WHEN JOURNALISM IS THE STORY
It has been 25 years since Sashi Kumar established the Asian College of Journalism as a not-for-profit trust based in Chennai. Since then, the ACJ has become India’s premier graduate school for journalism, with many of its graduates holding prominent positions in Indian media.
I appreciate the opportunity to give this year’s convocation address, especially since my remarks are meant to honor the memory of Lawrence Dana Pinkham. In addition to teaching journalism at Columbia, the University of Massachusetts and at several academic institutions in China, Larry was the ACJ’s second dean. Although he died 15 years ago, he is still remembered in the U.S. and abroad as an inspiring professor committed to social justice.
It is also wonderful to be back in Chennai, a city I visited for several days in 2012. The highlight of that trip was meeting N. Ram, the legendary editor of The Hindu, Frontline, and other publications within The Hindu Group. His courage in pursuing the Bofors scandal, despite government pressure and family concerns, earned him the global recognition he received. Furthermore, Ram has not shied away from writing pieces that reflect the journalistic principles that define his career. For instance, he wrote in 2019 about a controversial arms deal approved by the government to purchase fighter planes from France.
As you know, journalism and media companies in India, the U.S., and around the globe have undergone extraordinary changes since ACJ’s first graduation ceremony. Technology, starting with the advent of the Internet, has transformed how news is gathered and disseminated. The advertising and circulation revenues that once supported legacy media have faced considerable pressure as major platforms like Google, Meta, and X compete for readers’ and viewers’ time and attention. Lean staffing threatens to compromise quality. The emphasis on interpretation sometimes comes at the expense of factual reporting. The inclusion of opinion in news reports undermines credibility.
Most recently, as you are all undoubtedly aware, the words “artificial intelligence,” or AI, seem to be part of every conversation about the future of media. Acknowledging the potential for hype, I believe AI will impact journalism and every facet of society in ways that are more meaningful than what we have experienced with the Internet and changes in social media. Governments and companies are moving quickly to develop systems that may help solve many of society’s problems, but these are early days, and we are already seeing ways in which AI can exacerbate rather than alleviate many problems.
Meanwhile, the governments of the world’s two largest democracies – India and the United States- are becoming increasingly authoritarian. They have sought to restrict press freedom, and their attacks on journalists, along with unfounded claims of “fake news,” have contributed to the decline of trust in the media.
Democracy and press freedom are inextricably linked, and the struggle to preserve both in the face of government antipathy toward journalists and journalism is a greater problem today than at any time I can remember.
Since becoming Prime Minister eleven years ago, Narendra Modi has pursued authoritarian control over the media, and his actions at the federal level have incited troubling behavior among his followers at state and local levels. The Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index ranked India 159 out of 180 countries in 2024, placing it below police states like Venezuela, Yemen, and Tajikistan, and followed by more than a dozen dictatorships and police states.
In March, to cite one recent month, the Committee to Protect Journalists urged Indian authorities to investigate the murder of a journalist shot dead in Uttar Pradesh. It called on Maharashtra state officials to ensure that their strategy using artificial intelligence to monitor media coverage does not undermine press freedom. The Committee expressed alarm after learning that Telangana’s chief minister, having threatened individuals “posing as journalists and posting offensive and abusive content,” would be “stripped and paraded in public.” Additionally, it protested the arrest of a journalist for reporting on a protest regarding alleged financial misconduct at a bank operated by the Assam state government.
The Reporters Without Borders Index ranked the United States 55th, down from 46th place a decade ago. While it is better than India, it lags behind several countries known for corruption. In 2025, during Donald Trump’s second term, its ranking is likely to fall again, assuming he fulfills his promise to continue attacking and demonizing the press as he did in the three months following his most recent Inauguration. Additionally, Trump’s threats and attacks on the press are being mirrored by his supporters across the country.
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of the press, just as Article 19 of India’s Constitution does. Nonetheless, we have witnessed how resolute autocrats can erode these protections in both countries.
Against this backdrop, I want to discuss the past and present state of journalism and share some thoughts about our future. Additionally, I would like to suggest some strategies for success as you leave ACJ to pursue careers in these uncertain times.
Many of my observations originate from personal experience. Although the news business is quite different today than it was when I began my career as a journalist 64 years ago, certain rules and risks remain unchanged.
