed questions about the role of media in our democracy, the state of journalism, and swirling controversies about media ownership and perils are nothing new, but there is hope for new solutions, Sylvia Ewing, vice president of journalism and media engagement at the Public Narrative, told Laurie Glenn, the moderator and president and CEO of Thinkinc. 'I'm here to say that we are at the best of times and the worst of times. … When we look at legacy media, things were not perfect. We always had bias, we always had point of view. We always had fewer Black women or people of color or women leading newsrooms, leading editorial shops. And what we see now, with the advent of the implementation of Project 2025, is frightening, but not insurmountable.' Now, our imperfect media is suffering from massive losses in advertising revenue and intense competition from the digital explosion and AI. Under Trump's corrosive attacks, some are surrendering, Tracy Baim said. Baim is the founder of the Windy City Times, which reports on the LGBTQ community, and a former publisher of the Chicago Reader. 'I think the problem we've had with some of these national organs is they've never really had to face an administration trying to control them in the way that this one is. And we see how fast they cave because of their business interests. They want mergers. They want, you know, favorability,' Baim said. She now serves as executive director of Press Forward Chicago, a pooled philanthropic fund housed at the Chicago Community Trust. The plan is to pour millions of dollars into revitalizing local, community-based, independent media organizations in the Chicago area. 'For me, all politics is local,' Baim said. 'All news is local. Everything bubbles up from there.' The water crisis in Flint, Michigan 'was a local story that bubbled up nationally. And then you look to how the trends are across the country with clean water. Well, that's what I believe in: strong local media.' Fresh out of journalism school, I yearned to hone my craft at one of Chicago's big dailies. Instead, I spent much of my career at The Chicago Reporter, then one of only a handful of nonprofit news outlets in Chicago. Today, there are dozens. These small but mightily independent and award-winning news shops have popped up like tulips in spring. They represent journalism's bright future. They include the Invisible Institute, which advocates for police and criminal justice reform, and won a Pulitzer Prize last year. Borderless reports on thorny immigration issues. Chalkbeat is the go-to education watchdog. Block Club Chicago covers city neighborhoods on a micro level. The Investigative Project on Race and Equity deploys data to expose racist and economically unjust policies and practices. Unlike the bad old days, many actually join forces to collaborate. No city in the nation boasts as rich a media ecosystem as Chicago. Therein lies the hope. Journalists and media advocates like Ewing say they will 'expand our horizons of what it means to be in journalism and media.' 'How do we … curate and aggregate the existing voices that are reaching lots of people, and then also make sure that others are growing?' Baim asked. 'To me, I'm focused on the local but there are some national voices that are, are, kind of making it through the noise.' What is happening to the media? Local and independent outlets are well positioned to drown out the noise of capitulation and amplify local, independent voices. Bring them on.
Scroll.in
10-05-2025
- Business
- Scroll.in
TV coverage of the conflict is rage bait masquerading as news. How did India get here?
On Thursday, as the India-Pakistan crisis boiled over on Indian television screens, what followed wasn't journalism – it was a full-blown circus. Panic, nationalism and pure noise surged in real time. Anchors shouted over each other. 'Breaking' graphics danced across screens. By Friday morning, it was clear: what people had consumed wasn't news. It was a frenzy of misinformation – unverified, sensational and largely fake. A question echoed through group chats and social media timelines: Where do we go for real news? Who do we trust now? Here's the uncomfortable answer: you don't get real news because you never really paid for it. The problem isn't just that audiences today won't pay. It's that journalism in India was never meant to be reader-funded. For over a century, advertising subsidised the Fourth Estate. Newspapers and magazines were built on ads. The mission was public service; the money came from private sponsorship. That model has collapsed. And nothing has replaced it. The ad game is over -– and newsrooms lost Today, most digital ad money no