SAJAforum

CONV: Aisha Sultan on pitching a column

Aisha Sultan loves to write about dirty diapers, working mothers and grocery shopping. And she loves that her own experience with motherhood led her to becoming a columnist and editor at  the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

"I figured if I cared about a subject that much, I could write about it and touch people," she said.

The road to becoming one of the first South Asian columnists in U.S. didn't follow a marked route, Sultan said at a session during the SAJA convention. Sultan studied sociology at Trinity University in Texas, and started writing when she found a job at her school newspaper.

She remained a sociology major until on her way to obtaining a doctorate degree she found that she wasn't sure.

"I really missed the ink, I missed journalism," she said.

When The Wall Street Journal offered her an internship, she couldn't turn it down. Eventually, the experience led her to her job with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as a reporter.

After ten years of reporting and two kids, Sultan's big idea began to unfurl. She realized that her life as a young working mother was under represented in the news.

With her personal experience in mind, Sultan crafted a pitch that included a column, blog and interactive forum for parents. It was subject matter that had not really been explored at other publications. After thorough research and a digital presentation, she was ready to put her thoughts in motion.

"I became like Al Gore with my Power Point," she said. "Every editor I found, I grabbed and made them watch."

CONV: Remarks by NYT's Michael Golden and John Geddes

[Read more coverage of the 2008 SAJA Convention & Job Fair]

Despite the changes to the news business in the past decade, the basics of journalism remain the same.

These and other views on journalism, digital media, and diversity were shared by Michael Golden (top), vice chairman of the New York Times Company, and John Geddes (bottom), managing editor of its flagship newspaper, at a reception the paper hosted for attendees of the South Asian Journalists Association convention.

“In 30 years in this business I have never seen a time when there is so much change and so much at stake,” Golden said. “It is truly remarkable what’s going on right now.”

Golden drew attention to the crisis in the print media, especially in large cities like Dallas and Chicago where newspaper subscriptions are on a decline, and advertising revenues are “falling at an alarming rate.”

Changes in the ways people consume information, the economic downturn induced tightening of household budgets and advertiser spending have added to this gloomy picture, he said.

Golden said the core of the Times' success and strategy is its editorial content.

Geddes, one of the paper's two managing editors (the other is Jill Abramson), added that the accuracy of the Times in reporting the news has helped maintain its credibility among readers. "Telling truth and being accurate pays off,” Geddes said.

NYTimes.com's growing web audience, which reached 21 million users last month, has helped the Times broaden its reach to people across the country and the globe, Golden said. The Times has had to focus on the kind of information people want, and package it and present it the way they want it. “It has a mass market appeal,” Golden said.

But the Web site's popularity doesn't mean the newspaper will go away. “Print will be with us for a long time,” he said. 

But the broader coverage has helped the Times boost diversity within the newsroom, Golden said. In the past year, 14 percent of the Times' organization's new hires were of Asian descent.

Read full coverage of Robert Thomson, the managing editor of The Wall Street Journal's speech here.

Please post comments. Photos: Preston Merchant

 

CONV: Amar Bakshi and "How the World Sees America"

Punchy short-form writing, engaging video clips and a strong voice were the recipe for Amar C.  Bakshi’s multimedia blog series "How the World Sees America" for the online editions of the Washington Post and Newsweek as part of a project called PostGlobal.

[ PostGlobal, "a conversation on global issues with David Ignatius [of The Washington Post] and Fareed Zakaria [of Newsweek],"  is a joint effort of the Post and Newsweek and consists of commentary from the two of them, and assorted posting and commentary from other staffers and folks around the world.]

His subjects are varied: a drag queen in Pakistan, a female Lebanese rapper, pageant queens in England, a teacher at an Islamic school in India.

The stories range from prostitution to political leadership but with the common thread of how the global community feels about Americans and the U.S. government.

Bakshi, 24, spent one month in a country, putting a human face on the sentiments and looking beyond the blanket criticisms.
“My value added is bringing a bit of a humanistic, artistic sensibility to more mundane stories that wouldn’t be told,” he told a group at the SAJA convention.

