Sign of the times?. Review on The Times Of India

It happens to be one of the leading dailies but sometimes its a 'misleading daily'.

There was a time when the tabloid played a prank on April Fools Day. They published fictitious articles as a joke. The articles included ''Mass Destruction of trees near M.G. Road'' and ''President Abdul Kalam's Hair Makeover''. The articles all pointed to a page where they explained it was all - an April Fools hoax!

Newspapers are a medium that can influence the reader. There is limited or no scope for errors or incorrect data, let alone false ones. Which is why, when they played that prank, it made me wonder why on Earth would a powerful news house like TOI do something like that.

Then came Sunday's paper (17.7.05).

Page 1: J.K. Rowling sits with her sixth Harry Potter offering with a bunch of kids in total glee. Cool! Its a famous book. Its eagerly awaited. Its got a fan following. She's the richest woman in the U.K. and so on...

Pages 2-3: Another Harry Potter article or two.

Pages 4-5: Guess what... more Harry Potter.

Pages 5-6: Potter Potter everywhere... and this will make us think...

Pages 7-8: Shall we call this newspaper.. The Times Of Rowling?

Luckily, the sports pages didnt have an extensive coverage of a game of Quidditch.

Enough Said!

Today, theres lot of glee as Mr. Prasad Bidappa has returned from his Drug Possession charges (in Dubai of all places) and his whole clique and family celebrated with Chinese Take Away. We're all so pleased, arent we?

Bangalore Times

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The supplement that needs vitamin supplements. Most articles are anaemic and forced. There used to be some regular columns and tips that were informative but those have all gone. The only thing worth glancing at is Page 2 with the comic strips.

Page 3 features a bunch of homosapiens who party all the time and we get to see pictures of them holding glasses of hooch, exhibiting some skin and clinging on to some other homosapien who's into the same sort of thrills. Hallelujah... what a waste of space and time.

I've totally disowned this newspaper. I'd rather read news online from BBC, CNN or some other source like Google News. Besides, not much to read anyway, its always a nuke here, a bomb there, a rape here and a tragedy there.

Last Note

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The paper is pretty slick and the technological superiority is evident. They need to rethink on Content - its weak at best. My two cents (less tax):

RETHINK, REFORMAT, REVAMP... and SELL BUT DONT SELL OUT!

~finis~

PS: I did say newspapers are a medium that influences people... a review is one too. These are personal opinions and are not meant to influence you. One mans meat is after all another mans poison.

Thanks to my friend swarajmishra for pointing this out... I have to restrict the extent of my review to the Bangalore edition of TOI.