longer goes to media houses – it flows directly to tech giants. Why? Because these platforms (Google, Facebook and more) offer advertisers what journalism can't: scale, attention and precision targetting. Algorithms now drive the sale. Traditional media, once propped up by full-page ads and prime-time sponsors, now limps along with shrinking newsrooms, shuttered bureaus and eroded credibility. Audiences do open their wallets –but for streaming platforms,and wellness products. There's an illusion that news is free because information is everywhere. But what's abundant isn't journalism – it's noise. Rage bait. Viral content. And in a system driven by reach, what spreads fastest isn't the most accurate – it's the most provocative. India's media: Reach over ethics India's $30 billion media and entertainment industry doesn't run on ethics – it runs on metrics. Television channels don't need viewers to pay; they need advertisers to spend. In this model, the viewer isn't the customer but the product. The goal isn't to inform the public – it's to maximise reach, sustain attention, and keep the ratings high. All legacy media outlets have buckled under pressure. Budgets have been slashed. Photo departments shut. Reporters turned into content creators. Editors no longer shape the agenda – they follow it. Entire organisations now rely on studio pundits who haven't set foot in the field for years. The few exceptions – small public-interest newsrooms – are barely holding on. The no-truth economy We are not in a post-truth era. We are in a no-truth economy. Journalism has been priced out – first by advertisers, then by algorithms and finally by our apathy. This isn't about the public being naive. Some of the poorest citizens understand democracy best – they file applications using the Right to Information Act, petition courts and invoke the Constitution. But the middle class and elite, numbed by liberalisation and its dopamine drip, have become strange creatures: distrustful of institutions, yet loyal to power; addicted to spectacle, but allergic to complexity. Even the opposition has stopped trusting the media. During the Bharat Jodo Yatra, Rahul Gandhi ignored legacy media and gave interviews to YouTubers – because even politicians now know where the audience has gone. On Friday morning, my father – who has lived through several previous wars – called me. 'How can the media be this reckless during a national crisis?' he asked. He wasn't being rhetorical. He remembered the trenches dug in our yard, the blackouts, the uncertainty – and a time when journalists verified facts before going to print. When trust was earned slowly, one byline at a time. That era is long gone. Will the next generation aspire to be journalists? In this warped media economy, the brightest young Indians no longer dream of becoming journalists. Why would they? They see no future, no money, no security – only a moral burden and in many cases, a hostile newsroom. The truth was always there. We just didn't pay for it We scroll through curated chaos, forward propaganda, and treat journalism like a free buffet. But when news is free, it's not journalism. It's narrative – funded by whoever can afford the mic. Elsewhere in the world, fragile but functional alternatives exist. Media organisations in the West survive on reader contributions and philanthropic funding. The ones making a comeback are rebuilding trust with something worth paying for: investigations, data journalism, verification, fieldwork. India has none of these protections. No media endowments. No independent media barons. No civic-minded capital. Our version of capitalism has no stake in truth. So we built an entertainment machine where journalism should have been – and now it's devouring the foundations of our democracy. Whenever efforts are made, there is mindless pushback. A rare example is the Independent and Public-Spirited Media Foundation, established by philanthropists such as Azim Premji, Rohini Nilekani and Kiran Mazumdar Shaw among others to fund independent journalism. Still, in September 2022, it faced an income tax 'survey' – a move that underscored how even transparent, homegrown initiatives are not immune to pressure. So what now? We fund journalism. Not opinions. Not influencers. Not fake debates. Real reporting. In depth investigations. Good photojournalism. Editorial independence that doesn't bow to pressure. Stories that take time, risk, and money – because that's the cost of truth. It's not a hard choice. It's just one we keep avoiding. We don't get real news because we refuse to pay for it. So pay up. Or get used to living in a country where the truth has no sponsor – and no future.