He found his sources by listening to conversations at bus stops, bars and restaurants. Contacts with local journalists and doctoral students also helped him create relationships with compelling sources.
Learning how to narrate their tales came with experience.

A one-man show, Bakshi toted his high-definition Sony video camera around with him for hours, familiarizing his sources to the screen. His intention was to have people forget about the camera altogether, and in a few hours they usually did.

“For me it’s discovery,” he said. “Trying to be empathetic, and trying to tell stories that are worth telling.”

He edited the video clips to concise, one- to two-minute segments. Sometimes a voice over accompanies local images, sometimes the screen remains fixed on a subject’s face as they speak.

CONV: WSJ's Robert Thomson talks about importance of global news

[Watch several short videos of Thomson's speech here]

Coverage of global news will become one of the top three priorities at The Wall Street Journal, in line with its top editor's belief that international coverage is essential to the survival of American media.

Robert Thomson, editor-in-chief of Dow Jones & Co., a subsidiary of News Corp., and managing editor of the Journal, gave the keynote address at the South Asian Journalists Association's annual convention in New York City. In his speech Friday morning, he outlined the media conglomerate's plans to boost its coverage in South Asia, including expansion of its bureau in India.

This, and the plans announced Thursday of key management changes including the appointment of Nik Deogun as the paper's international editor and a deputy managing editor, continues the change in focus and direction for the paper.

"We may be in the midst of a credit crisis... but the two defining trends of our age [are] digitization and globalization," Thomson said.

Already, the Journal has added four pages for international news at $6 million a year, to ramp up its coverage and make it competitive to the New York Times and the Financial Times.

Dow Jones also plans to explore the potential of software technology that would allow it to be part of India's mobile frenzy.

"South Asia is the Fleet Street of the future," Thomson said.

DESI AMERICA: A Trip to 30 Baseball Stadiums

Although Vijay Narendran was born in Texas, his love for baseball began only while he attended the University of Chicago, where he became a fan of the White Sox. That must have made the Astros really upset.

But Narendran, who is currently pursuing a joint MD/MBA degree at Texas Tech University, is not your average baseball fan. To prove it, he decided to take a trip to all the 30 major baseball stadiums around the United States in 61 days traveling approx. 12,000 miles.

Read his blog to know all about his trip and see pictures from his trip.

Narendran started his journey with a game in Colorado on May 8. Since then, he has been to every single baseball stadium you can think of. His trip will end on July 4 in Los Angeles.

See his trip and budget plan here. (I noticed he put $3.50 per gallon for gas. That was in May, not anymore.)

The official title for Narendran's trip is "30 ballparks, 61 days, 1 dream." I asked him three questions about this trip.

1. You talk about "one dream." What is this one dream you have?

First of all, there's a dream of completing the thing, just doing something that took so long to prepare and put together.  The dream is really the actual process and execution of the whole thing, not really the end result. This usage encompasses the "surreality" of the stories and the interesting people i meet.

Second, if the "Dream" represents an end goal, it would be to see and re-establish connections with so much of my very supportive network of friends and family across the nation with whom, through medical school and otherwise, i have been remiss in my communications, having in some cases been unable to attend weddings and other major relationship-solidifying events. This is my way of honoring THEM, those people that are so important to me in my life. Without them i would not be able to do this, nor would i be where I am.

Do folks know of other South Asians who have been on such adventures? Other thoughts? Please post your comments below. 

BLOGOSPHERE: Jindal and Exorcism

[SAJAforum sources, resources about the 2008 race]

Amid speculations about Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's potential candidacy as McCain's vice president, a new (and old) news about him is floating around. A blogger for Swampland, TIME magazine's blog, says Jindal might bring "interesting talents to the table - such as exorcism."

The article "Physical Dimension of Spiritual Warfare," written by Jindal in December 1994 (published in the New Oxford Review) is finding a lot of space in the blogosphere.

Excerpt from the piece:

The crucifix had a calming effect on Susan, and her sister was soon brave enough to bring a Bible to her face. At first, Susan responded to biblical pas­sages with curses and profanities. Mixed in with her vile attacks were short and desperate pleas for help. In the same breath that she attacked Christ, the Bible's authenticity, and everyone assembled in prayer, Susan would suddenly urge us to rescue her.

