Off the Record
Untold Stories from a Reporter's Diary
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Narrated by:
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Adnan Kapadia
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By:
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Ajith Pillai
About this listen
Off the Record: Untold Stories from a Reporter's Diary by Ajith Pillai tells you the truth behind some of the most historic events that have occurred in India. The book tells you about the lives of journalists, the dangers that they face, the thrill of being on the tail of a big story and the horrors they witness. This book also talks about the amount of truth that journalists are actually allowed to portray along with the secrets that they unearth.
This book offers you a firsthand view of some of the most shocking, true stories behind classified events. In Off the Record: Untold Stories from a Reporter's Diary, the author talks about the harsh reality that journalists face by discussing the rejections, the threats, the need to follow some principle and how hard it is to cope with all that. The author also talks about his life before entering the journalism field and the chance event of taking up journalism on the suggestion of a friend. From then on the author talks about the groundbreaking changes that journalism has gone through over the years and about some of the important aspects in the life of a journalist.
The author speaks of some of the most prominent events that occurred in the history of Indian journalism, like the Mumbai riots, the Kargil war and the shadows of the Vajpayee era. Some stories, like chasing Silk Smitha, tales from Kashmir and more offer interesting viewpoints that you may not have come across before. Off the Record: Untold Stories from a Reporter's Diary is written in the author's trademark wry style.
©2014; Text copyright Ajith Pillai; Introduction copyright Vinod Mehta (P)2017 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Everyone should listen to this
- By RickN on 07-24-20
By: Nick Davies
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A Very Expensive Poison
- The Assassination of Alexander Litvinenko and Putin's War with the West
- By: Luke Harding
- Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
- Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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On November 1, 2006, journalist and Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in London. He died twenty-two days later. The cause of death? Polonium—a rare, lethal, and highly radioactive substance. Here Luke Harding unspools a real-life political assassination story—complete with KGB, CIA, MI6, and Russian mobsters.
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Cover-To-Cover, This'll Have You Mindblown!
- By Gillian on 02-03-17
By: Luke Harding
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Light and Shadow
- Memoirs of a Spy's Son
- By: Mark Colvin
- Narrated by: Mark Colvin
- Length: 13 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Mark Colvin is a broadcasting legend. He is the voice of ABC Radio’s leading current affairs program PM; he was a founding broadcaster for the groundbreaking youth station Double J; he initiated The World Today program; and he’s one of the most popular and influential journalists in the twittersphere. Mark has been covering local and global events for more than four decades. He has reported on wars, royal weddings and everything in between. In the midst of all this he discovered that his father was an MI6 spy.
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Probably of most interest to Australian readers
- By Robyn on 04-12-17
By: Mark Colvin
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Miami
- By: Joan Didion
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
- Length: 5 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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It is where Fidel Castro raised money to overthrow Batista and where two generations of Castro's enemies have raised armies to overthrow him, so far without success. It is where the bitter opera of Cuban exile intersects with the cynicism of U.S. foreign policy. It is a city whose skyrocketing murder rate is fueled by the cocaine trade, racial discontent, and an undeclared war on the island 90 miles to the south.
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Havana vanities come to dust in Miami.
- By Darwin8u on 09-22-15
By: Joan Didion
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The Art of Betrayal
- The Secret History of MI6 - Life and Death in the British Secret Service
- By: Gordon Corera
- Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 17 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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From Berlin to the Congo, from Moscow to the back streets of London, these are the stories of the agents on the front lines of British intelligence. And the truth is often more remarkable than fiction.
MI6 has been cloaked in secrecy and shrouded in myth since it was created a hundred years ago. Our understanding of what it is to be a spy has been largely defined by the fictional worlds of Ian Fleming and John le Carré. Gordon Corera provides a unique and unprecedented insight into this secret world and the reality that lies behind the fiction.
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Good details but lacks thorough research
- By Unapologetic on 09-06-17
By: Gordon Corera
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The Irregulars
- Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington
- By: Jennet Conant
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Prior to the U.S. entering WWII, a small coterie of British spies in Washington, D.C., was formed. They called themselves the Baker Street Irregulars after the band of street urchins who were the eyes and ears of Sherlock Holmes in some Arthur Conan Doyle stories.
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Spying in Washington
- By Sara on 10-03-14
By: Jennet Conant
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Outpost
- Life on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy: A Memoir
- By: Christopher R. Hill
- Narrated by: Stephen Bowlby
- Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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An "inside the room" memoir from one of our most distinguished ambassadors who - in a career of service to the country - was sent to some of the most dangerous outposts of American diplomacy. From the wars in the Balkans to the brutality of North Korea to the endless war in Iraq, this is the real life of an American diplomat. Hill was on the front lines in the Balkans at the breakup of Yugoslavia.
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Fascinating
- By David on 01-26-15
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Inside Scientology
- The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion
- By: Janet Reitman
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Scientology, created in 1954 by a prolific sci-fi writer named L. Ron Hubbard, claims to be the world's fastest-growing religion, with millions of members around the world and huge financial holdings. Its celebrity believers keep its profile high, and its teams of "volunteer ministers" offer aid at disaster sites such as Haiti and the World Trade Center. But Scientology is also a notably closed faith, harassing journalists and others through litigation and intimidation, even infiltrating the highest levels of government to further its goals.
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My cup of tea.
- By MWMcCabe on 08-09-11
By: Janet Reitman
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Age of Ambition
- Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China
- By: Evan Osnos
- Narrated by: Evan Osnos, George Backman
- Length: 16 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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As the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, Evan Osnos was on the ground in China for years, witness to profound political, economic, and cultural upheaval. In Age of Ambition, he describes the greatest collision taking place in that country: the clash between the rise of the individual and the Communist Party’s struggle to retain control.
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Come back when you have a warrant!
- By Neuron on 11-06-15
By: Evan Osnos
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L.A. Noir
- The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City
- By: John Buntin
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 17 hrs
- Unabridged
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Midcentury Los Angeles: A city sold to the world as "the white spot of America", a land of sunshine and orange groves, Midwestern values, and Hollywood stars, protected by the world's most famous police force, the Dragnet-era LAPD. Behind this public image lies a hidden world of "pleasure girls" and crooked cops, ruthless newspaper tycoons, corrupt politicians, and East Coast gangsters on the make. Into this underworld came two men - one L.A.'s most notorious gangster, the other its most famous police chief - each prepared to battle the other for the soul of the city.
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A good (but a little corny) history of LA
- By Jimmy on 10-23-12
By: John Buntin