Indian press

scrap2244

Now seems like a good time to bring this up - there has been some interest in the media on this forum in the past few days!
Some people have already drawn attention to the differences in quality between some of India's leading magazines. I have finally decided to stick to The Hindu and Frontline over The Times of India and India Today respectively. These two publications seem to be superior in many ways; their language, debate and opinion are intelligent and stimulating. They are definitely not guilty of wrapping tabloid material in a highbrow cover, which is what The Times, India Today, and, to a lesser extent, Indian Express seem to be doing more and more. Has anyone else noticed this trend or would like to argue against me?
I draw attention to the emphasis on fashion and Bollywood in The Times, which quite often steals significant space from the front page. The opinion pages of this paper seem to me to be quite naïve at times (a recent article on God and metaphysics had me squirming in my Cafe Coffee Day armchair...) and the language rarely reaches a point above secondary school standard. I've come across some really poorly constructed sentences (and I'm not talking about common Indianisms like leaving out articles - this is a cultural idiosyncrasy and not necessarily a grammatical error) - but, of course, today's edition has nothing meaty for me to use as an example!
India Today seems to revel in provocation. Its sex surveys, while undoubtedly being important, are hyped up with abandon and printed alongside irate letters from readers complaining at the descent of morals in the Indian press. The editor is beginning to look like a rather smug child enjoying his naughtiness.
This said, all the Indian media is at fault for giving so much attention to the case of Shilpa Shetty and Big Brother, which is one of stupid people shouting stupid things. If anyone thinks that's an accurate reflection of British (or even Western!) values they need to talk to someone other than our beautiful Jade Goody...

just_an_old_boy

Indian Express usually do serious reporting. They have a reputation for good investigative journalism (unearthing many corruption cases). Although, like most mainstream media, they are politically correct on all topics.

BTW, The Times of India is really trash. You should really see their supplement page, infamously called the "Page 3". Full of scanitly clad, half nude women, totally unfit for family consumption. You can add Hindustan Times to this category.

The Times of India has a column dealing with spiritualism and metaphysics. It is usually of okay variety. You might not have understood it, but don't spoil your coffee over that. Indian philosophy and spiritualism is not everybody's cup of tea (or coffee if you like...no pun intended BTW).

India Today used to be good. I remember as a kid, when it used to be a monthly, it used to be a regular subscription in our social circle. Now they have gone weekly, so naturally they make up for content with cooked up surveys.

The Hindu is good. If they can shed their Leftist bias, it will be better.

Your observation is pretty accurate otherwise

Now the real purpose of your post...Yes, Indian media has given undue coverage to the event. They always do that. They ignore real issues.
The reality show fracas has actually showed a peculiar class of the British society that lacks accomplishments, recognition and harbours xenophobia. Such classes exist in all societies and all countries.

I agree with you that people should not form an opinion about the larger British society. The issue gets complicated when well meaning compatriots of those idiots go into a defensive mode and offer all sort of reasons.

Go through this forum and you'll find all sorts of negative reports about India, put up by travellers from their experiences in tourist ghettos like Paharganj (a locality in Delhi freqeunted by foreigners, avoided by respectable Indian crowd).

So it depends on whom you meet. An Indian actress met few uncultured British products.

Digital Drifter

excellent choice though Frontline has a habit of making for depressing reading on the state of affairs in India. & it has william safire doing a an English language column. I don't read
that wanker who spouted pro-war BS on the NYT.

The Hindu hosts people from centre left field in all spheres politics & economy, so there is a good debate there. It is wary of clashing with the Gov. head on, so it's writing is restrained & lawyerly when it comes to corruption. It's analysis of landmark Supreme Court judgements are a hoot; it's written in such legalese that you're no wiser and cannot say whether the ruling makes things better or not. but importantly they cover things as newspapers do.


Indian Express has an adversial approach to the GOI, viewing them as a bunch of criminals who need to be kicked in the privates. Congress hater primarily(See Emergency Indira Gandhi RP Goenka keywords on Google) but have mellowed a little seeing the amount of money to be made in media manipulation.

sadly, those rags are quoted as the authorities on English usage by the kewl kidz. Kushwant Singh nailed it by saying (papraphrasing) "some news,followed by cinema, soft porn, consumer product pushing, paid editorials closed out by dubious medical and spiritual advice"


They were competing with Frontline and then Vinod Mehta broke way from their stable and started "Outlook", a weekly. Since then, they have been trying to ape that hence losing focus on their core strengths of good stories. So basically, there is a fight of 2 editors there.

They managed to take a leaf out of the 'The Sun' magazine.

& you're perceptive of the papers, most colleagues I know can't seem to figure out why papers publish the kind of claptrap. I remember the 'floating vs Fixed' loans stories. Given that in 50+ years in India, for barely 3 years, the interest went to an all time low of 6% floating(it had laways been 10%+ for fixed rate), the papers were pushing people to commit financial suicide.

& now that rates are back to 'normal' in India, there is complete silence.

Here's another classic.
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/050315glaser/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Times_of_India see the controversy section to confirm your puzzlement on what you're reading and on what page.

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capt_mahajan

Sadly, the Indian media is going the sensationalist way. It started with television, and now you can't pick up any newspaper or magazine without the usual bollywood/fashion/consumerist/page 3/gossip kind of stuff in large doses, at the expense of decent reporting and editorial content. International news is underreported; exceptions are the flavours of the day (eg saddam hanging) and hollywood/pop stars and such.