Read TPM Election Central's post.

...Jindal narrated a bizarre story of a personal encounter with a demon, in which he participated in an exorcism with a group of college friends. And not only did they cast out the supernatural spirit that had possessed his friend, Jindal wrote that he believes that their ritual may well have cured her cancer.

According to Swampland, this material had already come up during Jindal's run for governor. And it didn't hurt him.

Would this make any difference now? Please post your thoughts below.

Our previous Jindal-as-possible-VP items:

• NYT news story on Bobby Jindal and his agenda
• Coverage of Jindal's weekend with the McCains
• Liberal prof Vijay Prashad writes a funny letter about Bobby Jindal
• Conservative scholar says Jindal should not be on ticket - for now
• McCain to meet with Jindal, Crist, Romney
• April 2008 appearance on the Jay Leno show
• William Kristol says McCain staffers are floating McCain-Jindal ticket
• Rush Limbaugh's push for the ticket
• other conservatives' similar push

HUMOR: K.L. Saigal sings "Jack 'n' Jill"

Rarely has a nursery rhyme been imbued with so much feeling. Listen to this quasi-Hindustani (but English) rendition of "Jack 'n' Jill"--I'm told it's by the legendary singer KL Saigal, but then again I received it via email from my sister, so take that with a grain of salt:

Download jack___jill.mp3

For those unfamiliar with early Bollywood history, Saigal was an actor-singer in the early 1930s who rose to become a legend over the next few years. His distinctive singing style, as you will hear, echoes the sound/music aesthetics of that time.

Any idea who actually sang this?

ANIMATION: Nina Paley's "Sita Sings the Blues"

Several years ago, when I was covering ArtWallah - the desi arts festival in L.A. - I chanced upon a quite extraordinary bit of animation. It was by a woman named Nina Paley, a Brooklyn animator who had, once upon a time, followed her then-husband to India. That relationship ended in heartbreak, but Nina turned to the Ramayana and began work on a Sita-centric re-telling of the story.

Those initial 15 or 20 minutes - a section called the "Dandaka Dharma" - have since evolved into the much more ambitious, feature-length "Sita Sings the Blues," which was recently screened at the Berlin Film Festival, where it picked up a special jury mention. Now it's coming to New York, where it will be screened several times during the upcoming Tribeca Film Festival. Here's the trailer (or click here) for the 82-minute movie, aka "The Greatest Break-up Story Ever Told":

HEALTH: The problem of binge drinking among young South Asians

If you or your children fall in the age bracket given to binge drinking and you’ve considered yourself beyond such predispositions, think again. Rupa Dev’s Generation X-cess in India Currents warns us about the “work hard, play hard” fallacy (more on Dev at the end of this post).

“Work hard, play hard” is the most well-known term that categorizes the lifestyles of many college students. These days, we might more appropriately refer to it as “the binge lifestyle.”

Author and nutritionist Sylvia Escott-Stump defines “the binge lifestyle” as one that “promotes a lack of balance. Usually it entails overwork, overeating, and overplay, with excessive eating, drinking, shopping, and negative health behaviors.”

So what exactly qualifies as binge drinking? The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism defines binge drinking as a pattern of drinking that brings a person’s blood alcohol concentration to 0.08 grams percent or above. Typically, this happens when men consume more than four drinks and women consume more than three drinks in the span of two hours. Statistics show that about 75 percent of the alcohol consumed by adults in the United States is in the form of binge drinking.

A 2006 research project titled “Switchovers: Indian American Drinking Culture At Cornell” looked at 12 Indian Americans students who started drinking after abstaining for their first year in an attempt to understand the change. Dev adds that Indian parents are unaware of their children drinking, let alone having a problem, thereby making matters worse for the youth.

RESOURCES: Malaysia's Indian Community Struggles for Minority Rights

[UPDATE, Feb. 10, 2008: New York Times' Thomas Fuller covers the Malaysian situation: "Indian Discontent Fuels Malaysia's Rising Tensions" ]

Indians in Malaysia are engaged in a struggle for their rights as minority citizens in a country built on the premise of excluding them.  Here are some resources for covering the situation.

