Times of Trash. Review on The Times Of India

There is a scene from the movie ?Titanic? where Jack( Leonardo Di Caprio) is at a cocktail party along with Rose( Kate Winslet). As the guests in the party indulge in meaningless banter and shallow conversation, Rose turns to Jack and says ? Now they are all going to toast themselves and feel that they are the masters of the Universe?. I don?t remember if this was the exact dialogue, but it was a real pithy summary of the shallow nature of high society.

Well having been a subscriber of the Times of India( out of compulsion, not by choice) I have the feeling that the Times of India, which I would rather call the Slime of India, seems to display the same sort of cocky arrogance. Having had the misfortune of subscribing to this newspaper for the last one year or so, I have been a full witness to the display of cockiness and arrogance displayed by the Benett and Coleman group. Now you may ask, if I hate the newspaper so much why I have been a subscriber for the past year or so. Elementary, my dear Watson, its just lack of choice. . When I am in the South I would prefer the Hindu, but ever since I have been working in NOIDA, I have only two options TOI and Hindustan Times, and it was a Hobson?s choice.

Anyway what gets on my nerves with TOI is its tendency to blow it?s trumpets without caring for the fact. It keeps on trumpeting with a certain arrogance that its No 1 in the market based on NRS. Ok lets take the 4 regions of India. I come from South, and there as far as English language newspapers go, it?s the Hindu which is a clear leader followed by the Indian Express. TOI is way behind these two.. If we break up statewide., in my home state of Andhra Pradesh, its Hindu and IE among the English newspapers while Eenadu is the regional giant. In Hyderabad, Deccan Chronicle is the most popular one, followed by the Hindu again. The entire Tamil Nadu is Hindu centric followed by IE again, and TOI doesn?t even figure anywhere out here. The same is the situation in Kerala.

In Karnakata while Hindu and IE again are the top ones, Bangalore has Deccan Herald as it?s leading one. So TOI is not the leading newspaper in 3 main metros of our country- Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore. So that leaves out a major part of India, unless TOI has the feeling that South India is not India at all. Lets come to the East, in Kolkata again the fight is between Telegraph and Statesman, with TOI coming behind these 2 eastern giants. Here again IE still is in the lead. Both in Bengal, Orissa and NE, IE, Telegraph and Statesman have a wider coverage compared to TOI.

So that leaves only the West and North where TOI does have a wide readership, but even in North again HT leads in many other places. So if you take the major cities of India the break up could be like this- Delhi(HT, TOI), Mumbai(TOI), Chennai(Hindu), Kolkata( Statesman, Telegraph), Bangalore( Deccan Herald) and Hyderabad(Deccan Chronicle). So the TOI is not the first choice in 4 out of 6 metros. Again in the vast Hindi hinterland, it?s the regional language newspapers which call the shots. So on what basis is TOI claiming to be the leader, when its not the leading one in large parts of India. Either TOI thinks Delhi and Mumbai is India or the South and East don?t even form part of India.

Now coming to the most important thing which characterizes a newspaper, it?s the elementary thing called content. Sorry again Times scores very poorly on content out here. It seems to confuse news reporting with advertising and marketing. So we have huge catchy titles, all across the pages, but if you are looking for good information or analysis forget it. In politics, its blatantly Pro Congress and after the elections it seems to have taken up the task of being Sonia Gandhi?s official PR magazine. So every mistake made by the BJP is torn to shreds, while the same mistakes made by the Congress are given kid glove treatment.

I don?t know if it really conducts surveys among ordinary people on issues, but I find it surprising that it never gives space to people who don?t agree with an issue. Take the example of issue of foreign origin of Sonia, there are quite a large number of people who feel uncomfortable about the issue of a foreigner occupying the top post and not necessarily BJP-VHP-RSS supporters, but TOI never finds it fit to record their views. Again in the edit page, we have a point counterpoint round where we have two opposing views on the same issue.

No problem with that except that the points stated are so juvenile and moronic, that even a high school debate contest would have thrown up better points. And of course the sickening way it goes all out to promote the FilmFake awards, makes me puke. Never mind the criticism leveled against these awards year after year, TOI believes that they are India?s answer to the Oscars. And the same goes for Femina Miss India contest, which is becoming so stereotyped and predictable, but TOI refuses to think so. The newspaper has become a promotion mag for the dumb inhouse events conducted by Bennett and Coleman group.

As far as movies are concerned TOI is completely biased towards Shahrukh Khan, the BCJ trio( Barjatya-Chopra-Johar) trio and the Kapoor Khandaan in no specific order. Its never comfortable with Ram Gopal Varma?s movies and doesn?t miss any opportunity to keep taking potshots at him. Of course Karan Johar is its favorite and that could be seen when the very mediocre K3G was given a 5 star rating by that pompous windbag called Khalid Mohd( who thankfully is no longer inflicting his reviews on us). Of course TOI seems to have taken upon the mantle of defending the high and mighty who get caught red handed.

I remember the sickening way in which Khalid Mohd tried defending Salman Khan in that notorious accident case. Its as if saying hey why were you guys lying on the road, you have no right to. And the sort of coverage it gives in Delhi Times to those idiotic P3 parties. I tried to go through one of those pages and after some time just backed out. I mean if TOI?s idea of entertaining people is pics of anorexic models, pale faces, and puerile accounts of who wore what and who ate what, its better to watch a Mithun movie any day for entertainment.

The basic bottom line is TOI is a newspaper of the rich, by the rich and for the rich. That?s why when TOI spoke about the election verdict as a victory for the masses it made me wonder, since when this paper has started thinking about the masses. And to top it we have to suffer Shoba De?s egoistic rantings every Sunday. The only redeeming feature are Gursharan Das and Swaminomics which appear every Sunday. So all right thinking people,if you have a better choice don?t even consider this paper at all. Its one load of lies and half truths.