News Broadcasting
I&B issues notice to Aaj Tak on Mumbai terror coverage
NEW DELHI: Even as news broadcasters are still to react on advisories issued earlier this week on the continual coverage of the terrorist attack in Mumbai, notice has now been sent to the Aaj Tak to the effect that the channel’s coverage was creating public panic.
According to the notice, which is presently being considered by the management of Aaj Tak, the channel has been accused of acting in a manner that may affect ’the integrity of the country’. Sources in the channel confirmed receipt of the notice, but refused to say anything else.
News broadcasters seem divided on their reaction to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry’s advisory to all news channels not to carry on with the coverage of the Mumbai attacks by showing the same clips which were now several days old and which only created panic.
As of now, the News Broadcasters Association have failed to send any reply to the Ministry’s advisory and a meeting slated for this purpose yesterday did not take place. While some channels feel that this is necessary to report fresh news breaks, others feel a confrontation with the Government on this issue should be avoided.
In its advisory, the Ministry said: “Repeated visuals and stories pertaining to the attack, which would make the perpetrators feel their attack was a ‘success’, should, therefore, now be avoided.”
It further said if the ‘unbalanced reporting’ by TV channels continued, “it may be treated as coverage against the interest of the nation in the circumstances and attract appropriate action as per rules and as per terms and conditions of the permission granted for uplinking and downlinking of TV channels in India.”
The advisory said that television news channels were devoting almost 100 per cent news coverage time to “replay the attack, general criticism, display of shocked public reaction, eyewitness accounts, multimedia reconstruction of the attack, display of blood and gore’ and appeared to be ignoring all other news of national and international significance.”
Meanwhile, Rajat Sharma of India TV told indiantelevision.com he was not free to discuss the reply sent by his channel early this month to a notice received from the Information and Broadcasting Ministry late last month.
The Ministry is understood to have objected to the telecast soon after the attack commenced of the telephonic conversation with two terrorists hiding in the Nariman House and Oberoi-Trident.
News Broadcasting
Senior media executive Madhu Soman exits Zee Media
Former Reuters and Bloomberg leader says he leaves with “no regrets” after brief stint at WION and Zee Business
NOIDA: Madhu Soman, a veteran of global newsrooms and media sales floors, has stepped away from Zee Media Corporation after a short stint steering business strategy for WION and Zee Business.
In a reflective LinkedIn note marking his departure, Soman said his time within the network’s corridors was always likely to be brief. “Some chapters close faster than expected,” he wrote, signalling the end of a nearly two-year spell in which he oversaw both editorial partnerships and commercial strategy.
Soman joined Zee Media in 2022 after more than a decade abroad with Reuters and Bloomberg, returning to India to take on the role of chief business officer for WION and Zee Business. His mandate was ambitious: bridge the newsroom and the revenue desk while expanding digital and broadcast reach.
During the stint, Zee Business reached break-even for the first time since its launch in 2005, while WION refreshed programming and strengthened its digital footprint across platforms such as YouTube and Facebook.
But Soman suggested the cultural fit proved uneasy. Describing himself as a “cultural misfit”, he hinted at deeper tensions between editorial instincts shaped in global newsrooms and the realities of India’s television news ecosystem.
Before joining Zee, Soman spent more than seven years at Bloomberg in Hong Kong as head of broadcast sales for Asia-Pacific, expanding the company’s news syndication business across several markets. Earlier, he held senior editorial roles at Reuters, overseeing online strategy in India and managing Reuters Video Services from London.
His career began in television and wire reporting, including a stint with ANI during the 1999 Kargil conflict, before moving into digital publishing as India’s internet media landscape took shape.
Now, after nearly three decades in broadcast and digital media, Soman is leaving Delhi NCR and returning to his hometown, Trivandrum.
Exhausted, he admits. But unbowed. And with one quiet line that sums up the journey: he didn’t sell his soul — because some things, after all, are not for sale.