It’s not false modesty when I say my career shows that it is often better to be lucky than smart. Hard work can be in vain without that fortunate event as a catalyst. This is by no means an argument for passivity. Luck often favors reporters who find themselves in the right place at the right time with the right organization. Making the most of luck is up to you and may require extraordinary focus and diligence.
I grew up in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, a small suburb of Philadelphia that is home to Ursinus, a liberal arts college. I attended Haverford, another small college outside Philadelphia whose sports teams competed against Ursinus. As a freshman, I began working on the college newspaper and applied to 29 newspapers in Pennsylvania for a summer internship. Every newspaper either rejected my application or ignored it, except for one that served Allentown, a small city north of Philadelphia. I spent the summer writing obituaries and covering local sports. The paper’s editor didn’t speak to me until the last week of my internship when he approached my desk and asked, “How do you think Ursinus will do in football?” I knew it was his alma mater and that he was its board chairman. When I replied, “I don’t know, but I’m sure they will beat us,” he asked, “What do you mean, us?” He was shocked when I told him I was attending Haverford. He said he had hired me only because he remembered I was from Collegeville and mistakenly assumed I attended Ursinus.
After graduating from law school, I took a job as a copyboy at The New York Times. It was a terrible position, and I performed poorly. Just as I was about to be let go, a high school acquaintance helped me secure an interview at The Wall Street Journal. I was hired and began working at the Journal’s Dallas bureau in January 1968. At that time, the Journal was America’s largest newspaper, and the Dallas bureau covered the Southwest, Mexico, and Central America. As the newest reporter, I was assigned to cover the cotton beat. It was tedious and unglamorous, and my editors seemed indifferent to it. Nonetheless, it warranted a trip to the Memphis cotton exchange, which was then the world’s largest trading venue for cotton. Although the trip didn’t enhance my understanding of cotton, the city’s garbage workers were on strike, and I learned that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was in Memphis to march alongside them. Having worked on civil rights issues in law school, I secured what I believe was the last interview Dr. King gave before he was assassinated. The Journal kept me in Memphis for several weeks, covering the assassination and the arrest of James Earl Ray. The assassination of King was one of the most significant stories of 1968.
After two years in Dallas, I was transferred to Detroit to cover that year’s labor negotiations in the auto industry. At that time, General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler were the first, third, and sixth largest companies in America, respectively. Despite my limited knowledge of the industry and labor negotiations, assigning me coverage was deemed safe. Four months after my arrival in Detroit, Walter Reuther, the charismatic President of the United Auto Workers, died in a plane crash. His successor, Leonard Woodcock, struggled to negotiate a settlement and eventually went on strike against General Motors. The strike lasted 67 days, marking the longest in automotive history. Covering it bolstered my self-confidence and prepared me for more significant assignments.
Five years later, in 1975, I was stationed in Tokyo when the Journal needed someone to travel to Vietnam to report on the fall of Saigon. I quickly secured a visa and arrived in Saigon shortly after President Nguyen Van Thieu resigned. After a productive week, I took one of the last flights out of Saigon on April 30, the day his successor, Duong Van Minh, surrendered.
My performance in Saigon led to my appointment as the first managing editor of The Asian Wall Street Journal, and in early 1976, I relocated from Japan to Hong Kong to assist with its launch. I believed it was clear that we should cover Asia, but my superiors in New York disagreed. They thought it would suffice to repackage news from the U.S. We published our first issue on September 1, 1976, and nine days later, Mao Zedong died. Our small team produced an excellent issue, and shortly afterward, we received the necessary resources to cover the region. It was then that I first managed the coverage of India.
I subsequently moved to Brussels where I was the first Editor and Publisher of The Wall Street Journal Europe. I returned to New York in 1983 where I became the Journal’s managing editor. I left the Journal in a decade later and subsequently served as Editor in Chief of Time Inc., then Time Warner’s magazine division, as Senior Advisor for Telecom & Media at The Carlyle Group, a large private equity firm, and as Chief Content Officer of Bloomberg L.P. I then returned to Time Inc. as its Chief Content Officer after it was spun off from Time Warner, and I then worked as Executive Editor of the Los Angeles Times. Since retiring from the LA Times to New York at the end of 2020, I have served as a consultant to several media startups in the U.S., the Mideast and in Asia, and I serve on the boards of four nonprofits serving journalism.
