Times of India Then
I have been reading the daily
newspaper ''The Times of India'' for the last 38 years. Those days, nearly four decades ago, the newspaper had fewer pages. It had a broader format. It did not have its
supplements such as Bombay Times, Mirror, Times Property etc. The language used was conservative. The
editorial was more forthright and frank. People of those times did read editorials and leader article, unlike today''s
readers.
Even during those days, the TImes of India devoted far more pages to advertisements , compared to its rivals Indian Express and Hindustan Times. It is another matter that some of the other rivals such as Free Press Journal, a poor cousin of the Times did not have the patronage of advertisers at all due to their poor circulation figures.
Times of India Now
In the Times of India of these days, one has to hunt for news which is hidden amidst a flood of advertisements. It makes eminent business sense to monetise the esteem that the readers hold the newspaper in. But there should be a limit to the proportion of
advertisement to news items.
The Times editorial deserves a miss. The newspaper is careful not to antognise its advertisers , besides powers that be in politics. Many a time, one gets two views, one of them credited to one of its staff and the other from some one outside its employee rolls. A fine balancing act. The view given in the staff-written article is generally tamer of the two.
The Times has been successful in identifying the fact that there are a lot of readers interested in tabloid kind of news and Mumbai Mirror is the outcome of this discovery.
It is a masterstroke of the Management of the newspaper to have Mirror supplied as a supplement to the Times of India and be charging money for the same. Left to itself, Mirror would have been unable to compete with other noon or evening tabloids. Bombay Times (or Delhi Times or Bangalore Times) is another supplement ; this focuses on celebrities of all kinds, Movie Stars, Sports Stars, Socialites etc.
Has the change been for the better?
People expect serious
newspapers to take unequivocal stand on matters pertaining to governance of the country. They do not like it if the newspapers get themselves driven by considerations of being on the right side of the powers that count. Also, the concept of managers replacing editors is a terrible one. If you ask me who the Ediotor of the Times of India is, I do not know. But I know who the editor of Indian Express is. I used to know who the editor of Times of India was, when giants such as Girilal Jain, Sham Lal and Padgaonkar occupied the editor''s chair. The Times of India is guilty on this score. Its first slot in the list of highest circulated newspapers is no compensation to its fall in the long-time readers'' eyes.
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