Pradeep Nair

Contextualizing Fake News in Post-truth Era: Journalism Education in India

The current debate on fake-news is heavily focused on American and British post-truth politics and the tactical use of ‘alternative facts’. However, the concerns about the impact of fake news on journalism are not restricted to European and American contexts only. This commentary attempts to examine journalism practice and training in India in the post-truth era. Unlike the issues projected in the American debate on the need to reengage and empathize with the non-elite audience and the rise of a fact-checking culture, the apprehensions appear to be slightly different in other countries. In India, tackling the post-truth era challenges is also about addressing obstructive institutional forces like inactive regulatory bodies and out-dated curricula in University-based journalism programmes. The commentary argues that Indian journalism educators should focus on formulating a dynamic curriculum framework that integrates collaborative verification practices with an emphasis on reengaging with the audience to address the enigmatic post-truth politics in the country.

Smart City: A Failed Approach to Urban Regeneration for Indian Cities

City is not a new phenomenon. Civilizations like Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Indus valley had a rich culture of urban life. However, not more than ten per cent of population of these civilizations used to live in cities (Modelski, 1997). Cities were dependent of villages to meet their everyday needs. They were geographically small and less populated as compared to the Modern Cities. Urban life was not much different in the cities of these civilization than that of the cities of pre-industrialization. Industrialization first happened in 16th century in North-West Europe specifically in Britain and Denmark. Later on it spread to other part of Europe and America. By 20th century it spread its legs to the African and Asian continent in the form of colonization. New modes of social and economic life became evident in all part of the world and this marked the onset of new age called ‘modernization.’ Modernization redefined urban life and urbanization became a mandatory precondition to modernization. Urban-Rural relationship experienced a paradigm shift. New socio-politico environment put villages at back stage. Village resources were drained out to support urban life. A dependency of rural upon urban was created. As a result urbanization increased rapidly. At present there are such countries in the world where urbanization has reached to more than 90 per cent (Geoffrey, 2005). India has 31 percent of her population living in urban area with a growth rate of 2.3 per cent per year (Mani, 2016).

Ideological Neutrality(!): The Difficulty in Teaching Political Journalism to Students Who Want to Be Advocates

Journalism as a practice is mandated to disseminate information. It plays the role of an intermediary between the power ‘haves’, the power ‘less’ and the marginalized. This commentary considers how journalism, being a political activity, cannot be bereft of ideology, particularly in a country—India—where many journalists openly allow their ideological beliefs to be reflected in their reporting of political issues. Subsequently, the authors question the pedagogy of teaching political journalism in an environment in which there is a clear divide between the academicians and the practitioners.