BUT CAN THESE PAPPUS EDIT HINDUSTAN TIMES?

          

The country was basking

in the first individual gold medal
that Abhinav Bindra had won. I open the Hindustan Times and find a picture of
the President putting her hand on the cheek of Abhinav – a poignant picture
that told so many stories. Of how the Indian State totally ignores sportsmen
but should one of them do well, it is quick to claim credit. Suddenly so many
foster mothers are created from nowhere, condescendingly accepting success of
the individual as their own. The President’s picture was symbolic of a
government and its officials who do nothing but are quick to claim success as
their own.

          

Yet what was the caption that Hindustan Times gave? It wrote
a ghastly caption, something like “This pappu can shoot.” The title borrowed
the idea from a popular movie at that time, and tried to belittle our champion.
Which was not surprising, because all that Hindustan Times seems to be doing
these days is to write copy which they think is clever but actually falls flat.
It followed the belief of cell-phone carrying young zombies these days that
being nasty is thought to be clever. There is no educated wit or sarcasm, just
plain crying about things. Calling a national champion a pappu is just plain
cheap.

          

Hindustan Times seems to have fallen into this trap. It
seems to have been taken over by inexeperienced journalists who have nothing to
say but just complain about people that make the country proud. So we have nasty
comments about Mr Mukesh Ambani when he defended the Nano project. Earlier the
rookie journalists had complained about Sania Mirza, Rattan Tata and practically
everyone that makes us feel good about the country.

          

Then the paper has unleashed another foolish journalist who
thought he would be Jug Suraiya. Following the same manner of being clever [but
failing], one Indrajit Hazra wrote an article on Abhinav Bindra and let in a
fact that Mr Bindra was sleeping at the time of Olympic opening parade. Sure
enough the Hindustan Times published a letter about the need for discipline,
again belittling the achievement of our golden boy.

          

The paper has forgotten that joking about freely is not
good journalism; the Times of India scored above Hindustan Times and was able
to pull a scoop by putting Abhinav Bindra as their guest editor. This Indrajit
Hazra fellow and the Hindustan Times were exposed as one sided freaks because
the TOI coverage was much better and showed how officials had cornered all
resources and expected youngsters to win medals; that Abhinav had to buy his
own ticket to go to the Beijing Olympics. The “investigative” Hazra had not
been able to fish out this fact and the insistence of Hindustan Times on
discipline was misplaced, to say the least.

          

Pappu journalists are evident in all of Hindustan Times these
days. One Jhoomer Bose writes unreadable articles. On a day when several issues
needed comment: Kashmir, Singur, Bihar floods and N-deal, editorial space was
wasted to writing about something she had seen on a blog! Barkha Dutt, another
disappointment, has written on Sania Mirza earlier, used her column to write on
how Pakistan elections would affect India. How creative! She may be a good TV
journalist but in cold print, appears to be a pappu.

          

The Hindustan Times has been taken over by pappus. Instead of
good ideas, we have a misplaced emphasis on trying to be clever and complaining
about the good people that India has. It is no wonder that the paper is fast
losing credibility, despite its good looks. The paper seems to believe that
packaging is everything. The only good writers it has are Vir Sanghvi, who can
turn out good copy once in four weeks or so, and Khushwant Singh. Apart from
these two, good writing seems to have banished from Hindustan Times editorial
page.

          

I am no fan of Indian newspapers, but suddenly The Times of
India seems to be gaining ground. Of the bunch of papers that I get everyday,
it is the TOI that tends to get picked up first. Pappu journalists cannot lift
the Hindustan Times from its reputation of being a Punjabi paper written in English.

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