The Spinoff
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Spinoff
The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending May 9
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books' stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1 Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic, $30) 'Believe the hype,' said Unity Bookseller Eden Denyer in their review of this latest instalment of the Hunger Games. 2 Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Jonathan Cape, $26) Samantha Harvey is touching down on Aotearoa soil any day now as the Booker Prize winner is starring in this year's Auckland Writers Festival. 3 Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work by Sarah Wynn-Williams (Pan UK, $40) From surviving shark attacks to surviving Meta, this is the exposé of the year. Read Julie Hill's review of Wynn-Williams' words on her previous place of work on The Spinoff. 4 Eurotrash by Christian Kracht (Serpents Tail, $30) A mother-son story like no other. 5 Butter by Asako Yuzuki (Fourth Estate, $35) Asako Yuzuki is also winging her way to Aotearoa for the Auckland Writers Festival and we hope she has a delicious time! 6 Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Fourth Estate, $38) Auckland Writers Festival's digital event with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has been cancelled ('due to unforeseen circumstances') and replaced by this one, which looks extremely different but extremely interesting. 7 Red Team Blues by Cory Doctorow (Ad Astra, $37) Doctorow did a whirlwind tour of Aotearoa over the weekend and brought hordes of fans to Unity's doors. Red Team Blues is a novel about a forensic accountant in Silicon Valley and crypto and crime. 8 Chokepoint Capitalism by Cory Doctorow & Rebecca Giblin (Scribe Publications, $37) A huge deal when it came out in 2022, this nonfiction book is about what exactly chokepoint capitalism is and why it's choking us. Here's the blurb: 'In Chokepoint Capitalism, scholar Rebecca Giblin and writer and activist Cory Doctorow argue we're in a new era of 'chokepoint capitalism', with exploitative businesses creating insurmountable barriers to competition that enable them to capture value that should rightfully go to others. All workers are weakened by this, but the problem is especially well illustrated by the plight of creative workers. By analysing book publishing and news, live music and music streaming, screenwriting, radio, and more, Giblin and Doctorow deftly show how powerful corporations construct 'anti-competitive flywheels' designed to lock in users and suppliers, make their markets hostile to new entrants, and then force workers and suppliers to accept unfairly low prices. In the book's second half, Giblin and Doctorow explain how to batter through those chokepoints, with tools ranging from transparency rights to collective action and ownership, radical interoperability, contract terminations, job guarantees, and minimum wages for creative work.' 9 Better the Blood by Michael Bennett (Simon & Schuster, $27) Brilliantly done crime novel from an Aotearoa king of crime (and guest curator at Auckland Writers Festival). Here's the blurb: 'Detective Senior Sergeant Hana Westerman is a tenacious Māori detective juggling single motherhood and the pressures of her career in Auckland's Central Investigation Branch. When she's led to a crime scene by a mysterious video, she discovers a man hanging in a hidden room. With little to go on, Hana knows one thing: the killer is sending her a message. As a Māori officer, there has always been a clash between duty and culture for Hana, but it is something that she's found a way to live with. Until now. When more murders follow, Hana realises that her heritage and past are the keys to finding the perpetrator.' 10 Safekeep by Yael Van Der Wouden (Viking Penguin, $38) A terrific, terrific novel that was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2024 and whose author is … you guessed it, appearing at next week's Auckland Writers Festiva l. Here's the blurb: 'It's 1961 and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the war is well and truly over. Living alone in her late mother's country home, Isabel's life is as it should be: led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her brother Louis delivers his graceless new girlfriend, Eva, at Isabel's doorstep-as a guest, there to stay for the season… Eva is Isabel's antithesis: sleeps late, wakes late, walks loudly through the house and touches things she shouldn't. In response Isabel develops a fury-fuelled obsession, and when things start disappearing around the house-a spoon, a knife, a bowl-Isabel' suspicions spiral out of control. In the sweltering peak of summer, Isabel's paranoia gives way to desire – leading to a discovery that unravels all Isabel has ever known. The war might not be well and truly over after all, and neither Eva – nor the house in which they live – are what they seem.' WELLINGTON 1 The Art and Making of Arcane: League of Legends by Elizabeth Vincentelli (Titan Books, $99) 'The Art and Making of Arcane is an immersive journey behind the scenes of the Emmy Award-winning Animated Series!' 