The Times of our times…

Its almost four years now. Four years from the day I decided to let go of The Times of India. India’s No. 1 broadsheet, the largest selling newspaper in the world, the paper- people who matter read. With that ended an affair that lasted almost ten years. The Indian Express gets the credit for making me fall in love with the print media, those days I skimmed through the India Today strictly for the photographs, it was nurtured and the marriage consummated by the TOI. It started with the Bombay edition, Dad loved the edition enough for us to get it a day later. It use to have articles from The Economist and USA Today next to its Open-ed page, the editorials were right of the center and liberal. The two main editorial leads were followed by an abstract piece of writing that brought together an unusual event to the notice of the reader with the help of literary parallels and slapstick humor. The letters to the editor were not the lengths of obituary announcements and a center piece from the readers was how the readers fulfilled their desire of sharing with the world their experiences, from the mundane to the exotic. The written word had primacy over imagery and then there was R K laxman.
Far cry from the TOI of today. I wonder how many of you reading this even recall a TOI like that. The signs were all too ominous, Madhuri Dixit’s marriage ended as the main editorial and the page next to the leader was taken over by advertisements, that if I recall correctly promoted the best music system in town. The dot com boom of the late nineties saw ads of ISP’s and sundry dot com’s hijack pages of the paper. It also was the time when the marketing guys finally prevailed over the journos and the paper became a medium for B& C to make money, or make an effort to make some , from every word that appeared on every inch of column space. The edit went up for sale, don’t take my word just ask anyone of your friends in the media buying agencies, SRK , at god only knows for what consideration, was promoted as the best thing to have happened to the Indian Cinema and mood of the nation was akin to Sachin Tendulakar’s form.
The fall to the bottom of unwarranted sensationalism, the trivial over -ruling the serious and media as means of encouraging blatant consumerism and the agenda of the select few has been achieved with unabashed arrogance and self promotion. All the while pandering to the lowest common denominator .
Hell I could well be talking of the present state of the media in this country.
Where has the fall taken us. Where is the media in this country headed. Dumbing down of news is actually making a dumb ass of the reader and the viewer as the case may be. Every day I see the envelop pushed further. Put on a news channel and you are more likely to get the anatomy of Khali. If its not lessons in a PYT’s biology or her antics, then it’s the latest on a crime next door. All to either cater to voyeuristic desires or make a mockery of a tragedy or to cook up something out of nothing. All for those eye-balls. At this rate where are we headed. How am I know to now more about NREG or RTI. If the BBC and the CNN are to be the torch bearers of the neo-con agenda, how do I get the right facts on Iraq. Who is to present the right facts, bring a sense a proportion to covering issues and who is to bring to attention issues of national concern. How is this democracy to survive if the fourth estate abdicates its responsibility. If the likes of TOI are to Lead the Nation, we have had it.