Media Conclave @ IIMB - Vista

This thing came at a moment when I’m nurturing an idea of blog-based media business. And I couldn’t afford to miss this.

Too many cooks spoil the broth.. And spoiling is catalyzed when the cooks are individually great, but kind of fiercely independent .. This started with a topic something like this – “Media, for public good or for business“. The first 10 minutes was something like a typical IMS / TIME GD with some individually great speakers, who spoke great from their perspective, but lot divergent from the central theme.. Perhaps an exception was Business World head Jehangir Pocha

Not surprisingly, Arnab Goswami of Times-Now, was quite pro-business.. In between Arnab’s speech, I tend to get a doubt whether this is an extempore or a discussion :) . News channels and news media are basically businesses – Not something that I can digest completely -- with morality and ethics in which they should operate. Even his examples of one-off instances of ethics and morality failed to impress me.

Sohail Seth spoke in a typical Khushwant Singh style. Arrogant, laced with humorous ( lurid ?? ) comments, yet quite honest :).
Jehangir was quite level – headed in his views..

Some of the questions which came in discussion –

Should media really invest in reporting the news or does media have a responsibility to change the society ? – I believe yes, but how many of the media channels invest in that?

Is media justified in entering into equity arrangements with businesses? Or in general, is a pro-profit socially responsible media kind of an oxymoron?

Towards the end of the meeting – quite the same impression that I had initially itself. Moderator asks something, Arnav answers something totally different – the content impressive – audience applauds -- but has no connection with what the moderator Sonny Abraham asked for. I wonder what would Rajdeep Sardesai / Barkha Dutt have done if he/she was the moderator :)

Career options in media – Jehangir’s take is that the scope is more for entrepreneurs. .Hmmm.. good :).

To sum it up , individually the content was impressive, but collectively not good.

Quotes of the meet -- “A man is as young as the woman whom he feels“ -- Sohail Seth. :)

“You can’t be half pregnant in case of ethical media” – Again Sohail Seth :)

Ajith