Newspapers were our only window to the external world apart from All India Radio and BBC world service. Every letter printed over the buff newsprint was taken with utmost respect, we could see younger and elder sections of the local community discussing the issues. English papers were very rare. I would see a glimpse of one when we would visit the district head-quarters once a month. English Papers were so expensive that even the raddiwalas used to give higher prices for English papers.
This went on for a while and then, Times of India happened to Karanataka’s Fourth Estate! It brought down the prices for newspaper to around 1.5 Rs, started printing things that people wanted to hear rather than actual news. And no prizes for guessing that it became the highest selling English daily in Karnataka. I was in college when this had happened and call it peer pressure or just because non-sense is so much more attractive than knowledge, I started reading TOI. As years went on, I gained valuable bits of knowledge from TOI’s pages, which were otherwise inaccessible for me. Some of them are enumerated below.
* I am supposed to know ‘Ritesh and Tanya’ who were enjoying a drink (read alcoholic) . TOI calls them by their first names as if they were India’s most well known people.
* If Prasad Biddappa says something, you must agree. Else you are so cheap/middle-class
* Malya is the protector of Indian Culture. (Remember the sword?)
* All women in Bangalore wear skimpy cloths
* All women in the west roam around in their underwear, yes, even in winter
* Closing pubs at 11 is the single biggest issue Bangaloreans are facing. Poverty, traffic jam and crimes can wait to be addressed later
* Average Bangalorean does not give a dime for his/her virginity
* Lots on tips on what to gift for Valentines day, Fathers day, brothers day, neighbor’s day, friendship day, boys day, girls day, you-name-what-you-want-here day etc.
* Very practical tips about how to get yourself a boy/girlfriend and how can you break up if it does not work out, or if you just got bored and need a change.
* Newspapers are all about gossip, sex, rumors, baseless news and in summary, about complete entertainment.
I had more knowledge on Bangalore’s high class society than anyone even in high-class society would have. I had taken enough nonsense to last me 2 life times so I switched on to The Hindu.
In parallel, Kannada print media has been undergoing a major face-lift too. Thanks to Vijay Sankeshwar, VRL group started Vijaya Karnataka (VK). VK tried to enter the market the way Times of India did non-so-long-ago. They sold newspapers for 1 Re and within a couple of years, they became market’s #1. But the difference was that VK had good content since beginning, excellent columnists, fairly un-biased views and local editions for all major town in Karnataka. The group owned a transport company, so their distribution was better, they took innovative marketing approaches and overall, the reader now had a choice of waiting for the Bangalore(or Hubli) edition for about a day or to get his local edition of VK with his morning cup of tea. Overall, VK enjoyed a healthy respect from its competition and a good loyalty from its readers.
Then Times of India Happened to VK. Times group took over VK group for an alleged amount of 1780 million INR.
My sixth sense alarm was starting to buzz, but I decided to hang on. Few days after the take-over, the front page of the paper came in tabloid format. No serious reasons or novelty behind it; just for the extra appeal. Then VK conducted a huge survey through phone/SMS asking whether the new Lokayukta should raid offices or not. They even managed to coax a statement from Mr.Hegde which was distorted and printed as if to give you the impression that VK’s poll changed Mr.Hegde’s mind. Then they started running advertisements right above the headlines, across the whole page.
I am going to give a serious reconsideration on my loyalty now. May be good old Prajavani with the new format is equally good, sans the bells and whistles that I do not want in the first place.
May be VK will remain true to its original style, or more probably, it wont. I may stop subscribing to VK but the for every reader like me they loose, they can attract another ten who like what TOI sells.
The part that hurts most is that nonsense sells very well.
Additional Reading : Ravi Belegere on VK selling (Kannada Page)
PS: Aditya posted this almost simultaneously and independently. Great minds think alike :)
11 comments:
hi,
been a regular visitor to this blog. but commenting here for the first time.
liked your blog and this is a good post on newspapers, especially saying about TOI's eccentric style of journalism offlate.
is it a coincidence that u wrote this post after seeing today's TOI? you gotta see it....they have printed the page as they see BANGALORE in 2025....I tell you, it will still be as it is today...BMIC row will still be there, bad roads, power shortage, water scarcity, traffic woes..... and TOI will not be the No.1 paper in 2025.
Good luck Shastri. Cheers and keep blogging
PS: just loved that post on mobile manners.
Very good post, Shastri! The points you enumerated about TOI are so apt! That thing about knowing Ritesh and Tanya, etc ;)
Now they have caught hold of Indrajit Lankesh... he lords over the Bangalore Times section. That whole newspaper has become Page 3. Grr!!
Oh, and yes, nice format.
Excellent post!
ToI: Throw out Integrity.
The Hindu: The Hindu!
We should file some kind of a PIL against these fellows I tell you. Sumne tale tinta iddare. Useless fellows!