As much as luck played a role in my getting many of these jobs, I have also had my share of disappointments. I don’t know how many of you have seen the movie, “Good Night and Good Luck,” directed by George Clooney about the famous interviewer and head of CBS News, Edward R. Murrow, but Clooney is now starring in the live-on-Broadway version of the movie which I saw last month. Murrow’s deputy and successor was another famous CBS journalist, Fred Friendly. While in law school I applied for a summer internship at CBS News and Friendly agreed to meet me. Assuming the meeting went well, he implied I would get the internship. My meeting was scheduled for 10 a.m. on February 15, 1966. I arrived twenty minutes early, and while waiting in the lobby, I saw someone who looked like Friendly leave the building. It was only when I asked the receptionist about my meeting that I learned Friendly had just resigned to protest a corporate decision to air a rerun of an I Love Lucy episode instead of providing live coverage of Senate hearings about the war in Vietnam. My dreams of a career in television ended that morning.
After leaving the Journal, I launched a limited partnership with two media companies and a wealthy investor. We had one meeting of the partnership and two weeks later, one of my media partners launched a hostile takeover of the other media partner. We never had a second meeting of the partnership.
The newsroom I inherited when I became the Journal’s top editor was badly outdated. We used manual typewriters and 10-ply carbon paper, and paste pots were common until 1985. Andy Grove, the visionary founder of Intel, told me that the Journal newsroom’s technology was so outdated it should be in the Smithsonian, America’s repository of historically significant objects. He was right. Our industry’s technology hadn’t advanced much beyond the introduction of movable type presses developed by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century.
The U.S. has been at the forefront of developing technology platforms in recent decades that enable both mass and specialized information consumption. Companies such as Facebook, now known as Meta, Google, whose parent is called Alphabet, and Twitter, all emphasize technology over news. This trend persists with advancements in AI, occurring not only in the U.S. but also in China, India, and other nations.
I first felt the impact of technology in 1994 when Marc Andreessen co-founded Mosaic Communications, which was later renamed Netscape Communications. Its browser provided widespread access to the internet, unleashing populist forces that continue to evolve.
When I was appointed editor-in-chief of Time Inc. in 1994, I was surprised to learn that People magazine was significantly more profitable than Time. The editors of People recognized that readers and viewers increasingly viewed media and politics as forms of entertainment. Truth has become a casualty as docudramas and documentaries have been conflated, and conflict has taken the place of consensus. Today, Donald Trump counts among his passionate supporters Andreessen, Musk, and other tech billionaires who influence how most people communicate and access information.
I accepted Sashi’s generous offer to deliver this year’s Pinkham lecture before Trump’s second inauguration, and I had hoped to limit my comments about him. However, his outrageous and often illegal behavior, including attacks on journalists and journalism, is significant not only in the U.S. but also for the world, very much including India. So, I hope you will understand my extended digression.
I have covered and interacted with Trump for nearly four decades, and I am still trying to understand why voters—and now many business leaders and publishers—accept his history of ruthless behavior, chaotic management, and incompetence, and how journalists should cover him.
Early in his first book, The Art of the Deal, Trump emphasizes the importance of bravado. “I play to people’s fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do.... People want to believe that something is the biggest, the greatest, and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole.” His second book, The Art of the Comeback, in addition to extolling the importance of golf, talks about revenge when dealing with his enemies.
When he later launched The Apprentice, I thought his business advice was, at best, absurd and functioned as comic relief. However, that wasn’t the main point. His self-confidence increased ratings and introduced him to a national audience.
Trump’s fixation on ratings, dependence on instinct, contempt for experience, and utilization of Fox as a primary talent source have rendered him the perfect candidate and the most imperfect president.
Trump promised that his return to the White House would radically change government, politics, and journalism. Since then, he has fulfilled that promise.
While reflecting on Trump’s erratic behavior and numerous threats, it’s crucial to remember that America has faced popular demagogues in the past, and ultimately, the truth has triumphed.
In the late 1930s, Father Charles Coughlin, a Canadian-born Catholic priest living in Detroit, delivered sermons that increasingly expressed anti-Semitic views and admiration for Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. His audience was estimated to be as large as thirty million listeners, or 25 percent of all Americans at that time.