November 25, 2007: Water Cannons & Tear Gas:

On Nov. 25, 2007, HINDRAF (the Hindu Rights Action Force) organized a protest in downtown Kuala Lumpur that drew somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 Indians, mostly Tamils of Indian and Sri Lankan descent who are citizens of Malaysia.  They had intended to present a document to the British High Commission demanding restitution for their time as indentured laborers in British Malaya and the subsequent hardships they have suffered after independence under the constitutional guarantees, drafted by the British, and later policies that favor native Malays in government, education, and business.  They were also responding to the increasing chauvinism they feel from the majority Malay, especially the destruction of Hindu temples by land developers.

When the permit for the rally was denied, HINDRAF marched anyway.  Declaring the protest illegal, the government deployed riot police with tear gas and water cannons (video: Al Jazeera, News Asia, NTV8 Malaysia).  The sight of tens of thousands of Indians marching peacefully through downtown Kuala Lumpur, only to be met with armed suppression, has shocked the country.

The Economist provides an excellent background:   

In the 50 years of peninsular Malaysia's independence from Britain, the ethnic Indians have been more quiescent than the richer, better educated and more assertive ethnic Chinese, who make up about one-quarter of the population. Under an implicit “social contract”, the two minorities, mostly descended from migrant workers, were given citizenship in return for accepting that ethnic Malays and other indigenous groups, together known as bumiputras (sons of the soil), would enjoy privileged access to state jobs and education. All the races have done well from strong economic growth since independence. The Indians and Chinese suffer even lower poverty rates than the bumiputras. But whereas the majority population have, with official help, started catching up with the Chinese in the property and shares they own, the Indians still have few assets. Often they are stuck in rented homes and low-skilled urban jobs.

POLITICS: Bollywood Obama

For those still smarting over Barack Obama’s anti-outsourcing kerfuffle from a few months back, this may prove redemptive: a trippy, 2-minute plus YouTube video called Barack OBollywood. The video, set to “Chori Chori Gori Se,” from The Guru, works the candidate into a fast-paced Bollywood montage, and even has him appealing to voters in Hindi, and groovin to the beat. (thanks to Aman Batheja)

The video was produced by someone who goes by the handle CamPain2008.

Also, check out one of the comments at Wonkette, where the video was also posted, wondering, presumably, if this will cause offense among desis: "I wonder what we [sic] are thinking right about now at Sepia Mutiny."

TRAVEL: NYT Blog on Ayurveda Phrases

T is the name of a New York Times magazine supplement that deals with fashion, design, food and travel. And "The Moment" is the name of a blog for that magazine. Here's something that ran in the blog on Friday. Post your comments below.

EARLIER ON SAJAforum:

• AD WATCH: Continental's Angry Indian Woman
  

PAKISTAN: Interview with BBC Urdu editor Shahzeb Jillani on the Emergency

[NEW: SAJAforum coverage of the Pakistan Crisis, including experts]

Following is a SAJAforum interview with Shahzeb Jillani, an editor at the BBC Urdu. It was conducted by e-mail by Taimur Khan, who also contributed "PAKISTAN: Bloggers take on the Emergency" to this site. Jillani addresses the impact of the Emergency on the media in Pakistan, as well as the growth of Internet news and how this Emergency compares with previous acts of Emergency.

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SAJAforum: How have the press and private media in Pakistan had to alter their usual norms of coverage under the strictures of emergency rule?

Shahzeb Jillani: General Musharraf's controversial 'Provisional Constitution Order' targets the superior judiciary first and foremost. It's secondary target has been Pakistan's electronic media, namely the private TV news channels and FM stations broadcasting news. The general has accused them of being 'irresponsible' and spreading 'negativity'. Since Saturday when the Emergency was imposed, news TV channels have been taken off-air and a host of amendments have been made to the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) rules. Effectively, these new amendments amount to tight censorship on the media to stop them from reporting on 'the war on terror', constitutional cases of paramount national importance in the courts, and criticisng the role of President Musharraf and Pakistan Army. As a result, people in Pakistan can only watch state-run Pakistan Television (PTV) and listen to Radio Pakistan.

How are these new rules being enforced?

