March 16, 2006

Egg on my face...
This is with reference to your blog where you suggest I have egg on my face.

I do wish you had accessed the whole story and the follow up story in the next issue of Impact.

My reference was to the misuse of the word “exclusive”. The story was claimed to be exclusive by the Times of India and suggested to be exclusive by DNA.

It is clear there was no possibility of an exclusive for anyone: The Times of India, Dainik Bhaskar, Dawn and Jang were all ALLOWED to carry the story on the same day. In addition to them, there were a number of journalists from wire services present, who had an embargo of two days on the carrying of the story.

If it were an exclusive because The Times of India was the only English language paper in India to be allowed to carry the story on Day 1, then we’re into semantics, and every story in every paper could be an exclusive.

For example, Impact, if it were allowed to carry the interview after one week, could claim that it was an exclusive because we would be the only weekly tabloid in the advertising, media and marketing space published out of India to carry it.

Thanks for the comments anyway. I’ve appeared on a Technorati.com search for the first time.

Anant Rangaswami