Although he was only four years old when the term “McCarthyism” first appeared in print—characterizing Senator Joe McCarthy’s tendencies to lie, bully, and attempt to suppress dissent—Trump has employed similar tactics to divide America. It is no coincidence that Roy Cohn, McCarthy’s aide, also represented and mentored Trump.
Neither Coughlin nor McCarthy, of course, possessed the same power as Donald Trump does as president. The voters expressed their opinions in last November’s elections, where a plurality favored Trump’s lies over the truths about his criminality revealed in court and investigative reports. He dismissed detailed exposés by brilliant journalists as “fake news,” and millions of voters agreed.
Trump and I last sat together at the Time 100 dinner in April 2016. He read the results from five primary elections on my smartphone, confirming that he would be the Republican nominee, and we both laughed. I was certain his election was a long shot after he remarked that John McCain, the former Republican senator, vice presidential nominee, and Vietnam POW, wasn’t a war hero.
But Trump won, and after four chaotic years, he lost. Some of his key aides and cabinet members characterized him in books and off-the-record comments as a fascist and an incurious jerk. The Washington Post recorded over thirty thousand false or misleading statements made during his tenure. He faced impeachment twice, was indicted four times, and was convicted of thirty-four felonies in the only criminal case that went to trial. In 2023, a civil jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll, an advice columnist, awarding her damages of $5 million. A second jury granted Carroll additional damages of $83.3 million last year in a related defamation case.
Trump may be a narcissist who projects his misdeeds onto his rivals. The Democratic incumbents were vulnerable, but timing was crucial, and Trump and America were prepared for one another.
The seeds of Trump’s success trace back three decades to 1994, when Newt Gingrich secured Republican support for his Contract with America and the rise of polarizing politics. This coincided with the onset of an irreversible decline in the business model of much traditional journalism, triggered by the internet and later by social media. Widely accepted, fact-based news yielded to fragmented information, often rife with falsehoods and catering to individual interests and biases.
The Contract with America called for tax cuts, welfare reform, crackdowns on crime, a balanced budget, and other measures. Republicans swept the midterm elections that year, gaining control of the House for the first time in forty years, along with the Senate and numerous governorships and state legislatures. Paul Teske, a political scientist from the University of Colorado, stated in an interview with the History Channel in 2018, “The Gingrich approach of extreme right ideas, coupled with a scorched-earth personal style of attacking opponents—later seen in Clinton’s investigations and impeachment—has significantly influenced American politics. It helped cultivate a much more ‘win at all costs’ mentality and a divisiveness that persists today.”
Voters appreciated Trump’s talent for intimidating his critics and establishment elites. Meanwhile, the Democrats struggled to effectively address the grievances and promises—both real and imagined—that underpinned Trump’s campaign.
Even before taking office, the possibility of Trump controlling the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court alarmed the owners of once-proud news organizations. Some appear willing to compromise editorial independence to gain favor with the president.
Billionaires, once regarded as the saviors of journalism, are demonstrating their inadequate stewardship of media companies. While generalizations can be risky, several billionaires who have acquired media companies treat these investments as sidelines that can be managed with minimal involvement. They believe managing a media company is simpler than the businesses that made them wealthy, assuming their skills and expertise can easily transfer from their primary ventures to the media sector. Furthermore, they tend to trust their instincts over the experiences of others.
It may be surprising to journalists, but billionaires don’t like losing money. Many seem to support Trump’s economic policies, or they fear he might retaliate against their primary businesses if he disapproves of how their publications cover him.
Jeff Bezos, who founded Amazon and bought the Washington Post in 2013, also directed his paper not to endorse a presidential candidate, retracting an editorial endorsement of Harris less than two weeks before the election. Shortly after Trump was named Time Person of the Year, Marc Benioff, who heads Salesforce and owns Time, wrote on X, “This marks a time of great promise for our nation. We look forward to working together to advance American success and prosperity for everyone.”
Patrick Soon-Shiong, the physician who acquired the Los Angeles Times in 2018, has earned billions by developing cancer drugs and has dedicated much of his life to creating vaccines. I served as his Executive Editor from mid-2018 until the end of 2020. Soon-Shiong was among the first to recognize the potential for global disruption arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. After shutting down the Times building in March 2020, he devoted the remainder of the year to developing his COVID-19 vaccine. Throughout that year, he criticized President Trump for not addressing the pandemic with the seriousness it required. I read his recent post on X with more than passing curiosity. In it, he congratulated President-elect Trump and vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services. The agencies reporting to Kennedy all play a role in approving the types of cancer drugs that are central to Soon-Shiong’s medical research.
