Ah, after so many days I am writing a blog post. Again many of my rants, this time again against the Times of India.
As we all know, TOI has a really good track records when it comes to journalism. It copies news from blogs, changes interviews and puts them as given by some other person and what not.
Now two new features of the TOI are
- Religious Sentiments – How do I say so. Got that thing from a forum. Where Salman Rushdie makes a public statement that Islam should change, TOI reports it as Koran should change. Just yesterday there was a small article in the National news page that Abu Salem had turned spiritual and had asked his lawyers for five holy books. The great newspaper of TOI writes down the names only of 3 – Bhagavad Gita, Ramayan and a spiritual book by Swami Ramdas all of them are non Islamic. Why it doesnt mention the name of the other two? TOI better know
- Double News – Something new in the world of Journalism achieved by the one and only TOI. First it gives some not so important news and then after puts that in another part of the newspaper. There was this article of a Canadian girl who died because she had an allergy to peanuts and her boyfriend kissed her after eating a peanut sandwich. Was posted in the World or International page as a small article. Next day, was printed in the Hyderabad Times on the front page right hand corner!! Another article of Shahid and Katrina Kaif was redone twice on the same page where the gap was of about one month.
No comments. TOI better pull up their socks before its too late!!
TOI knows what to do, so as to remain glued to its readers.
Fault is not in TOI, but in us. Everyone will agree that Hindu has a very high quality of news, but it lacks those semi-nude photograps of models and the other hot-talks, and the consequences are that Hindu’s readership has gone down like anything. But at the same time TOI’s readership has sky-rocketed just b’coz it has introduced all those ‘items’ which readers will love to see. If I were to make a list of those ‘items’ which everyone wants to see in the newpapers it could be something like this:
1. Semi-nude photograps (Nude will be a welcome)
2. Bollywood masala news.
3. Affairs of High Profile people.
4. Political News which generally involves irrelevent interpretations
5. Editorials are a thing of past…so not to waste a page we wish a cut-short editorial, even thats not read.
6. Whats happening in the City’s Party Circle…..who boozed where and with whome did she come, wearning what and also a photo of that.
7. Latest Songs/TV Serials/Movies advertisement.
8. anything filthy which people can remember for the whole day/week/month .. .. say MMS or Kareena’s video or Mallika’s photo etc etc
And the newspaper which will contain these ingradients will surely hit the market. And TOI is doing just this.
So tell me whether TOI sucks or our taste sucks. If TOI really sucks then I am sure that it wont survice in the market, but look at the way they are picking up the market…..I doubt that it really sucks, infact readers like it!
You have a really hard hitting point rightly nailed. The public does want that.
Looks like I’ll shift from a morning newspaper to an Internet News service of the Hindu or Indian Express
ya man thats what people like to see in their newspaper. Even i used to read only the bollywood times when i was in mumbai. But now in chennai i’m reading hindu and its a whole lot different from times of india. I do agree that the glamour and glitz are missing in hindu but it still rocks. This stratedy is followed by many papers not just TOI. recently a paper was launched in chennai called deccan chronicles. They have a supplementary which carried all the news about movies, gossips celebrities the same page 3 culture only in this case it was not just page 3 but nearly 10 sides. and lets see how the newly launched channel TIMES NOW does.
Deccan Chronicle = Younger Brother of TOI, except for less of P3P sucking, its got loads of ads
Find it difficult to go through HT or ToI, the day The Hindu has announced a holiday. Almost always, I end up not reading the newspaper! They’re so messy, and yes, perhpas, I’m rather fussy. But then, a newspaper is something one gets used to. It’s like the first day one uses a new tooth-brush after four months of a particular kind of bristles (only with a newspaper, it ain’t months but long years of perusing). And then the quality of language matters! Why would I want to run through something that pushes me into teacher-mode and I feel like holding a red pen and slashing and crossing unforgivable errors? Yeah, I’ve heard about the ‘it’s human to err’ adage, but it is criminal to present a mumble-jumble of incorrect language just because some kind soul said that to make some dolt feel better about himself!
TOI really sucks at least the online version. It is too obsessed with news form across the border. It reports things stupid crape and then undersroes it as “inside sources tell TOI” or “Informed Sources” which is completly false. I also hate the sleazy pictures and bollywood massala. Overall, it sounds more like a tabloid than a legid newspaper.
[...] add to my current state of nihilism, I see a ten-ton masturbatory salute by Times Of India on its front page, which read “A Year In The Life Of Chennai”. Apparently they are celebrating [...]
[...] add to my current state of nihilism, I see a ten-ton masturbatory salute by Times Of India on its front page, which read “A Year In The Life Of Chennai”. Apparently they are celebrating [...]
I hate TOI with a vengeance. I hate HT with a similar passion. Sadly, there are no Indian newspapers that I can tolerate reading.
India is a dumb country. We have more uneducated literate people than any other. Even in that dumbest of all countries, America, the largest selling newspapers remain the Wall Street Journal (1st) and New York Times (3rd), which still find it prudent to refer to people as “Mr. Advani” or “Mr. Obama”.
Who in here would be willing to write for a new newspaper that I will be launching in the next one month? No salary, just a space to voice your (educated) opinion?
Times of INDIA – Un Responsible, Cheats to customers.
I had TOI subscription for 6 months and after 2.5 months, they have stopped delivering papers.
Filed a complaint — Number 202135 to local TIMES office (ph. no. 040-23355335) couple of times but no action taken, they feel sorry but don’t do anything.
They gave me couple of numbers but no one acts on this complaint.
TOI SUCKS.