Press Club awards for Prannoy, Arnab

The Press Club-Mumbai will felicitate NDTV’s Dr Prannoy Roy and Srinivasan Jain and Times Now’s Arnab Goswami along with 25 other journalists at its annjual Red Ink awards on Thursday.

Dr Prannoy Roy, Executive Co-Chairman of NDTV Group, has been awarded the 2015 RedInk Award for Lifetime Achievement for Excellence in Journalism for his consistent and pioneering contribution to news television in India, a statement by The Press Club said today.

Dr Roy will be honoured for his service to journalism at a glittering ceremony on Thursday, 30th April in Mumbai at the Jamshed Bhaba Auditorium, NCPA.

Dr Roy along with his wife and journalist Radhika Roy in 1988, were the first to set up a television news production company called New Delhi Television, now called NDTV. In later years, Dr Roy made a mark for his incisive and pioneering coverage of election news and changed the way people consumed TV news with his ground-breaking programmes such as ‘The News Tonight’ and ‘The World This Week’.

After years of producing the news for Star News, Dr Roy launched his own broadcasting network with NDTV 24X7, NDTV India and other channels in 2003. NDTV, one of the largest news networks in the country today, has set up benchmarks for good, ethical and no-frills news coverage.

The RedInk Award for ‘Journalist of the Year’, instituted for the first time, has gone to Sreenivasan Jain of NDTV for his consistent investigative work epitomized in his series ‘Truth versus Hype’ and other programmes. Arnab Goswami,

Editor-in-chief of Times Now, was selected as the ‘Impact Editor’ of the Year for his ability to capture eyeballs and expand audience reach with his ‘News Hour’ show. Scroll.in will be awarded the ‘News Start-up of the Year’ for scaling up its influence rapidly as an alternative source of news and features.

Judging for the RedInk Awards, which includes as many as 10 categories have just been completed, and as many as 24 journalists who have produced outstanding and impactful stories in calendar 2014 will also receive awards along with Dr Prannoy Roy, Sreenivasan Jain, Arnab Goswami and Scoll.in on 30 April at the NCPA.

The judging process proved to be a herculean task with over 800 entries in the print/online category and nearly 250 stories from television journalists. Each of the categories – politics, crime, environment, sports, human rights, etc – had a dedicated jury of senior persons with domain knowledge assigned to judge the entries. A special curator was also assigned to sift the large number of entries in each section and guide the judges. 

The judging process brought in well known names such as Harsh Mariwala, chairman & MD of Marico, for the Business category, Dr Kiran Shaw Mazumdar, head of Biocon, for the Health & Wellness category, former Mumbai Police Commissioner M.N.Singh & Justice Kode for the crime category and Sudanshu Vats, CEO of Viacom18, for the ‘Entertainment & Lifestyle’ stories.

Star India is the Presenting Partner for the Mumbai Press Club RedInk Awards for Excellence in Journalism 2015. Other Award Partners include Aditya Birla Group, Indiabulls Housing, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, Zee Entertainment, Eros International, SevenHills Hospitals, Lunkad Investment and JSW Steel.

Media and communication partners for the RedInk Awards include exchange4media.com, MxM India, Adfactors, MSL Group India, Integral PR and Concept PR.

The RedInk Awards, now in their 5th year, has grown in stature over the years attracting entries from all over the country. The Awards have been set up as peer and professional recognition for path-breaking stories; and to encourage good, ethical journalism that impacts people and society.

From the President’s Desk-3: Well begun, Half Done!

Friends,

Thank you very much for all your support and critical views as well over the past one month or so.

The new team at NE has taken quite a few initiatives lie launching the e-mag which has become immensely popular in India and abroad. We have already clocked over 2,000 page views across the world. Here are the stats.

India – 1,117, United States – 786, Germany – 71, United Kingdom – 15, France – 6, Ireland – 6, United Arab Emirates – 5, Turkey – 5, Canada – 4 and Russia - 4.

Let me acknowledge that Mr Narendra's weekly columns with his insight on the functioning of the government are becoming extremely popular!

Now, our web site – www.publicrelationscouncilofindia.com - is almost ready. It has taken quite a bit of efforts in collating information and putting it together in a presentable format. Our young breed of web designers is still working to fine tune the site. As you can make out the lists of TEAMS is still incomplete – that’s mainly because we do not have relevant data. Will send a separate mail on what’s missing out in the list. 

Now, for the future calendar:

Knowledge Forum: In association with the Press Club Mumbai, we planned a discussion on the burning issue of Net Neutrality in the first week of May. Mumbai Chapter President Ajay Sharma and Secretary Sanjay Rammoorthy are working on a discussion paper. And together with the Club, we hope to have some good speakers.

Other City chapters may try to find similar forums – Kochi with the local Press Club. We can also tap Lions or Rotarians to align our Knowledge Forum with their events. This will help us spread our network.

Communicators’ Day: Bengaluru Chapter has been celebrating Communicators’ Day during the week of May 16 to 20. Suggest all chapters do the same and plans events, involving PR and media professionals.

Suggested theme: Communicators as Whistle Blowers.

Frankly, I got the idea from Mr S Narendra’s column – Political Sandwich – called in the e-mag.

These pointers may be used as discussion paper and in mails to participants. Bengaluru is working on this so is Mumbai.

Ø  Corporate Communication professionals ought to be in touch with all departments within their companies and hence in the know of developments. While communicating to the external world on their respective company's transparency and adherence to principles of corporate governance, they should make sure that what they speak is truth.

Ø  Corporate communication professionals should be able to alert top management about any violations and discrepancies.

Ø  Early alerts could help seal gaps and take corrective steps before the situation blows up into a crisis or a scam.

Ø  Managements/promoters on their part should not use  CompuCom teams to suppress negative developments or as mere fire fighters.

Ø  On the contrary, with media contacts and 'leaks' of information by competition or authorities like the Income Tax or Excise, corpcom teams do get to know about potential negative stories that can ruin the companies’ reputation.

Ø  Instead of acting in the last minute to do damage control, it is important to take appropriate action and nip the crisis in the bud.

Ø  In today's cut-throat competition, one cannot suppress or kill negative stories.

Ø  Managements need to understand this.

Ø  So, the question is: Whether we as corpcom professionals are ready to take up the challenge of turning into informal Whistle Blowers within our companies or with our clients?

Ø  It’s a new role for us. Let's debate now and prepare for future shocks!

At the end of discussions across PRCI platforms, we intend to bring out a White Paper for further action by Industry and Business Forums.

It is a sensitive issue. But let’s take the bull by the horns and demonstrate to the world that we mean business, serious one at that!

Delhi Chapter: The committee appointed by the Chairman Emeritus and Chief Mentor has started action towards forming a new Committee under the leadership of Dr Gaganjit Singh, President, IMM. We hope to have the new committee functioning shortly.

More as we go along.

Please give feedback on these and the issues that we discuss in e-mag. This will only help us do well, as a team.

Till then….