The Walt Disney Co. recently agreed to contribute $15 million to the Trump Presidential Library and pay $1 million in legal fees to settle a frivolous defamation suit filed against Disney’s ABC News subsidiary and George Stephanopoulos. Trump has threatened to sue other media companies whose coverage he finds objectionable. Disney’s lawyers may have been concerned about what depositions could reveal, and they seemed reluctant to argue that Trump is a libel-proof plaintiff. This doctrine asserts that a notorious person lacks a ‘good name’ and, therefore, cannot recover damages for it.
Meanwhile, CEOs who criticized Trump’s attempted coup on January 6, 2021, or who would never have engaged in business with his real estate, casino, and consumer companies, now seek audiences at Mar-a-Lago. Big Tech’s Elon Musk has become a regular presence, while Apple’s Tim Cook, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, and other CEOs have met with or spoken to Trump. He has made the Nixon-Agnew Enemies List seem Trivial by seeking to dismantle law firms that have represented his perceived adversaries. Some have settled with him, while others are litigating on their own behalf. He has attacked academic freedom at America’s universities, and his obsession with increased tariffs threatens the global economy.
I have wondered why Soon-Shiong and Bezos waited until days before the election to instruct their publications not to endorse Harris. It is appropriate for a publication’s opinion pages to reflect the owner’s beliefs, and there would have been little reason for complaint had they decided early in the year not to support either candidate. However, the timing suggests they panicked after realizing that a Trump victory was likely and that a Harris endorsement could harm their other, more important businesses.
There have always been privately held publishers who show little interest in editorial integrity or independence. However, I believe that a newsroom’s integrity is best maintained by owners who take pride in producing quality publications free from competing interests. The Bancroft family owned Dow Jones & Co. during the twenty-three years I worked for its flagship, the Wall Street Journal. While the family supported the Journal’s strident conservative opinion pages, I never heard any criticism of the paper’s news coverage from them. Additionally, I believe the New York Times benefits from the Ochs-Sulzberger family’s unwavering focus on the company that publishes it. Privately held Hearst Corp. may also be an exception.
History is instructive, but as graduates preparing to enter the workforce, it’s essential to understand what lies ahead.
The American Century is giving way to a Pacific Century, in which India will play a significant role. Your economy has grown substantially over the past decade, and I believe it is likely that India, like China, will have a larger GDP than the United States within the next 25 years. However, per capita income remains low, and it is uncertain whether new technologies will elevate it or contribute to greater income inequality.
New technologies can help solve society's problems, but we must acknowledge that they are inherently disruptive. The printing press, television, and the Internet have indeed broadened the range of voices.
While journalism benefits from freedom of expression, the technologies that have provided a voice to many have also resulted in greater fragmentation, increased misinformation, a decline in trust in government and journalism, and a heightened inability to reach consensus on politics and policies.
I intend to be humorous when I say there has never been a better time to be a journalist- unless you want to get paid. Yet, it’s not a joke. There is a strong demand for information that journalists can provide, but audiences are increasingly reluctant to pay for it.
The news is not all grim. Journalists benefit from computers and excellent search tools that offer easy access to data, and AI is already making us better writers. In the U.S., The Institute for Non-Profit News has 500 members, many of whom provide valuable local content to small communities where legacy publishers have gone out of business. These new publications for the most part eschew print for digital products delivered to hand-held devices and to the desktop. The best of them emphasize utility, including online commerce. However, few of these new entrants offer pay and benefits that come close to matching those that led to the bankruptcy of so many legacy local publishers. A few standout journalists, such as Paul Krugman and Heather Richardson, have gained fans and fortunes on platforms like Substack and Medium, but most individual journalists struggle to fund their work through individual subscriptions and donations.
Unfortunately, I do not believe the appetite for more stories will lead to larger news staffs at most traditional publications. Hundreds of local publications have closed in the U.S. in recent years, and I believe that trend will continue.
