I love Newspapers. My day has to start with a hot cuppa Nescafe and a heavy news paper. In fact I read 4 of them in a day if I include the two online editions of the Times of India & The Economic times.

I have read many different papers during my days and here’s what I make of them.

The Times of India, the grandaddy of them all, was once my staple when I was in Mumbai, and the day could not start without one. Then they went and reduced the size, ostensibly to conform to some notion of international style (whatever that means). To me it was simply cutting on paper expense, saving on the news that they have to write and proportionately increasing the advertisement space, though the reduced size did help in handling the broadsheet in crowded locals.  They also went all colour, which was a nice touch. Along with all the superficial improvements, they have decided that tabloidesque is how people like their news. So you have crisp headlines, sharp photos and racy language but brainless content. Reporters who are factually incorrect while going breathless trying to be readable, amateur analysts with short memory and an irritating bias towards all things Congress. Capitalist mouthpieces telling us how we are so successful growing at 9% and all that. Then there is entertainment news and spicy snippets, whose sole aim is to find a lame excuse to publish a semi nude photo and tell us moron readers how people in other places are enjoying their sex.

INDIA TODAY was another venerated magazine that I grew up reading and I was very young in 1984 when I started reading it and have been hooked to it since then. But over the past few years since they have gone weekly, the standard is also going down. The problem is same affecting the times of India and print media in general. Every now and then they publish some or the other Sex survey. I am not against such surveys and am definitely not against any healthy discussion on the topic, but should some very adult discussion on a very adult matter be dished out in something as acceccible as a News-Magazine? I cannot help but pity them. What news can a weekly news-magazine bring in the age of 24 hour news channels and a plethora of newspapers, who have already dissected the issue beyond recognition. They have to ensure their survival and therefore seem to be trying to re-invent themselves as a regular dose of inane surveys.

Less said about Outlook and Week the better. The Reporters seem to be sitting on the web and gathering information from Wikipedia.

One news magazine that has retained its character is the ‘Frontline’. I loved this magazine but the availability was limited as it was published in far of Chennai. The incisiveness, the issues, the analysis, the humanity of the subjects chosen are still there,  but it is difficult to stand up to Machine Gun chatter of 24 hour news channels. I think Frontline is also in its decline.

The other papers that I read are The business line, The Economic Times, both are out and out business dailies, with very little interest for a lay reader, but I want to be informed about the world of business, therefore I take them with a pinch of salt.

Sometimes I get to  lay my hand on the Indian Express. Well the anti establishment tirade is still there, but the edge is gone as all the best columnists of their times.

Print I think is losing its journalist talent to TV. But when I watch TV and see all the greenhorns trying to speak serious English, while trying to give opinions about issues and events which they know nothing about, I wonder where all the talent is going.  With the IT boom I think best of Indian Talent including people who could have been journalists are writing code for TCS and the likes. Even celebrated TV journalists (I hate to name them) are trying to go for the TRP and appear more as Programme Anchors of political debates, where couple or more of second rate politicians try to tear each other to pieces.

Some channels, who have invented and given themselves multiple awards, rape and murder the hell out of any incident involving such a thing. They themselves play the role of police, judge, jury and the executioner. The way Aajtak, one of the most unashamedly idiotic, opinionated and self aggrandised channel on the air, went about dramatising and pronouncing the guilty verdict in the Noida twin Murder case, complete with fake actors and blood splashing on the screen, gave me bouts of nausea.

Another English news channel called Headlines Today turns girly magazine after 11 PM. Its no surprise that both Aajtak and Headlines Today are owned by the India Today group.  Then there are other insignificant news channels trying to ape and out do each other in the department of sleaze and un-invited, un-informed opinions. Some news channels actually air clippings of Reality shows running on their sister channels as news, complete with a voice over describing the latest nuances that have been played out while singing and dancing. I wonder whether they should atop airing any one of the channels to save Electricity and prevent ‘TV Remote Thumb’, which is a cramped thumb resulting from furious channel switching.

In the total chaos that the news media in India has become a few of news channels stand out. The old and respected NDTV, which still retains some of serious TV journalistic traits imbibed into it by Prannoy Roy and the original gang.  Rajdeep Sardesai though could not play second fiddle to old Prannoy and has left for CNN IBN where he is now anchoring his own shouting matches. NDTV also has been bitten by the TRP bug but thankfully they are launching other channles to cater to the baser instincts.

Then there is another new channel on the air by the name of NEWS X. I think they are affiliated to the 9X group. They have yet to come up to the standards as far as news and its presentation is concerned but they do it with a very stylish and sophisticated BBC manner. No  dramatisation, no shouting and shrieking anchors, no breathless reporters, not much of partisan opinion. Hope they improve and stick around and not get affected by the TRP race.

Then lastly the most revered member of the news media in my opinion ; ‘The Hindu’. The Hindu as the name suggests is not a communal paper and was published from Chennai for a long time before technology allowed it to publish more city editions. Now this is one serious paper deriving its style and line of thinking from the Left-of-Centre ‘The Gaurdian’ of England.

The paper is old broadsheet, not the abbreviated paper towels that the Times and HT have become. It is mixture of colour and Black and White. To prevent early morning head aches and death due to severe envy, there is NO Page 3 content. There are very few colour supplements to distract your chain of thoughts as they are formed by the deep analysis. Friday’s are a day for literary and art review, which would have put Old Illustrated Weekly to shame. News is crisp, headlines attract but don’t scream. Mistakes of spelling, facts and opinion are there but the  Managing Editor acknowledges every one of them pointed out by the readers on Mondays. Columns are big affairs as they have more space than any other paper. The columnists are people like P Sainath, Ramesh Thakur, Shashi Tharoor, Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman etc. And then there are syndicated pieces from ‘The Gaurdian’ and ‘USA Today’. Letters to the Editor are more than a couple of lines, and reflect more than one line of argument.

Its a joy to hold a ‘Hindu’ in your hand. It is difficult for someone used to the Times of India or Hindustan Times to immerse themselves in the sheer seriousness of The Hindu. I also found it very boring initially, but it grows on you like and acquired taste.

Not that I am one serious character. Just that I like my things to be pure. If I want to be titillated and thrilled then I have other means, which do just that.  News papers, magazines and channels should deliver just news and not try to be playboy, filmfare and BBC at the same time, because at the end of the day they become just a lot of ‘Raddi’ and a sore thumb from switching channels.