The actor Joaquin Phoenix apparently lost his brakes and collided with another car.

Here is what I find terribly annoying about entertainment journalism – it is woefully incomplete. We know the actor lost his brakes. We know his car flipped over. We know he hit someone else. We know he walked away uninjured.

Um, I reread the Associated Press article that was provided to MSNBC.com and was left wondering about the the folks in the car Mr. Phoenix hit? Did they walk away as well? After all, Mr. Phoenix' car “overturned.” And for a car to flip over, it had to have been going pretty darn fast or hit something pretty hard. Trust me, I have seen a SUV get hit and flip over. It ain't pretty. Did he hit a woman, a man, a car-load full of kids? Whom did he hit and are they ok?

Did MSNBC.com edit that crucial portion of the story off so that it makes it into the “celebrity” section of the site? Or, did AP goof things up? In any event, this story relegates itself to the realm of gossip because of inadequate interesting facts and it fails to inform the public at large what really occurred on the road going eastbound above Sunset Strip. Anyone else find this kind of journalism wholly irresponsible?

The Editors Weblog reports that The Hindu will have an ombudsman so that there is greater transparency and “social responsibility” towards its readers. Bravo, Mr. N. Ram for establishing such a position.

Also, for those who haven't had a chance to look at that paper recently, I was pleasantly surprised to see the design and layout of the paper has vastly improved. Gone are the long columns of text broken up by awkwardly phrased headlines. The Hindu now publishes in color, with some very good photography as well. The width of the paper, I noticed, had shrunk to what is called “web size,” making it easy to handle, especially if you had a nice hot cuppa decoction, Madras-style, coffee in the other hand. Mmmmm … brings back fond memories.

Congratulations India. It's your 56th Republic Day today!

via Shankar A. Iyer

Ten Tips for Top Type

Spirit of America is running a wiki for bloggers in countries where speaking your mind can get you tortured, maimed or killed

Who owns Seydou Keita‘s photographs?

The New York Times' Somini Sengupta writes about little-known Indian painter Tyeb Mehta

MailBigFile.com: Yet another online service that helps you transmit large files; images, audio and perhaps even compressed video as long as they are all under 2gb

Daily video and blog posts from the Sundance film festival at Flavorpill

Call for photo entries at Photography Now: 100 Portfolios, deadline is March 10, 2006

Now for some silly comedy

India is bent upon (pun intended) getting asses in the airline seats one way or another. According to Being Reasonble, yoga, is India's Department of Tourism's latest pitch vehicle.

I actually like the kitschy art work. Will the ad campaign work? Is there a way for the DOT to actually track this campaign?

I heard from a faithful reader of this blog today that my instructions for receiving Thrity Umrigar‘s novel The Space Between Us was, well, a bit ambiguous.

So, let me set the record straight. To qualify for the giveaway:

1) Go check out my new wedding photojournalism blog called bliss
2) Sign up to subscribe to the Feedblitz feed on that site – you will see the subscription form on the right hand side [yes, you may unsubscribe after this contest if you wish] 3) Confirm your subscription – you will receive an automatic email from Feedblitz asking if you really want to sign up for bliss
4) Email me your name, address, telephone number from your email account. The email address you should send me this info to is – tiffinbox [at] pipalproductions [dot] com. Subject line should read: “Tiffinbooks Offer: Thrity Umrigar's The Space Between Us.”
5) I'll verify that you have indeed subscribed to bliss and will put your name in a hat with others
6) One randomly chosen name will be the recipient of one copy of the book. Once you win, your name will be removed from the hat. To remain in the contest through the next seven weeks you have to remain subscribed to bliss.

Simple, right? So, good luck.

Please note: All names and contact information will be kept confidential and will not be sold, rented or bartered away. I take your time and privacy very seriously. I hate getting spammed and I hate spammers too. The information you provide me will be used to send you the book, should you win. You may also occasionally receive information about my photographic projects. You are free to unsubscribe from my mailing list(s) at any time.

I have six books left, now that Zehra Khan has laid claim to the first giveaway of the week. Thanks for playing Zehra.

Technorati Tags: bliss, books, contest, Pipal Productions

Check out my new advertisement for the Spring issue of Shaadi Style magazine.

It's things associated with my wedding photojournalism business that has kept me busy. And busy generally means I have kept myself out of trouble.

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Wedding Photojournalism, Seshu, Pipal Productions, Shaadi Style

gMail, which I use extensively, has finally offered the all-mighty DELETE button now outside the drop-down menu. Phew! What took 'em so long? It was a major pain in the arse to delete multiple messages all at once.

