About Us

The founding members of The Media Foundation were such doyens of Indian journalism as BG Verghese, NS Jagannathan, Kuldip Nayar and Arun Shourie, freedom fighter and social development activist LC Jain, social worker KS Radhakrishna, among others. They came together in the aftermath of the Emergency to form a body that would work to protect press freedom in the country.

Today, its members include media persons from India’s print, electronic and digital media, many of them well known editors and leaders of the profession. As a collective of like-minded individuals committed to free speech and democratic practices in India’s body polity, TMF also includes academics and former public servants.

TMF holds the quarterly Media Dialogues in collaboration with the India International Centre, New Delhi, once every three months. These are panel discussions on important issues related to the media in the country. Apart from this, it also gives the Chameli Devi Jain Award for Outstanding Woman Media Person of the Year and holds the annual BG Verghese Memorial Lecture in memory of its founder, the late media stalwart, BG Verghese.

In 2001, TMF launched The Hoot, India’s first media watch website, and, until it ceased operation in 2018, it was by far the most respected media monitoring site in the country.