The government took the news channels off-air by directing all the cable operators nation-wide to pull the plug. A few days ago, the authorities raided the printing press of a leading publication in Karachi to stop them from bringing out a special newspaper supplement on the fast changing political scenario.

What risks do the private press and media face if they don't follow government restrictions?

Media owners, editors and working journalists have reacted strongly to the government's measures. They are currently meeting/consulting to devise a collective response. There are reports of some journalists
being harassed and intimidated.

What role is the Internet playing for media organizations?  Is it a viable way to get around the new rules?

PAKISTAN: Bloggers take on the emergency

This is a guest post by Taimur Khan, who's previously contributed to SAJAforum (Newshour reports from Pakistan). If you have any sites we should know about, please add to the comments section.

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In Pakistan, citizen journalism is flourishing when it's needed most. To fill the information void left by Musharraf's media blackout, a group of anonymous Pakistani student activists have created The Emergency Times, a blog they describe as "an independent Pakistani student initiative against injustice and oppression."  In addition to its ardent calls to action, the site provides daily multimedia updates on the latest developments in Pakistan and features eyewitness accounts and photos of student protests, posts from other news websites and blogs, information on upcoming direct actions, and even motivational poems for Pakistan's embattled democracy movement.   

While The Emergency Times may have more at stake than most, it's certainly not the only blog in blogistan.  Many other blogs also cover Pakistan's complex political dynamics under the emergency situation and provide a much-needed supplement to the sometimes stale updates from American news sources. 

Teeth Maestro - run by Dr. Awab Alvi, a dentist in Karachi - outlines the implications of the recent amendments to the Pakistan Army Act of 1952:

According to sources within the Pakistani security forces, amendments have been made to the Army act of 1952 and any civilian can be arrested under the act and tried in military courts while hoarders and profiteers are to be tried in special courts. The revised act also states that attacks on armed forces are now an offense under the new act.

Metroblogging Karachi provides running multimedia updates of the most current anti-emergency protests in the city. The blog also discusses a large and unprecedented get-together of photo-bloggers who met on the Karachi Metroblogging Flickr group and have been documenting protests and life under martial law.  Metroblogging Lahore recently discussed a less vociferous tactic in support of the lawyers and judges opposing the emergency:

Just saw a Justice who had refused to take the new oath speaking on GEO this
morning--he had tears in his eyes as he spoke. A handful of people had left
flowers outside his gate. And the news anchor was saying that it is a pity that
so few had done so--yes it is hard to withstand a baton charge or a tear gas
attack, but leaving a few flowers is not hard. Perhaps you can use your network to encourage people to leave flowers outside the houses of the justices and the bar association officials--just leave them as far as the police will let them go. This would also be a way of catching the attention of the international media.

SAJA EVENT: Meet Amit Varma, India's Top Blogger

UPDATE: Amit Varma wins the Bastiat Prize and $10,000, beating out journos from such places at the Atlantic Monthly, National Review, Financial Times and more. Official press release | Varma's posting upon winning.

The New York chapter of the SAJA, South Asian Journalists Association
presents

An evening with Amit Varma, India's most famous blogger (bio below).
Learn about the blogging and media scene in India from one of its most interesting writers. Come talk politics, US-South Asia affairs, sports, Bollywood - anything you like.

Friday, Oct. 26, 2007
6:30-8:30

Leela Lounge
1 West 3rd Street
(Between Broadway & Mercer; nearest subways: F&V; bus & subway directions)
New York, NY 10012

No charge and no RSVP required. Just show up and tell your friends

ABOUT AMIT VARMA:
Amit Varma is a Mumbai-based writer, and has written for the Wall Street
Journal, the Guardian, Wisden and various other publications. He writes a

weekly column for the Indian newspaper, Mint, and has been nominated for
this year's Bastiat Prize. He is best known, however, for his blog, India
Uncut.

