Ever since I got back to India a couple weeks ago, I've been noticing the actual integrity of the Times of India as a newspaper is somewhat well non existant.
It started after the terrible tragedy of sheer horror and shock that some will refer to as the ICC world cup 2007 in the years to come. The team lost. People who literlly prayed for them were pissed. The nation's hearts were broken. MOVE THE HELL ON! It's a sport, you're suffering from poverty, unemployment, crime and quite clearly a real need to prioritize! But no, instead, for the days that followed upto HALF of the front page(I measured...) was taken up by stories like "THE WHITE SHIT WE DON'T WANT TO DEPEND ON BUT STILL DO HAS RESIGNED", and on the left hand side, spread over 3 lines in the measliest font there is they 'mention'-Iran release 15 British soldiers. Now I understand that the sport means alot to people, and they need a release from the crap they're going through and it signifies passion and all that, but at the risk of over reacting, Iran IS a potential(if not present) nuclear power and they had held captive 15 soldiers from a nation that's taken part in a couple of wars here and there-BRITAIN!
Now ofcourse the newspaper will run stories that are most popular, but I really find it quite hard to believe the nation will stop reading one of it's premier news journals because they didn't give Greg Chappell the front bloody page!
Anyway all that's kind of grey, but then today morning, in the aftermath of one of the worst shootings in an american college, the Vatech tragedy, the story they run is this(I quote ofcourse) :
"Indian Professor, student killed in Virginia shootings"
I'm a huge fan of national sentiment, I truly am, but 33 students are murdered arbritrarily and the entire cover story in the main Times of India is about how 2 of them were Indian?
Somethings bloody off! Ofcourse the editor did maintain a balance, by including a supplementary called Times of India International(6 pages long) where they did cover the story objectively or with some sort of journalistic integrity anyway.
Whether the people demand it or not, newspapers DO control the minds of it's readers, they know it and in fact THRIVE on it. Run the story on what may turn out be a factor resulting in the third world war and cover Greg-o and the rest of his national hero goons in the sprts section-that's why you have it. It's bad enough the English Premier league is confined to one article at the back, and even worse that the Indian league is generally confined to even less, while the supreme achievements of out nation in cricket are spread all across 2, sometimes 3 sides of the sports section! Allow the people to realise that kids CAN be frustrated and clued up to the point of mass homicide and it'll affect a whole lot more than 2 people whose Indian origin is of no real consequence in the larger scheme of things.
Sitting from where I am, things need to change- please justify this if you can, I'd hate to think the leading newspaper's full of shit!
UPDATE: Today's paper, as Govind warned, starts with abhi-ash bullshit. Loreal apparently wishes her the best of luck on the perfect match..."because she's worth it!" Lovely to see the inadequate classification of news now ensures you have the Business, Sports, National, International AND tabloid sections all in 32 sides of advertisement overflowing, poorly written bullshit. I'd say something like I lost faith in everything now, but that happened alot before this, about the same time I found out Aishwarya Rai is married to not one, but TWO trees. Yes the word is trees. Great start to the day isn't it?