I see many ways AI can assist publishers in saving money. For example, copy desks can be streamlined, and fact-checking will be quicker and more efficient. While AI has not yet delivered a significant increase in revenues, some major firms developing large language models are willing to pay publishers for their content.
Barbara Peng of Business Insider recently told the newsletter Status, “All of Business Insider's stories are reported, written, and produced by our talented journalists. A.I. will never replace the work our reporters do, talking to real people about their experiences and sharing what no one (not even A.I.!) knows yet through investigative digging. So A.I. is not going to replace journalists but it can totally support them. We were quick to integrate A.I. into our CMS to help save time by doing things like optimizing metadata, making suggestions for headlines and summaries, etc.”
Accuracy continues to be an issue. Recently, I asked ChatGPT to write my obituary. It provided an outline of my career, and it then mentioned that my children were grieving, which was surprising since I have never had kids. We need to recognize that is still early days for AI. As its use expands, so do its accuracy and problem-solving capacity. Barbara Peng’s assurances notwithstanding, AI devices are already writing formulaic stories about corporate earnings, and I don’t think it will be long before they are used to produce longer, more complex stories.
Although legacy media companies have often been slow to embrace new technologies, one notable exception is The New York Times. Following the completion of an internal study on innovation, it embraced initiatives that changed its business model. While its commitment to hard news and investigative reporting remained, The Times also realized it could build audiences around cooking, gardening, and puzzles. Additionally, it acquired The Athletic, a digital sports service, and Wirecutter, a consumer guide. As a result, paid digital circulation rose from less than one million in 2014 to more than ten million subscribers today.
I don’t claim to be an expert on India, but there are a few trends that I would love to learn more about. As you enter the workforce, I hope you will have the opportunity to cover these trends, benefiting both journalists and journalism.
Local news publishers in India have faced challenges similar to those in the U.S., as advertisers have discovered more effective methods to reach their customers. AI will also lead to greater personalization and to the development of important line extensions. I recently spoke to a Japanese audience in Tokyo. Although I delivered my speech in English, the audience viewed a simultaneous translation of my remarks on a screen behind me. I believe this technology could also transform printed stories into videos and provide local language editions for Indian publishers who have, until now, found it difficult. Simultaneous translation could enable publishers to connect with large segments of India that are currently underserved due to language barriers.
India is rapidly emerging as a significant global player. Despite being a major hub for innovation, much of the world remains unaware of India’s achievements and potential. At the same time, there is a limited understanding of the internal divisions that could cloud India’s future.
The Indian AI industry is thriving. In 2024, India had more IPOs than any other nation, and this year is projected to be a landmark year for AI and other sectors dependent on IPOs. However, recent trends toward gold investments suggest a concern that AI companies may be overvalued. As a result, it could become increasingly difficult over the next year to secure funding for startups that are not cash flow positive.
Indian politics continues to present compelling stories. Uncertainty remains regarding how the world’s largest democracy will manage the government’s push for greater authoritarian control. Modi has merged Indian and Hindu nationalism, exemplified by his ties to the Maha Kumbh Mela festival. Nonetheless, the sense of exclusion felt by hundreds of millions of non-Hindus could undermine Modi’s goals for Indian nationalism. The recent provincial elections suggest some fatigue with the Modi government, but it is likely premature to speculate about which party will govern after Modi.
The ongoing decoupling of the Chinese and U.S. economies presents both opportunities and challenges for India. While neutrality has its advantages, a time may come when India will need to take sides. Numerous opportunities will arise for providers of Indian goods and services to replace China’s trade with the U.S. Deep Seek, a Chinese company, recently introduced RI, a low-cost alternative to U.S.-made AI products. As Congressional critics rushed to limit Deep Seek’s presence in the U.S., investors began to look to India to see if it could produce a cost-effective competitor to Deep Seek. The U.S., China, and Russia, which supply India with essential energy, will pressure India to choose sides. For example, Asia Sentinel recently reported that a U.S. offer to sell India F-35 jet fighters prompted an immediate Russian counteroffer to sell the Sukhoi Su-57.
India receives over 70% of the H-1B visas issued by the U.S. to skilled workers, including software engineers. While these visas have benefited both countries, some of President Trump’s anti-immigration allies are advocating he reduce or eliminate them. Trump’s support from tech CEOs may persuade him to keep the H-1B program. If not, will skilled workers in India look for jobs elsewhere or choose to stay at home?