His blog: http://indiauncut.com/

His column: http://www.indiauncut.com/iublog/categories/category/Thinking%20it%20Through

The Bastiat Prize page: http://www.bastiatprize.org/

BLOGS: The Houston Chronicle's new Hinduism blog

In what I imagine is a first for any American newspaper, The Houston Chronicle now has a Hinduism blog on the community-run section of its website: "Exploring Hinduism: Describing and Discussing Dharma." Just to be clear, it wasn't started by the Chronicle but by Arun Shankar, an IT consultant, and Ravi Raghavan. More on them here.  According to the home page of the community section, called chron.Commons, anyone who's registered with the site can start a blog.

The blog is brand new. The first post, published August 22, was "Getting Started with a Hindu Blog":

Most other religious bloggers on the Chronicle seem to directly write about issues.. For example, the Christian blogger Dr Alan Kitay talks about marriages (and divorces) in his post dated August 12. For him, the audience is by and large aware of the context and the references he is talking about. If he says Gen 2:18 , most would know that he is talking about Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament (and the Torah and the Tanakh) which talks about creation - or in the least the reader would know where to look for. Not so it would be, I think for a Hindu blog....

NEW BLOG: Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Now Blogging

Blogger Sabahat Ashraf, a Pakistani in Silicon Valley, runs iFaqeer, a blog that I read regularly. He has a new post, "Pride and Human Rights in Pakistan," alerting us to a new blog run by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. He says about HRCP:

This is the organization that gave the world it's first UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Arbitrary and Summary Executions. This is the organization Dr. Amartya Sen mentions when asked about Pakistan and how it's doing as a country.

And when the last coup happened, HRCP was "the only clear voice saying 'interrupting the flow of democracy is always a bad thing.'" From HRCP's site:

HRCP is an independent, voluntary, non-profit organisation which is not associated or affiliated with the government or any political party. It is committed to act with impartiality and objectivity in all matters. Among its main aims are spreading awareness      of human rights among the people, mobilising public opinion, collecting information and disseminating knowledge about human rights abuses.

You read the new HRCP blog here. Post your comments below.

BLOGS: An Indian blogger tries to keep her husband alive

Anand Giridharadas of The New York Times reports on a remarkable blog and transparency initiative run by J.N. Jayashree, the wife of an IAS (Indian Administrative Services) officer in India. The husband's name is M.N. Vijayakumar, and he's been causing trouble by pointing out corruption to his seniors. Her blog is fightcorruption.wikidot.com, and her hope is that her husband will get enough visibility to continue acting as a whistleblower, without the downside of being killed.

In the YouTube era, she reasoned, it is harder to kill a man who has a bit of Internet renown. “We’re creating a fortress around him — a fortress of people,” she said in a telephone interview. “I wanted to inform the people that this is happening, that my husband is a whistle-blower, so that it becomes the responsibility of every citizen to protect him.”

Vijayakumar, who's been transferred 6 times for his hellraising, has been getting loads of coverage in the Indian press - here's a list - but according to Arun Duggal of Transparency International, the blog is unprecedented for broaching the issue of corruption and information access in India.

“For an individual to use the powerful media of the Internet to take a stand against corruption, to expose wrongdoing, to build a campaign and a following, I think it’s the first time I’ve seen it,” said Mr. Duggal, who is based in New Delhi. [NYT]

Vijayakumar's IAS superior, P.B. Mahishi, does the honorable thing when asked about the issue of corruption: he personally attacks Vijayakumar, calling him "a lazy, ineffective worker who often skipped meetings and stayed silent about corruption for years before suddenly recoiling at it."

BIZ: Business 2.0's List of the 25 Web Startups To Watch

Business 2.0 magazine's "Next Net: 25 Startups to Watch" is worth a read for anyone curious about where Web technology is headed: "It’s getting crowded on the Web 2.0 frontier, but there are still some startups that truly stand out. Business 2.0 Magazine, in its March issue, highlights the ones most likely to strike gold in 2007."

This being about technology, there are some desi connections. Among them is Ramneek Bhasin, pictured on the left. He is founder and CEO of Mobio, which "offers mobile-phone mashups and widgets that figure out where you are and serve up on-the-go services like movie listings. Other widgets will book a cab or a seat at a restaurant." The company has 40 employees, $9 million in funding and is based in Cupertino, California.

