mediaharsha

     By Harsha Man Maharjan Day by day the number of online news portals is increasing because it is easy to start. Having two three computers or laptops and two three journalists are enough to start up.  Any eligible person who dreams to have media can start it in a shoe string. Many online news portals are sprouting without proper planning on their economic sustainability. But Setopati, a digital patrika which was started on 1 April 2012 sought suggestions from its readers or visitors for its appropriate business model and came up with a mixed model of subscription and advertisement. This initiated a debate for and against Setopati’s plan. So, this is the right time to discuss about the appropriate business models for Nepali online news portals in light of models being practiced in the world.   Media products are different from ordinary products as often they don’t get used up even if people consumed it. Media economic scholar Gillian Doyle uses wo...

By Harsha Man Maharjan Note: This is the draft of my article I sent to  Republica  on 2 October 2013 but remained unpublished till today. So I have decided to upload it on my blog. Though online news portals are mushrooming in Nepal, their content and operation show they are in fledgling state and are fraught with problems. Yes, the demands of these portals are increasing day by day as these new media have advantages over traditional media-they are highly interactive or participatory and instant. Among all, online media made possible multimedia technology marrying text, audio and video. None the less many of Nepali online portals could not shoulder the burden of providing instant and interesting news. Either they lift news/features from online or other sources with or without proper courtesy or update other’s news which is a kind of tinkering. It is difficult to present the exact picture of online news portal in Nepal as no authority has the informatio...

During the recent program organized by the Press Coucil on 22 september 2013, Kishor Shrestha, from the Council  informed that there is not only investigative journalism, but also cut-paste journalism in Nepal. He was referring to hubahu journalism in print media, but this kind of journalism is popular in online news portals too. The way online media are practicing this is different from what tv and radio are doing. Usually FM radio and television stations are reading selected portion of the news from newspapers. But some online news portals are lifting matters from websites from print media. For example in the issue of Nepal magazine on 22 September, Sitaram Baral has wrote a long cover story on the conflict inside the family of Gyanendra Shah. This reporting was uploaded on ekantipur next day and other news portals like http://muldharnews.com , http://topnepalnews.com , http://realkhabar.com , etc started to upload this article citing the source, Nepal magazine. None of t...

Source:  http://www.journalism.org/commentary_backgrounder/newsweek_numbers June 3, 2013 By Katerina Matsa On Tuesday, May 28, Variety reported that  IAC , Barry Diller's media and internet company, is considering selling Newsweek. It would be the magazine's second sale within a three-year period that included a merger with The Daily Beast and the decision to cease publishing a print edition. Editor-in-chief Tina Brown confirmed this in a  memo  on Wednesday, May 29. "Newsweek is a powerful brand," she wrote, "but its demands have taken attention away from The Daily Beast." The news magazine genre in general has faced a difficult time transitioning to the digital space. But for Newsweek, the past few years have been especially tumultuous. Between 2007 and the end of 2009, when the magazine was still owned by the Washington Post Co., Newswee k reduced its total staff by 33%, according to Pew Research analysis of the magazines' staff boxes. Its reve...

From now on I will be posting interesting articles on media by others also in this blog.

By Harsha Man Maharjan According to an amendment in  Motion Picture (Production, Exhibition and Distribution) Rules, 2057 (2000 A.D.) in 2010,  Nepal Film Censor Board has to rate movies in four categories Universal (U), Parental Guide (PG), Special (S) and Adult (A), but the board is still scissoring scenes and showing paternalistic attitude to film makers. This is evident from the list of ratings this board gave to movies both Nepali and foreign during few months (15 june-6 September 2012). This is the first time that the Ministry of Information and Communication has made public such kind of information. This is good for public and the board. I think it makes decisions of the board transparent. And this is good symptom for future. But it has helped us to judge the rating system. The list contains ratings of 45 movies and informs about the cuts in movies. These ratings show that the board has shown concern on ‘vulgarity’. Two examples are interesting. The boa...

By Harsha Man Maharjan  Do Nepali media need social media guidelines ? This became a topic in an interaction program organized by Martin Chautari on 13 September 2012 about ‘How are Nepali Journalists Using Social Media ?’ According to Tilak Pathak journalist and member of Centre for Media Research-Nepal and pundit of this program, “Nepali media have started to feel a need of these guidelines but none has created one”.  This problem arises when a journalist who is employed in media break news from his/her blog or facebook or twitter. Pathak informed that there is no incident where a journalist has been taken action for breaking news in social media. It seems to me that it is right time that Nepali media prepare their social media guideline. This would make easy for journalists.