There will be an increasing demand for journalism that explains India to the world and the world to India. For every newsletter I receive from or about India, I come across at least a dozen similar publications from or about China. Perhaps one of India’s major publishers will fill that gap in the marketplace, or individuals will emerge with significant global followings.
India Currents has covered the experiences of Indians in America for 38 years, and I expect to see more publications reporting on the Indian diaspora, particularly in the United States, where 5.4 million people of Indian origin live. Many have found success in media and technology, including Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, and Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet (Google).
The New York-based Asia Society gives an annual award for the best coverage from Asia. I have served as one of the judges of the Oz Award, named after Osborn Elliot, a famous editor of Newsweek, every year since its inception more than a decade ago. Entries from Indian publications have always impressed the judges, and, despite the absence of entries from some of India’s largest and most prestigious publications, this year’s entries were no exception, including:
When I reflect on my career, getting the chance to edit The Asian Wall Street Journal marked a turning point. It was my first role as an editor and manager, and I was determined not to mess it up. I started work at 2 a.m and was usually at my desk for 16 hours. Friends became subordinates, and I was suddenly responsible for their paychecks, well-being, and careers.
I also realized that I was a better reader than a writer, and that the best editors are schizoid – advocating for the reporter and encouraging risk-taking to obtain the best possible story while also representing the reader by ensuring the reporter didn’t exceed what the facts could support.
Over the years, I learned that the more I delegated, the more I had to do – assuming, of course, that I delegated to the right person. Paul Steiger was my first hire after I became The Wall Street Journal’s managing editor. At the time, Paul was running the Los Angeles Times business section, and I believed he was the best business editor in the country. He wasn’t sure he wanted to make a move until I said, “Don’t come to the Journal unless you want to succeed me.” He agreed and ran the newsroom for 16 years after I left.
It’s also true that you learn more from failure than from success, and that everyone makes mistakes. The trick is to identify the mistake or failed endeavor, then cut your losses and move on.
I also learned there were problems – both business and personal- that I was unable to solve. One of the most talented deputies was an alcoholic, and no matter how often we talked about it, he was frequently drunk on the job. Curing him was beyond my ability. Instead of firing him, I insisted he join Alcoholics Anonymous, and it worked. He went decades without a drink before dying of natural causes last year.
Journalism will evolve in ways that remain unclear, but I am confident that the need for reliable, factual information will endure. This information assists people in leading better lives through reporting that exposes wrongdoing and offers utility, guiding them toward success and happiness.
Although government actions have undermined the media in India and the U.S., we must also acknowledge that journalists in both countries haven’t always acted without fault. Our mission should be to serve the public, and we are at our best when we do so with humility. We should listen to and seek to understand the audiences we serve. We must work to overcome institutional or personal biases, striving to remain objective and truthful.
India will play a vital role in the Pacific Century, and each of you will help shape whether and how India fulfills its potential.
Best of luck and best wishes to all of you.
Norman Pearlstine is an American journalist who has held several prominent positions, including Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal, Executive Editor of Forbes, Editor in Chief and later Chief Content Officer of Time Inc., Chief Content Officer of Bloomberg L.P., and Executive Editor of the Los Angeles Times.
Pearlstine began his career at The Wall Street Journal in 1968, working as a reporter in Dallas, Detroit, and Los Angeles before becoming the North Asia bureau chief based in Tokyo in 1973. His major reporting efforts included coverage of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, the General Motors auto strike in 1970, and the fall of Saigon in 1975.
Before becoming the Journal’s top editor in 1983, he was the founding editor and publisher of The Wall Street Europe and served as the first managing editor of The Asian Wall Street Journal. In the 1980s, he also served on the board of the Far Eastern Economic Review.
Pearlstine joined Time Inc. in 1994. During his years there he was responsibe for as many as 150 magazines, including TIME, FORTUNE, PEOPLE, and Asiaweek. After Time Inc.’s parent company, Time Warner, acquired Turner Broadcasting and AOL, he worked on joint programming efforts with CNN and AOL.
In 2006, he left Time Inc. to join The Carlyle Group as a senior advisor for its Telecom and Media team, focusing on acquisition opportunities in the U.S. and internationally.