2 Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic, $30) 3 Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work by Sarah Wynn-Williams (Pan UK, $40) 4 Silverborn: The Mystery of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend (Lothian Children's Books, $25) The fourth instalment in the absolutely brilliant fantasy series set in the world of Nevermoor. In this novel Morrigan Crow is about to turn 14 and her life is only getting more complicated: this hefty adventure includes finding lost family, a whole new part of Nevermoor we've never seen before, new friends as well as new enemies, and murder! A must-read series for ages seven to those who feel at least 700. 5 Amma by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press, $38) Welcome back The Spinoff's best book of 2024 according to our readers! 6 The Cat Who Saved the Library by Sosuke Natsukawa (Picador, $25) Another cosy, bookish, cat-filled novel to comfort you during the long, chilly months of winter. 7 The Garden Against Time by Olivia Laing (Picador, $28) Welcome back! This beautiful book marries memoir with research into the why and the what of gardens. Laing details the making and breaking of her own garden alongside research into what gardens and gardening means to humanity at large. 8 How to Be Enough: Seven Life-Changing Steps for Self-critics, Overthinkers and Perfectionists by Ellen Hendriksen (Bonnier, $40) Phwoar. Attacked. 9 Moral Ambition: Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference by Rutger Bregman (Bloomsbury, $39) Whoa! Double punch. 10 38 Londres Street: On Impunity, Pinochet in England and a Nazi in Patagonia by Philippe Sands (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, $40) 'In 38 Londres Street, Philippe Sands blends personal memoir, historical detective work and gripping courtroom drama to probe a secret double story of mass murder, one that reveals a shocking thread that links the horrors of the 1940s with those of our own times,' reads the publisher's blurb. 'The house at 38 Londres Street is home to the legacies of two men whose personal stories span continents, nationalities and decades of atrocity: Augusto Pinochet, President of Chile, and Walther Rauff, a Nazi SS officer responsible for the use of gas vans.' The Spinoff Books section is proudly brought to you by Unity Books and Creative New Zealand. Visit Unity Books online today.
The Age
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
‘Inconvenient women', mortality and a controversial work by Joan Didion: 13 new books to delve into
So here we are, going into the last month of autumn and if you're one of those people getting ready to hunker down in the impending cooler weather then there are plenty of new books for you to stock up on. Memoirs, fiction, science, even a controversial posthumous publication − so much to feast on. No wonder May is named after Maia, the Roman goddess for fertility and growth. Always Home, Always Homesick Hannah Kent Picador, $36.99 April 29 Burial Rites, about the last woman executed in Iceland, was one of those books that captured the imagination of readers when it was published in 2013. Now Hannah Kent has written a lovely memoir about the curious path she took to becoming a writer − an exchange program took her as a 17-year-old to Iceland, a country she chose because she had never seen snow. She had the luck, she writes, to be born into a story-loving family and with that legacy has written three novels and now this tender account of how Iceland captivated her and forged her literary career. Desire Paths Megan Clement Ultimo, $36.99 April 29 In her introduction, Megan Clement, who has lived in Australia, France, England and Zimbabwe, writes that 2020 was the year when 'grief' and 'trauma' were dropped into the cultural mainstream. In the course of this touching and carefully constructed memoir of dealing with the stringencies of the Melbourne lockdowns and the impending death of her terminally ill father, she also considers the nature of home, belonging and the meaning and realities of borders. Little World Josephine Rowe Black Inc., $27.99 April 29 Orrin Bird has been left an unusual bequest − the incorruptible body of a saint in a box made of canoe wood. (Remember the saint in Charlotte Wood's Stone Yard Devotional?) The saint was young when thought to have died brutally, but her mind is still active, 'time breaking contract with her body' and 'death has brought very little in the way of answers'. In clear prose, this short, idiosyncratic novel brings us the people with whom the little saint 'travels' through time and landscape, her response to their predicaments and her reflections on her own existence. A remarkable concoction. Everything Lost, Everything Found Matthew Hooton HarperCollins, $34.99 April 30 What was it Faulkner said? 