I have some 100 gMail invites to give away. Here is how you can get one: 1) Go to bliss, my wedding photojournalism blog, 2) copy and paste any of the post headlines you see there in the text of your email and 3) send it to me at at tiffinbox [at] pipalproductions [dot] com if you are aching to have a whopping 2 gigabyte email account. You will have it set up in no time. You will thank me later, especially when it comes to finding old emails; gMail can't be beat.

What will I think of next to give away for free? Hmmmm …

Technorati Tags: gMail, User Interface Design

Rough Cut: India is Frontline/World‘s 20-minute online video about three Indian-American girls who were adopted from a Calcutta orphanage and return to India for a visit. The film is by Sasha Khoka.

“It is a cinema verite story, rather than the usual reporter-narrated journey that is our trademark. And as an international television program and Web site, we don't normally cover stories that begin in the United States and focus on Americans. But that's why we named our program of online videos Rough Cut. It's an opportunity for us to try something different in our search for the most intriguing ”stories from a small planet.“

Give it a look-see.

Technorati Tags: documentary, film, India, Calcutta, culture

[This blog post is sponsored by Seshu's Pipal Productions – Wedding Photojournalism: Elegant. Memorable. Real.]

Newspapers in the US aren't doing well. It's a beleaguered business awash in red ink and low morale. That's a broad statement and I am sure there are exceptions to this. But if you look at what is going on – shrinking budgets, loss of readers, layoffs, closures and sales – one realizes that the era of newspapers as the only source of news has come to an end.

Television sucked off a great number of people, who with little time on their hands depend on the 11 p.m. newscast to give them the “news” in small morsels and sound bites. The Internet has further supplanted the readership from newspapers because what can be delivered online is, in my opinion, even better than television. It's not just about speed. You certainly have a myriad of options on your computer that your television simply does not offer. Need I say it, newspapers simply cannot compete in this arena anymore.

So, the new king of info is really the Internet. Yet, it too needs to be massaged into something that the audience will return to use and appreciate. And, eventually something that advertisers can depend on for their revenue streams to start flowing again. Take a look at CNN.com or MSNBC.com; you will find succinct articles that are often myopic in nature. The articles on those sites may satisfy a certain class of online readers but it leaves those of us wanting more (yeah, there is always the New Yorker or the NY Times Sunday magazine, right?) with really nothing substantial to munch on. I think this is gross misuse of technology. No, I don't want to be bombarded with long, droning pieces either. The rush to scoop the other channel has quite often had these cable giants correcting their mistakes after the fact. It can be sloppy journalism; maybe fair, but inaccurate as well. Make these errors often enough and your online readership is going to start looking elsewhere for their news.

To their credit, MSNBC.com has showcased some of the best use of multimedia (in its true sense) than any other website. They have the capacity to do so, but also the directive of the management that sees this kind of work as informative and inspirational. The two newspapers that have successfully harnessed the Internet are The New York Times and The Washington Post. Again, there may be more out there, but that's where I head for my news and multimedia presentations on the web.

But more needs to be done. Enter Craig Newmark, of Craigslist.org fame. He may be the man to turn things on its head. As investigative journalists are let go at newspapers, Mr. Newmark intends to hire them for his yet to be named online news project. This should be interesting to watch. Will this turn into yet another “citizen-journalism” project? How will Mr. Newmark account for credibility and accuracy? There are lots of questions, but it is great to see that alternatives are starting to crop up.

Another “newsie” project is by Mike Davidson called Newsvine. I received an invitation to test it out and I will report back here about my experiences. Newsvine, writes Davidson, “is a large-scale news media site which gives you almost all the same stories you read on sites like MSNBC and CNN but presents them in a much more attractive package. Attractive not just in looks but in function as well. At Newsvine, we feel strongly that an article’s life only begins the second it is published. It is only when readers interact with it that it achieves its full impact.”

What are Craig and Mike up to? I think they are giving us, the consumers of news, a bit of a break. A break from getting news pushed to us. By allowing us to go fetch our own news, we are in some sense, in control of what we receive. There may be stories that we may wholly miss. But we do that with regular newspapers anyway as we gloss over headlines. Advertisers should be happy too, as they can target their market a whole lot more accurately now. The old-school, shot-gun approach to attracting the reader's attention (interruptive marketing in Seth Godin's language) will begin to fade as RSS updates from these news sites will be accompanied by text or graphic advertisements that the reader will more likely click on.

I am excited for Craig Newmark and Mike Davidson. I think they have both (Newmark's project is still speculative right now I agree) hit upon a phenomena that will reap them great rewards. And we are the better for it.

If you want to read more about how the tectonic media plates are moving, keep an eye on MediaShift, by Mark Glaser. And, oh, don't forget to subscribe to its RSS feed.

Technorati Tags: alternatives, budgets, CNN.com, industry, Internet, journalism, media, MediaShift, MSNBC.com, New York Times Sunday Magazine, New Yorker, Newsvine, television, The New York Times, The Washington Post