Comments on: Dear Mr. Vir Sanghvi

By: Ashutosh Srivastava

Ashutosh Srivastava — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 02:31:40 +0000

I am not a a blogger and rarely tweet, but I really feel sorry for Vir Sanghvi. He was a very good journalist when at Sunday, but has completelyt lost the plot now.
Sadly it happens to a lot of people who are in the limelight in media, they begin to actually believe they are what the media is making them out to be. I’ve never read a posting so full of contradictions !

By: Rishi

Rishi — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:14:59 +0000

“For that matter, there are a billion different opinions in India, how can anyone represent every single one ?”

Which is why traditional media, being so popular, must be a better representation of what Indians want (as compared to blogging).

By: Lekhni

Lekhni — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:31:14 +0000

No, bloggers don’t become elitist because we don’t represent a cross-section of people, because all we can do is represent ourselves For that matter, there are a billion different opinions in India, how can anyone represent every single one ?

I’d hate to take myself too seriously, and I haven’t seen any indication that other bloggers do. Vir Sanghvi and bloggers can disagree on TRPs and still have a civil discussion, right? Why does he feel the need to hurl gratuitous epithets like “arrogant” at bloggers just because they disagree with him?

He did take pains, though, to tell bloggers he does not consider them “sad losers who escape from their pathetic little lives by spending hours abusing other people on the net”. That makes me so relieved and happy, I tell you, it made my day

By: Help! I’m an elite blogger in a dark room | BlogHalt.com (Pre-Launch)

Help! I’m an elite blogger in a dark room | BlogHalt.com (Pre-Launch) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:06:45 +0000

[...] or may not understand, is that if other ‘elite’ bloggers like Amit Varma, Rohit, and Lekhni have already refuted not just the underlying arguments in the column blog post but also every major [...]

By: Rishi

Rishi — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:43:36 +0000

I quite frankly don’t think there’s anything wrong in what he has written. He does start off by saying that traditional media too is sort of elitist, doesn’t he? Surely we can’t for a minute believe that Indian blogs are a fair representation of what the entire cross-section of Indians feel, can we? That makes us elitist, no?

Also, nowhere in his blog does he exclude himself from this definition. Sure, he’s elitist too. After all, he is an Indian blogger, having access to a medium that 96%+ of his fellow countrymen don’t.

We frown on India TV and all – they are too low brow for us perhaps. But they do have a viewership, don’t they?

My only problem with TV journos is that they take themselves too seriously. And with that single blog post, VS seems to have somehow managed to show that bloggers do to.

By: Lekhni

Lekhni — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 12:57:05 +0000

That is a very interesting perspective. Journalism schools still teach investigative journalism and writing skills, but unfortunately the first is dying and the second, well, you only have to read the spelling and grammatical mistake-filled reporting that appears on most newspapers and magazines these days

By: Gautam

Gautam — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 05:21:03 +0000

I would suggest Vir Sanghvi to read Clay Shirky’s “here comes everybody” – Clay basically writes that the profession of the journalist is an artificial construct – primarily because of the high entry cost earlier – the cost of owning a printing press and the cost of distribution

When the costs collapse – the profession of journalists is under threat – as there is no special body of knowledge that separates a journalist from a “lay person” unlike a doctor/accountant/lawyer

Shirky draws a parallel with the profession of the “scribe” that vanished in the 15th century because of Gutenberg’s printing press

Interesting times

By: The clique friendly web | m a n u s c r y p t s

The clique friendly web | m a n u s c r y p t s — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 04:03:01 +0000

[...] one hand, I am in complete agreement with the rebuttals that I have read – Lekhni, Amit, Rohit. Rational and well [...]

By: Lekhni

Lekhni — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:57:49 +0000

I don’t know about Vir Sanghvi’s politics, but I do believe that if a columnist, a journalist or a reporter has any specific political beliefs, affiliation with any political party or contributes to it, he/she should make that link public, and add it as a footnote to each of his/her columns. They should not give readers the mistaken impression that they are independent.