By Harsha Man Maharjan These days I am in London under a project between Martin Chautari and SOAS. This visit gave me an opportunity to think about the post conflict situation of Nepali media. This short article is my understanding of the situation: Post conflict is a transitional phase where both old and new forces tried to exert their influences and it is the period where a society involves in debates, discussions on various issues. Many people believe that Nepal is going through this phase. Academicians are writing on different aspects of the post conflict situation from security to tourism. But very few articles and papers have discussed about Nepali media in Post Conflict situation. Only article, I encountered was from the discipline of Public Administration. In 2008 a faculty from Public Administration Campus, Kathmandu had written this paper with the title, Media Situation in Post Conflict Nepal: An analysis. But this paper’s concern is narrow. It deals the post conflict situa...

By Harsha Man Maharjan London, 18 February One of my colleagues at Martin Chautari sent me an email yesterday to confirm about the assassination of library.nu. This is a sad news for me. I have benefited a lot from this site for more than a year. For me, it was a big library where I could find almost all books.During research and teaching, I used many books from this website This is not an obituary.I believe that the library.nu or gigapedia will never die and no one can kill it. That means it will definitely reincarnate in other forms. I hope that day will come soon. Here are some of comments on facebook: Imperial S Storm · Top Commenter Library.nu is closed on registration. I have no control over this. Main reason is Library.nu ranked 7th in the world for usage of its type. Now they have legal maters to deal with. They are trimming back there usage by closing registration. However this has not only happening to Library.nu. Its happening all over the web. SOPA and collages are trying ...

for freedom of speech and information January 18th is going to be amazing. Sites are striking in all different ways, but they are united by this: do the biggest thing you possibly can, and drive contacts to Congress. Put this on your site or automate it by putting this JS into your header, which will start the blackout at 8AM EST and end at 8PM EST.

By Harsha Man Maharjan The very newspapers which always criticized the government for back-breaking price-hike in fuel and other goods increased its price cent percentage. On 13 December 2011, three Nepali dailies Kantipur , Annapurna Post and Nagarik declared through the publisher’s note that they had increased their price from Rs. 5 to Rs. 10. It was unprecedented in the history of news media in Nepal. In 2003, some of them were fighting to reduce their price. At that time there was a price war between The Himalayan Times (related to Annapurna Post ) and The Kathmandu Post (related to K antipur ). When The Himalayan Times (THT) started to sell in Rs. 2, The Kathmandu Post made its price Rs. 1.50. All three newspapers argued that they had no other option than to increase the price because there was price-hike in newsprint and prices of everything in increasing in Nepal. Annapurna Post even claimed that newspapers in Nepal were the cheapest in South Asia. All of three n...

By Harsha Man Maharjan I am interested in the cold War period. That's why i watched this movie. More than this, it presents pictures of US and USSR, the main actors of the Cold War. People believe this as the story of a writer and journalist,John Reeds. I had same misconception before i watched it. What i think is this movie is actually a saga on the rise of left movement in the US and feminism, which broached the idea of free sex and independent thinking. Please watch this movie, if you are more interested in Emma Goldman's life. It is a nice movie to know about the first world war and its aftermath. I disagree with some reviews who blame for its length-it is 196 minutes.I believe that only due to this length, it could portray lives of its actors in detail. source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082979/reviews-114

By Harsha Man Maharjan Who is a film critic? Better to put this questions as: who can be a film critic ? This issue evolved with a review of Nepali film, Break Fail by Manoj Pandit, film director and critic. On 25 September 2011, Nepali daily Nagarik reported that police summoned Manoj on a complaint from actress Richa Ghimire. According to the reporting, Richa blame Manoj of character assassination through a review of her film, Break Fail and affecting international market of the film. In that review he has opined that she was not worth being an actress in the film, which she took as a personal matter. I don’t think so. Going through the review I have come to a conclusion that Richa was wrong. Being a film critic, Manoj had rights to comment on Ghimire's acting. If what Nagarik wrote was correct, Richa had some misconceptions. She said reviews have to promote Nepali cinema industry without criticizing it. More than she opined that only journalists with cards from FNJ should h...

By Harsha Man Maharjan This is the association I came to know through internet, and now this is the organization, of which I have become a member. Hats off to the technology for bridging time and space it made people easily reachable as if people from different countries are only neighbors next to my home. IAMHIST provided me an opportunity to present a paper on Nepali cinema in its 24th conference under the theme, ‘Media History and Cultural Memory’ that took place in Copenhagen. For this it also supported me financially and morally, without which this participation was impossible for me. Reaching Denmark was difficult and tiring, but having a chance to participate in the program and meet likeminded people compelled me to forget about those difficult moments. And now what I remember is only moments of discussion, contemplation and imagination during the conference. The boring and nerve-raking 17 hours waiting I had to experience at Indira Gandi Airport was nothing to what I have learn...