The Hindu, whatever its faults, is less strident. The Statesman from Calcutta used to be a very good newspaper, though I haven't read it for the last couple of years. The Hindustan Times in Delhi is decent for today's times.

Magazines... Can't think of any worth buying today. Frontline leads by default, I think. Sunday (gone now) and India Today used to be decent. Actually India Today was pushed by Sunday into a weekly publication (instead of monthly) and lost on quality, as JAOB says.

The dumbing down of the Indian newspaper reader continues. I hope the vernacular press is better; I am told it is.

SANJAY_DEL

Just one comment on both The Times of India and India Today.
Both are the market leaders and both have to cater to the ever widening readership, so the package keeps changing as per perceived market needs and editorial quality suffers.

Digital Drifter

'perceived markets needs' is neither here nor there.

News need to be reported to allow for 'informed comment' and understanding. So TOI allows paid editorials which allows for some 'news' of what intent? your news needs or the marketers pimping?

this escape that 'give what the reader wants' is exactly what you got. front page pimping. I don't mind that but at least the papers should drop the pretense of being a newspaper and say 'buy, scan for scantily clad women and then use it to collect dog poo'.

If that was put, me thinks there would be less volunteers for page 3.

crvlvr

The Indian press is no differnt from the US press or the UK press. Its all about selling more newspapers. We can all thank Rupert Murdoch for making tabloid jouranlism mainstream.

SANJAY_DEL

With the internet option and fifty TV newsrooms fighting for eyeballs the whole time, the morning rag is just that - a purveyor of ads with little boxes filled with stories and pictures trying to stop you from doing something else.

SANJAY_DEL

While on the subject of Indian Media, here is an article reviewing this weeks news coverage on Indian TV.
"Shilpa Shetty's racial harassment had the channels in a tizzy. The programme could not have hoped for better mileage than the hours of airtime devoted to it over all the channels. While debates on racism and cultural clashes raged across channels, both Shilpa and the show derived maximum sympathy and mileage, respectively."
From www.Indiantelevision.com

http://www.indiantelevision.com/spec...boxpopuli3.htm

icetea

Funnily, this description of yours fits perfectly with what I think of The Hindu (save the Sunday supplement). However, my husband tells me that's probably because the Tamil Nadu edition..And I'm being reassured from all sides that this is the best newspaper around (and you folks seem to concur too). As capt_mahajan says, at least it's less strident.

This would be my main observation about Indian press: appallingly little coverage of international news. I really feel cut off from the world here. I remember getting extreeemly angry with The Hindu (I think I even wrote to them in anger) when in 2005 or so there was this big cruise ship sinking somewhere, lots of deaths, lots of coverage, internationally, and the Hindu's only mention of it was somewhere in a small box on the last page or the (1 page) International news section. I'm afraid I think it's part of a larger self-centredness that I find in India. In part, it's perfectly understandable: India being so huge and agitated, there's enough to discover and enough happening daily to keep one busy for a lifetime, without caring about the rest of the world. Must be the disease of big nations.

Another observation about Indian press in general is the fact that it's not yet taking its role seriously enough, and maybe it is just starting to reach the level of professionalism needed for that: if anything has the power to really change and shape a nation, apart from the gov., that's mainly the media. And I have to say that when it comes to very serious issues like corruption and incompetence, the press (and media at large) is still very mild on them. Although I really hate the style of CNN-IBN's "Face the nation", I must admit that it's that kind of confrontational journalism that is needed to highlight a lot of problems.

sirensongs

Hindustan Times seems to be quite a decent paper, along with Indian Express and (where available) Deccan Chronicle. (or is it Deccan Herald? darn, I always confuse them)....

Yes, TOI is sadly a real hype-sheet.

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manojb

I just switched from the TOI to the Hindu.

SANJAY_DEL

Deccan Herald is the leading daily newspaper published from Bangalore. Great for news of the Silicon City, and its coverage of Karnataka.
Website: http://www.deccanherald.com

Deccan Chronicle is based in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh.
The same group publishes Asian Age.
It also has a presence in Chennai, where The Hindu is the market leader.

Website: http://www.deccan.com/

batistuta

The Indian express unearths some corruption cases and thier reporting on the Godhra episode among other cases was good.That said ,it still very politically correct as are all newspapers,Toi does not come under newspapers though.It is just some advetorial filled crap.
I am not sure now,but sometime back the Toi had 2 articles on the same subject called View and counterview.Cnt expect good journalism from a team which cnt decide which stand to take .
That said I find the articles of Tjs george(IE) and Swapan dasgupta (deccan and IE)to be worth reading.

Nick-H

The Hindu is very commercial, often featuring 'editorial' which is thinly disguised advertising. It has a reputation for publishing only carefully checked 'facts'. It seems to love to publish politicians' photo opportunities, but there is very little real criticism. I would love to see more along the lines of, for instance, why the the current TN government is simply doing an extended publicity stunt of giving stuff away without apparently making any effort to raise the revenue to pay for it.

I'm told the Hindu is pro-China, and refuses to be critical of the Chinese occupation of Tibet. That's almost enough for me to give it up --- but it is the only source of information on Chennai's daily concerts.

Seconding Batistuta, I have read some excellent biting political stuff bu TES George in the Indian Express. But then, to be fair, the Hindu publishes articles by (I forget the name) one of the few writers to show the plight of India's farmers.

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