Did you see NDTV on the day of the Mumbai Blasts. He created an eighth blast at Borivilli. And he was showing pictures of that also. Well, sensationalism also should have a boundary somewhere! Ethics in journalism is at an all-time low I guess.
One more anti-ToI. Hi-5.
Media in general, has lost its credibility. Apart from a few genuine players, all others are humbugs.
These 24 hour news channels pain the most...they sensationalise any small issue. During the Mumbai blasts, they kept a video on loop, saying there was a shortage of blood in Sion hospital, whereas there was actually enough blood in the bank, and there was a small stampede of ppl wanting to give blood.
And yes, my current post is on the same topic too...
rk: Thanks for your encouraging words. I had only heard about TOI's front page during the day but later in the evening I had the misfortune to see it with my very own eyes. If my body had undergone what my mind was undergoing at that time, I would have thrown up all over the place *yuck*. Journalism could not get any more disgusting than this.
Shruthi: Thanks! So now Indrajit is the pet-baby is it? May be TOI wanted to give a bit of Kannada Culture flavor to page-3 too. And yes, they better start numbering all their pages Page3a, Page3b, Page3c and so on. (Well, they may only run out of alphabets, but not out of non-sense news).
And on the other note, have you noticed how hard it is to come over the TOI addiction? It took me a long time to wean myself out of all the junk.
Adi: I guess there should be some kind of action legal or otherwise that would encourage more responsible journalism. But what is imposed from outside will only do so much and sooner or later these guys will find ways to circumvent the laws. I only hope some miracle happens and all these guys become ethical overnight :)
Viky: High-5 !! I am sure we would have enough people who hate TOI that we will ache our hands doing hi-5s. :) Yes, the media in general has lost all the credibility. I have stopped watching 24 hour news channels. There is surely not enough news (important enough for me) to be telecasted 24 hours. I watch only half-hour news on non-news channels sometime. They may miss certain things that I should know, but I prefer that to a truckload of bull****.
One of my colleagues had this to say
Parashar Borkotoky:
dont want to justify but all forms of media lean towards certain things ..it depends on what sells ..people want to read gossip hence toi provides it..a picture of people in trendy clothes partying attracts more eyeballs than issues like poverty, dams etc..i think toi is still better than the 24 hour news channels ..they sensationalize both big issues(terrorism -resilience) and trivial issues(drug overdose) and kill the topics to death and then move on..even channels like cnn cannot get beyond their myopic coverage of israel-lebanon..i read the toi and watch cnn/ndtv while i should probably read the Hindu/Pioneer and watch BBC ..maybe real news is boring ..and the temptation for spice is a bit too much ..i love the histrionics of people like barkha dutt(this is the first time on national television we are showing you live a person who is getting the news of a relative's death through tv ..) ..a parallel is bollywood ..i know a movie like Karan johar's latest will have nothing new to offer but he will still manage to trick me to spend 150 bucks to watch people who live in houses that have large then life portraits all over and who beat the traffic by commuting in helicopters ..magic realism was never more real..
Nice post Shastri. Exactly, nonsense sells. The other day on the radio I heard that the book, "Temoignage" or "Testimony", has become a best seller in France. This book by the French interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, is a collection of his political ideas. But, the main reason for the book becoming a best seller is his private life, his marital problems.
Gossip man...That’s what we remember when the dust settles down. That’s what we talk when we meet for a drink.
Bhargav: Yes, it sells. No wonder people even jammed the webserver to download the Kenneth Starr report (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/icreport/icreport.htm) ... sheesh :(
VK was pumping some interesting human interest stories from all over the state. That made them quite unique. For begin with Vijay Sankeshwar too had applied Times' strategy of Re 1.50 per copy to beat its rivals. Insider stories are plenty.
Sadly, Ravi Belagere doesn't practise what he preaches!
NS,
TOI suffers from all the shortcomings u mention. But, so does Blore.. TOI is merely a reflection of the 'arrived' generation in today's city & this includes IT folks!
TOI is colorful, has nice cartoons (including celebrities) & now a days its getting into activism... see 'refreshbangalore.com', which is a good thing to see.
I've discussed with friends & colleagues & all agree on the following:
TOI: as u write & as in this comment
Deccan: Supposedly too 'local' in coverage
Indian Express: print paper quality horrible..:-), too many ads
Hindu: Too madrasi for any true bloreans liking
Which really leaves no good alternative to TOI
This is like the Govt... all are useless...choose the least useless one, hopefully :-)
Kishor: Ravi Belegere surely does not practice what he preaches. In fact, I had a little sarcasm intended in giving his link on journalism :) It was like saying 'Look who is talking'
Anand: good review of all the newspapers. I agree with you that there is no 'perfect' newspaper. I would rather go with the least harmful one than least useless :)
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