Another desi connection is listed among the funders for these 25 startups. Vinod Khosla, the legendary entreprenuer and venture capitalist, is listed among the funders of Slide (which I use and like) and ReardonCommerce.com.
Venture capitalist Ram Shriram of Sherpalo Ventures (and a member of Google's board) is listed among the funders of StumbleUpon - another service I use and like).

The list only lists some of the founders and co-founders, so there might be other desi connections as well. If you know of any, let us know via e-mail (saja@columbia.edu) or in the comments section below.

Also see Business 2.0's list of the 100 fastest growing tech companies - there's gotta be some desi connections there.

BLOGS: Favorite Desi Blogs

I am often asked for a list of South Asia-related blogs I read, so I thought it might be fun for all of us to share our lists. Please post your suggestions in the comments section below [UPDATE: Many thanks for all the excellent suggestions there already!].

Here's what I try to visit every day:

South Asian diaspora and second-gen roundups (for the most part):

• SepiaMutiny
• UltraBrown
• UberDesi
• SAJAforum, of course

South Asia-based roundups (for the most part):

• DesiPundit
  
• IndiaUncut 
• IndianEconomy
• All Things Pakistan
• Global Voices Online - see the South Asia section

Of course, there are dozens of other fun, informative, useful desi blogs out there, including ones I visit a couple of times a week (hello, FIlmiholic, PassTheRoti). Please list your suggestions in the comments section below (explain what the site covers, please) - and help us expand our blog horizons.

If you are new to the world of blogs, one of the best ways to keep track of them is with a blog reader and RSS feeds (RSS has nothing to do with politics in India, it stands for Really Simple Syndication). And here's one of the best explanations of how they work is this small item that was contributed by Sitara Nieves to a blog I run at Columbia.

BLOGS: Newsweek on Sepia Mutiny on Newsweek

It was one little comment on Sepia Mutiny but it happened to be the one that got picked up by MSNBC/Newsweek, in an article about the ethnicity of the Virginia Tech killer, called "Braced for Backlash":

"...but to the bigots in the blogosphere it was his origins in Korea that mattered most. 'Koreans are the most hotheaded and macho of East Asians,' wrote one unnamed commentator on the Sepia Mutiny blog. 'They are also sick and tired of losing their Korean girlfriends to white men with an Asian fetish.'"

The comment, by 'Prema,' was one of many on a Sepia Mutiny post about the massacre - about 282 comments, at last count - and was quickly rejected by others on the blog. But the mere association of SM with bigotry was enough to provoke another post, by Anna:

"...In fact, the views in the soundbite which MSNBC/Newsweek opportunistically and irresponsibly highlighted are NOT shared by the vast majority of those who write, comment or lurk here; they are the exception, not the rule on a blog which was created to enlighten, not divide. We are saddened that such a reputable and established source of news would misrepresent our site’s purpose and imply that the words of a rogue commenter are somehow indicative of the work we tirelessly try to do. 

The bitter irony of this situation is that this website exists to create positive change and yet we were mischaracterized by an article about the valid concerns of the Korean American community after Monday’s massacre; as South Asian Americans, we sympathize and understand such issues because we are far too familiar with the concept of “backlash” ourselves."

 

AWARDS: Rafat Ali among 2007 Webby Nominees

The 2007 Webby nominees  - "Oscars of the Internet" - have been announced and I caught at least one South Asian connection. Rafat Ali's PaidContent.org has been nominated in the business blog category. His site, which covers "the economics of content," is mandatory reading among media investors and folks trying to understand where the media is headed. This is just the latest honor for Ali, who won a 2003 European Online Journalism Award for News Weblog of the Year just six months after launching the blog.

See the rest of the winners here - lots of interesting websites. Any other desi connections you see? Post in comments below.

New Media Super Workshop

Wednesday's New Media Super Workshop was led by Angela Morgenstern, supervising producer of digital production at MTV News. Morgenstern, who previously launched and ran the FRONTLINE/World Web site for PBS had plently of insight and advice to offer to all the workshop attendees.

We started out by playing "20 Questions," Morgenstern's style.

Morgenstern's version of 20 Questions involved taking an idea for a news story, and then brainstorming 20 questions that readers might be interested in having answered. Then, we picked a few of these questions that might be suitable and appropriate for the web.