Page 155 - From Bombay to Bollywoord The Making of a Global Media Industri

142 << Dot-Coms and the Making of an Overseas Territory

Second, promotional material in the form of trailers, behind-the-scenes
still, and other images of film stars, gossip, and interviews with stars and film
directors were available to dot-com companies regardless of their location.
Where Bombay-based dot-com companies distinguished themselves was
in the domain of film journalism. By recruiting and retaining established
film journalists in Bombay, these companies were able to argue that over-
seas audiences could not access such “exclusive” content elsewhere. While
the migration of actors, directors, music directors, playback singers, cos-
tume designers, choreographers, and a range of other creative and techni-
cal personnel to Bombay has been, without doubt, central to the city’s sta-
tus as a media capital, popular and scholarly accounts have not investigated
film journalism as a key site of creative labor that is also locale-specific and
involves established professionals passing their “skills along to succeeding
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generations and to newly arrived migrants.” It is this “trajectory of creative
migration” that indiafm.com, indiatimes.com, and rediff.com tapped into
in an effective manner by hiring “star” journalists. Bombay-based dot-com
companies correctly recognized the importance of hiring experienced film
journalists with well-established connections in the film industry. India-
times.com, for example, hired Omar Qureshi, a film journalist who had
made his reputation as editor of a popular fanzine called Stardust. “I was not
computer savvy, I wasn’t even familiar with the Web. I used to write my arti-
cles by hand,” exclaimed Qureshi, going on to explain that indiatimes.com
executives recruited him because they knew he had access to every direc-
tor and star in Bollywood. More important, Qureshi put together a team of
younger journalists and helped them navigate and become part of a network
of social relationships in Bollywood in ways that companies like the U.S.-
based wahindia.com or Canada-based bollyvista.com could not. In his view,
access built on a foundation of established personal relationships was what
mattered the most:

Unlike how journalists use their organization to get access, here I take my
team to the stars and personally introduce them and initiate a relationship.
In fact, my entire team is like . . . we are all mini-relationship managers.
You won’t find them hanging out at parties to get a sound bite, like the
TV channels. And some stars will walk off without saying anything. But
my journalist will move around, and the star will come up and talk to my
journalist. And that is because of the personal relationships that we have
developed and maintained. This is much more important than a nameless,
faceless journalist trying to get an interview.