From 2008 to 2013, he sought growth opportunities in consumer media at Bloomberg and served as Chairman of Bloomberg Government and Bloomberg Businessweek after the magazine was acquired from McGraw Hill in 2009.
Pearlstine returned to Time Inc. as its chief content officer at the end of 2013 and served as its vice chairman until his retirement in 2017.
He was appointed executive editor of the Los Angeles Times after Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong acquired it and remained in that position until the end of 2020.
He currently serves on the advisory boards of North Base Media, a U.S. venture capital firm that focuses on emerging market media, Majarra, an Abu Dhabi company that translates technical and business publications into Arabic, and TNL Mediagene, an Asian digital media company based in Tokyo and Taipei.
He is also on four nonprofit boards: the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP), the Shorenstein Center at Harvard Kennedy School, the Center for Communication, Leadership, and Policy (CCLP) at U.S.C. Annenberg, and the Alliance for Trust in Media.
Pearlstine has previously served on the boards of the Carnegie Corporation, the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Newmark Journalism School at the City University of New York, and the Sundance and Tribeca film institutes. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. From 2006 to 2011, Pearlstine was the president and CEO of the American Academy in Berlin, a New York foundation, and he served as president of the New York Historical Society from 1992 to 1994.
Pearlstine has received Lifetime Achievement awards from the American Society of Magazine Editors, the Loeb Foundation for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism, and the Poynter Institute. He was awarded the National Press Foundation’s Editor of the Year Award and is a member of the New York Deadline Club’s Hall of Fame.
He graduated from Haverford College and the University of Pennsylvania's law school and completed his postgraduate studies at Southern Methodist University's law school.
Since becoming an editor in 1976, Pearlstine has continued to write, albeit infrequently. He profiled Kim Jong-un for TIME, reported on Huawei for the Los Angeles Times, and wrote about Donald Trump and the media for the Columbia Journalism Review earlier this year. He is the author of OFF THE RECORD: The Press, the Government, and the War over Anonymous Sources (2007, FSG), and he is currently researching a book about the coming Pacific Century.
He is married to Jane Boon, an industrial engineer and the author of the novels Edge Play and Bold Strokes.
Pearlstine has been a curious but infrequent visitor to India. He first visited India while with Carlyle and made subsequent trips while with Bloomberg, when he first visited Chennai in 2012, and during his second stint with Time Inc.
He is delighted to be back in Chennai.
Lawrence Dana Pinkham, a professor of journalism at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the University of Massa- chusetts- Amherst was Dean of the Asian College of Journalism between 2001 and 2003.
A graduate of the University of Maine and the Columbia University Gradu- ate School of Journalism, Prof. Pinkham worked as a reporter for the Providence Journal, the Wall Street Journal and United Press before joining the Columbia journalism faculty in 1956.
He remained at Columbia for 16 years, teaching print and broadcast journalism, and creating new programmes that aimed at updating the school’s traditional curriculum.
During the student demonstrations against the Vietnam war and university governance in 1968, Pinkham joined with other Columbia faculty members in an attempt to protect the demonstrators from police violence. The attempt failed, and in protest Pinkham resigned from his position as director of the journalism school’s broadcasting program.
Prof. Pinkham left Columbia for UMass in 1972, and served as chair of the institution’s new journalism program from 1976 to 1981.
Prof. Pinkham was raised by working-class grandparents in Bangor, Maine, during the Great Depression. It was only after having enlisted in the Navy during World War II that, thanks to the GI Bill, he was able to attend college. In New York, he was introduced to progressive political ideas and came to understand that the social injustice he had witnessed firsthand while growing up was inher- ent in the capitalist system.
In his 19 years on the Massachusetts faculty, Prof. Pinkham divided his time between Amherst and China.
During a sabbatical year in 1979, shortly after the resumption of relations between China and the United States, he was invited to teach journalism in Beijing as a visiting professor at the Graduate Institute of Journalism, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Prof. Pinkham returned to teach in China several times, for a total of eight years.
In 2001, Pinkham accepted an invitation to serve as distinguished visit- ing professor and dean of the newly founded Asian College of Journalism in Chennai. His wife Joan Pinkham who accompanied him, taught supplementary English at the ACJ.
Prof. Pinkham died on February 28, 2010 at Cooley Dickinson Hospital following a heart attack. He was 83.