Open (Indian magazine)

For the monthly Mexican magazine, see Open (Mexican magazine).

Open
EditorS. Prasannarajan
CategoriesCurrent affairs and features magazine
FrequencyWeekly
PublisherRaas Taneja
First issueApril 2009
CompanyOpen Media Network Pvt Ltd
CountryIndia
Based inNew Delhi
LanguageEnglish
Websitewww.openthemagazine.com

Open is an Indian English-language weekly magazine. It was launched on 2 April 2009 by the Open Media Network, the media venture of RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group.[1][2] The current managing editor is P. R. Ramesh and the editor-in-chief is S. Prasannarajan. Previous editors were Sandipan Deb and Manu Joseph.[3]

History

The Open Magazine was conceptualised by Sandipan Deb, who joined Open Media Network after having worked for several years at Outlook and Financial Express. He left in August 2010, reportedly to pursue personal interests.[4][5]

After Deb left, Manu Joseph took over as the Managing Editor.[6] Hartosh Singh Bal was appointed as the political editor and Rahul Pandita was an associate editor.[7]

In November 2013, Hartosh Singh Bal was sacked.[8] According Manu Joseph, the magazine's proprietor, Sanjiv Goenka, felt that Bal's writings and appearances on television were resulting in him "making a lot of ... political enemies."[9] Joseph himself resigned soon afterwads, and P. R. Ramesh became managing editor.[9][10][11]

Citing several instances of "press censorship", including the controversial firing of Hartosh Singh Bal, a July 2014 editorial in the New York Times commented that:

Press censorship seems to be back with a vengeance in India, this time imposed not by direct government fiat but by powerful private owners and politicians.[12]

As of 2014, the editor-in-chief is S. Prasannarajan.[13] Rajmohan Radhakrishnan was its publisher until 2014 and was succeeded by Mohit Hira.[14] After his exit in 2016, Manas Mohan was appointed in his place but left after nine months and was replaced by Ashok Bindra in 2017.[15]

Neeraja Chawla joined as the CEO of Open Media Network in 2018.

Controversies

A report in The Indian Express in April 2012 concerning government apprehension about army movements[16] was criticised in OPEN by the then editorial chairman of Outlook, Vinod Mehta, in an interview with Hartosh Singh Bal. Mehta called the story a mistake and a "plant". In May 2012, the Express sent a legal notice to Open asking for an apology, for the contentious story to be removed from the online edition, for OPEN to pay ₹ 500 crores to the Express, and for the journalists who wrote the contentious Express story.[17][18]

In 2014, after Bal, Joseph, and Rahul Pandita had left, the magazine issued a clarification and expressed regret for the Mehta column. Mehta, Bal and Joseph then complained that the new editorial team of OPEN had violated journalistic norms because they had not been contacted before the issue of the clarification and that there was no way for OPEN to make the claims it was making in its clarification.[11][19][20]

During the premiership of Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party, OPEN has been accused among others by the Indian media watchdog Newslaundry of biased and uncritical promotion of Modi and his Hindu nationalist political causes.[21]

References

  1. ^ Open- About us Archived 17 January 2013 at the Wayback Machine openthemagazine.com. Retrieved 14 March 2013
  2. ^ "HT's Ashok Bindra moves to Open Media Network as CEO and Publisher". Exchange4Media. 16 May 2017.
  3. ^ Tiwari, Ayush (24 July 2019). "An OPEN obsession with Narendra Modi". Newslaundry.
  4. ^ Sandipan Deb, Paniit Global Conference 2012. Archived 17 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine,
  5. ^ Sandipan Deb : From Management to Journalism Archived 17 March 2013 at the Wayback Machine iitstories.com.Retrieved 14 March 2013
  6. ^ "Manu Joseph quits Open magazine as Editor-in-Chief". Exchange4Media. 6 January 2014.
  7. ^ "A Conversation With: Journalist and Author Rahul Pandita". India Ink, The New York Times. 19 February 2013.
  8. ^ "New York Times conversation with Bal". Archived from the original on 9 December 2021. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  9. ^ a b "Bal fired from Open magazine". Archived from the original on 10 June 2015. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  10. ^ "Perils of Editorial Freedom". Archived from the original on 11 June 2015. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  11. ^ a b "Bal, Open, and the perils of political journalism". Archived from the original on 19 April 2015. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  12. ^ "India's Press Under Siege". Archived from the original on 7 September 2017. Retrieved 15 June 2015.
  13. ^ "India Today's S Prasannarajan to join Open as Editor on February 6". Retrieved 14 March 2013.
  14. ^ "JWT's Mohit Hira joins Open Magazine as CEO". afaqs!. Archived from the original on 31 March 2022. Retrieved 5 March 2020.
  15. ^ "HT's Ashok Bindra moves to Open Media Network as CEO and Publisher - Exchange4media". Indian Advertising Media & Marketing News – exchange4media. Retrieved 5 March 2020.
  16. ^ "the night raisina hill was spooked". Archived from the original on 13 June 2015. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  17. ^ "Mother of all embarrassments". Archived from the original on 15 June 2015. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  18. ^ "What they are saying about Express sue report". Archived from the original on 16 June 2015. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  19. ^ "Vindication?". Archived from the original on 13 June 2015. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  20. ^ "OPEN and Shut Up Case". Archived from the original on 19 March 2015. Retrieved 15 June 2015.
  21. ^ "An OPEN obsession with Narendra Modi". Retrieved 30 August 2024.