Tuesday, April 17, 2007

White men can't coach?!

Ok, NOW I'm pissed!
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?

8 comments:

Ritesh Matlani said...

Very true and relevant!! You seem to realize these faults in the Indian media once you come to this place. Media really controls the mind of the masses, the thought process of people is based on what they read in the newspapers and magazines.

I discussed this issue with an e-juornalist the other day. I questioned him that is it possible for the media to change the perception of the masses?? He said it was possible but yet not really possible.

It cannot be denied that media is a business thing, yet if we choose to be different and give concrete and sunstantial news there will be a small section who will read and benefit but majority will not bother. If you ever come across the highest-selling newspaper in Germany you will see that it is filled with utter crap...but it's all fun and pointless stuff..thats why it sells..there again the media is questioned to develop the maturity of the masses..and I put forward the same question to the journalist I met.

See Harry, In India, more than the killings in Iraq the marriage in the Bachchan family will be given more importance. Any thing related to the United Nations will not be given the importance our Miss India gets...these beautiful women are bloody lucky because they have the entire nation behinf them daily.

Now coming to the Virginia Campus shooting, it is very disappointing that only the Indian professor and student's death id being given importance--there are I can point out another fault--the Indian media fails to present a global approach and to prove that you have the children here who have no idea about anything in Europe or how strong the dollar is compared to the Ruppee in India ...children are very bad at general affais in the world...but for them the biggest news would be Shilpa Shetty winning BIG BROTHER and she being kissed by Richard Gere. Star News and ZEE repeated it more than 50 times while NDTV mentioned it once and stuck to other issues of more importance.

The thing is that Indian media needs to mature.

Coming to sport..cricket is a reliogion in Inida...thats what everybody says...and Chapell becomes the trainer of the Gods..our players.

But when these players fail..it can happen all the time..it's sport and people should realize that. I was extremely shocked hearing what they did to Dhoni's residence after a tragic match.

It hurts and more than that I just wonder about our role in trying to change things...

MyCatIsAnIdiot said...

Ni Haow!

If I wasn't Scottish meself, I'd say its very typical of these bloody indians.

Whats not in the Indian papers is solid international news and overall sports coverage. Then again, if you go anywhere in the US of A (Except NY), you wont get any international news. In New Jersey, the best paper is "County Chronicles".

What is in the Indian papers is that 'masala' thing. Celebrity Kitzcsh or summat. And matrimonials. And ofcourse, cricket. I think its okay that the Indian team suck in cricket, , the English football team sucks too, but they're passionate about kickball innit?

Enjoy the papers for the worthlesness. They do have a lot of politics (Indian) and business news. Most importantly, the RK Laxman cartoon that appears on the front page.

Cheers from Hong Kong.

anish said...

sex sells, so does cricket in india.

Anonymous said...

true... the whole cricket thing is very shitty.

a big kudos to anish for bringing sex into this.

ug said...

its more that indians living in india want to read about indian news, about indian people, rather than an alien people in some distant land. And cricket is ofcourse blown way out of proportion.

Govind said...

haha ... prepare for a maha abhi-ash article within the next few days!!

Unknown said...

Read 'The Express'
Human beings dont read 'Times of India' and 'Hindustan Times' and other rot.

Anonymous said...

ever the optimist- could be worse. u could have started out the day with the news that paris (hilton dahlin) is ditching whoever she's munching on at the mo to go climb mt everest to attain nirvana.
or that lindsay lohan is actually a lesbian or....altho, marrying trees is pretty suicide/homicide inducing!