'The past is never dead. It's not even past.' The revisiting of earlier events occurs in many novels, and does so again in Matthew Hooton's much-admired third. Jack is 12 years old when his mother is mauled by a croc in the Tapajos River in Brazil. Many years later, Jack, by now a grandfather, recognises he doesn't 'have infinite time to curate my own past' as his wife Gracie 'slips into ever longer states of forgetting'. But how can he come to terms with the past and his present? Lonely Mouth Jacqueline Maley Fourth Estate, $34.99 April 30 The first novel by Jacqueline Maley, columnist with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, became a bestseller. Her second opens with a paragraph that leaps off the page and plunges you into the story of Matilda, a fry chef at posh Sydney restaurant Bocca, her younger half-sister Lara, a model who lives in Paris, and their flighty mum, Barbara. When Lara's father, the decidedly dodgy actor Angus, reappears in their lives, any sort of equilibrium goes up in smoke. It's hard to put down. Notes to John Joan Didion Fourth Estate, $34.99 April 30 This book is slightly problematic. You wonder whether its author − were she still alive − would have approved of its publication. Joan Didion wrote the adored Year of Magical Thinking, about the 2003 death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne. This posthumous book consists of notes addressed to him reporting on sessions with her psychiatrist, and reveals frank comments about their adopted daughter Quintana, alcoholism, depression and much more. If you love Didion, you'll probably want to read this. I Want Everything Dominic Amerena Summit Books, $34.99 April 30 'I acted immorally, but what did literature have to do with morality?' asks the would-be literary star − 'a style machine with no substance' − early in this absorbing novel about truth and ambition. The unnamed narrator stumbles on a controversial, reclusive author − 'sharply chiselled cheekbones, like the bust of a deposed dictator' − and proceeds to try to find out why she disappeared from the public eye. But to woo Brenda's trust, he tells a porky or three, and she might just be leading him on for her own purposes. All will be revealed in Dominic Amerena's delicious debut. The Opposite of Lonely Hilde Hinton Hachette, $32.99 April 30 The world takes its toll and Rose is well aware of that. Somehow, she seems to have shaken off friends, her father has died, her husband is no longer her husband and even her young son Max is trying her patience more than usual. After a near disaster while out shopping, a knight in shining armour comes to the rescue; Ellie, who becomes her new bestie. Loneliness is a curse at the best of times, so a friend indeed for a friend in need is a good thing … usually. Hilde Hinton has written another gentle and perceptive look at the travails of life. Vaccine Nation Raina MacIntyre NewSouth, $34.99 May 1 Biosecurity expert Raina MacIntyre's latest book is a lament at the rise since 2020 of health disinformation and a plea to understand the value of vaccinations given the sad inevitability of a new pandemic. She points out that flu vaccinations in Australia in the over 65s are at 60 per cent, whereas only a few years ago, 70 per cent was the norm. To improve public perception of vaccines and public health, according to MacIntyre, we need 'political will, global cooperation and an integrated approach'. Inconvenient Women Jacqueline Kent NewSouth, $34.99 May 1 Jacqueline Kent's titular women are the 'daughters of the suffragists, the mothers of … 1970s feminists'. These are the writers, ranging from Jean Devanny, author of the controversial The Butcher Shop, to Kath Walker (Oodgeroo Noonuccal), Katharine Susannah Prichard and Nettie Palmer, who 'used their power with words in support of their beliefs, and to question and change elements of the world'. There are plenty of familiar names, but many not so well known, and Kent brings her cast of writers effortlessly to life. The Power of Choice Julian Kingma NewSouth, $49.99 May 1 Julian Kingma is a wonderful photographer. In this book, he has chosen to photograph terminally ill people who have decided to make use of Voluntary Assisted Dying legislation to ease their anxiety about death and regain dignity through their control of it. His stark black and white images are confronting, tender, beautiful, and terribly revealing. As 82-year-old former yoga teacher Liberty Pack says, 'I have no anxiety. I have a very peaceful feeling about the way my end will be.' The Power of Choice also has short introductions by Andrew Denton and Richard Flanagan. The Emperor of Gladness Ocean Vuong Jonathan Cape, $34.99 May 13 The American poet and novelist won acclaim for his first novel, the brilliantly titled On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, and follows it up with a story that begins with 19-year-old Haia about to jump from a bridge. He is stopped by an old Latvian woman, Grazina, suffering from dementia, who invites the troubled youth to stay with her. Both are struggling, but the connection they form through their friendship − their love − from their particular edges of American society brings meaning to them both. Loading The Names Florence Knapp Phoenix, $32.99 May 13 Does it matter what name you have? In Florence Knapp's first novel, Cora gives birth to a boy and wants to call him Julian. Her domineering husband reckons he should be named Gordon, as he is, while her nine-year-old daughter, Maia, reckons the moniker should be Bear. And so Knapp gives us three versions of the boy's life when the family circumstances are at times grim, and his life takes differing paths depending on his name. There's big word of mouth in the publishing world about this sliding doors novel.