Friends, here is the code of ethics proposed by Ujjwal Acharya( The Radiant Star ). You are free to give suggestions DOs: A blogger should honestly: Be honest and fair on what you write in your blog Write things that you believe to be truth Specify your source of information – credit to offline sources and link to online sources Specify clearly the use of any unconfirmed fact or information Avoid conflict of interest – clearly disclose your position including job, financial interest, affiliation and relationship if they related to the post OR maintain an detailed About Me page Clearly differentiate between advertisements and blog content Disclose clearly if an entry is posted sponsored or as advertisement or after accepting a payment or goods to write it Admit and correct mistakes as soon as possible but only with strikethrough or editorial note Allow comments to engage audience, allow different opinions and clearly state your moderation policy if any Show compassion for human being –...

By Harsha Man Maharjan Janabadi Cinema. Marxist Cinema.Maoist Cinema. What is Janabadi Cinema ? How is it different from other cinemas? Is it Marxist Cinema ? Is it Maoist Cinema ? Answers to these questions are difficult to get. Some people believe there is nothing like Janabadi cinema. What they accept is there are two types of cinema– good and bad cinema. That’s all. But to know about Janabadi cinema, you have to see some of these cinemas. Video Cassette shop owners can assist you. What you need to do is go and ask one of such owners about the cinema and he/she will provide more than ten cinemas which the owner thinks are Janabadi cinema. In this situation some of which you get might not be Janabadi cinema. Usually what you get are Lal Salam, Jannayudha, etc. So, best way to know about Janabadi cinema is to ask the advocates of these cinemas. I know there are two such people Ramesh Bhattarai and Ishwor Chandra Gywali. Bhattarai and Gywali have written few articles on the issue. Here...

The story began on January 2011. Dateline: Zurich, Switzerland. I went there to participate at Winter School Program of ETH on Postgraduate Winter School: Historical Development Experiences in Comparative Perspective (January 23-28, 2011). This program helped me to know more critically about development issues especially foreign aid. Pls see pixs from that program. More than this, I came to know about Gigapedia–a website where we can download books. One of friends I met there, informed me about this. According to him, he and his colleagues at the university downloaded books from this website. Now this website has been changed in to www.library.nu. Please visit this library to download books‒new and old. What i hope is this website helps in democratizing knowledge. Don't you think so ?

These are Nepali cinemas available at market. In them, we don't see early cinema made by government-Aama, Hijo Aaj Bholi and Pariwartan. Neither do we see cinemas made by Royal Nepal Film Corporation. These early cinemas are important sources to do study of Nepal's history but they are difficult to find. To my knowledge, they are available at Film Development Board in cans and we need special machine to watch them. Yes, we can get them at Nepal Television library. We can see them for study purpose. I don't know when these cinemas will be available at market.

By Harsha Man Maharjan On 13 August 2010, Kantipur, Nepali broadsheet daily carried a reporting about cyber law. The reporting made public that Nepal Telecom Authority is planning to block all pornographic sites available in internet. And the authority will ask 41 ISP companies in Nepal to block these sites. The reporting says Electronic Transaction Act, 2063(2008) restricts ISP companies from operating pornographic sites but it has no provision of blocking these kinds of sites. What the reporting referred is article 47 of the act which says this: Publication of illegal materials in electronic form: (1) If any person publishes or displays any material in the electronic media including computer, internet which are prohibited to publish or display by the prevailing law or which may be contrary to the public morality or decent behavior or any types of materials which may spread hate or jealousy against anyone or which may jeopardize the harmonious relations subsisting among the peoples of...

here is my article on Film Censor baord, published in Republica last Friday By HARSHA MAN MAHARJAN The Film Censor Board was assailed by Nepali media in February and March 2010. There are two reasons for this. One, the Censor Board demanded cuts in two Nepali films, “Dasgajja” and “Dasdhunga”. It rated another cinema, “Palpalma”, as suitable for above 16. Some critics also asked for doing away with the Board. Earlier, movies like “Aago” and “Ahankar” also faced hassles from the Board. Censor boards: International scenarioCensor boards are universal entities in film industries. They certify cinema after viewing them. The process varies in countries. Some call it censor board, others certification board. Whatever, it is a mechanism of suppressing expression. In the US and UK, film industries have established this mechanism to dodge state interference. In India and Nepal, the state has established it. The boards work as moral police to safeguard the interests of the states.In Britain, the...