More local news than national. Review on Timesofindia

Hi mouth-shutters,

Thanks for your valuable suggestions, here I go and add some more information on what I feel about TOI.

I must admit now that I had written this review in a hurry resulting in it being incomplete.

Yes, I was specific about the TOI Bangalore edition. But this is not the only edition I have been reading. I had read

the TOI Delhi edition for almost 1.5 years and found not much different from its Bangalore counterpart. The Hindustan Times I felt was far better.

And I still have some memories of having read the Bombay edition while I was in college (in Kerala, the days around 1995) where we used to get a day's newspaper only the next day. But that was well before the TOI made a national appearance (in the sense that it introduced many editions across the country). Even in that edition, I remember having seen lots of local news, but I shouldn't comment any more on that because I don't know the Mumbai edition at all.

If anyone asks me which paper one shouldn't buy, the first that comes to my mind is The Times Of India.

The TOI is only good to get to know all the local city's advertisements, some local news and the public grievances (of course these are also important for things such as getting to know when is a power cut, when and why there is no supply of water the area you live in, etc). If you want to know what is happening at national level, you have to buy yet another newspaper. As some member rightly pointed out, there should be a benchmark for this comparison. I consider The Hindu (even it has got its own negative aspects but rates definitely better than the TOI - it has an orientation towards southern India), The Indian Express (after it is split into two entities, its depth also is not much nowadays), The Asian Age (this news paper pretends to be a global newspaper but carries enough Indian news as well. To prove this fact, just have a look once at its Sunday's edition, needless to say, it too has equally junk news always).

The ToI initially entered new areas by introducing 'Invitation Price' at Re.1 triggering price war among the competitors. True that it captured huge market share by aggressive marketing but slowly it lost all quality and sheen.

The invitation price no longer exists and the paper is not the worth the money you pay.

Who would want to know some X person in Hollywood had problems with her ex-husband or her plastic surgery was not successful when you get up early in the morning to get some interesting news? The suppliment especially like Bangalore Times should rather have been aptly named 'Bakhwas Times'. Those 4 sheets of paper are a national waste!! Considering this national waste and having given it some weightage, Times of India brought down its paper size to almost 75%. This resulted in old men forcing to wear spectacles to read the paper. Never mind, the advertisement sizes never were brought down accordingly.

The last page on Bangalore Times is always specifically aimed at porn, any day of the year.

And the very second page after the main page points at 'better' bare body figures at indiatimes.com!! If this is the news that happens in India, I pity those politicians, government and some good samaritans that are trying to do something better than this kind of news!

Just give yet another example, The Sunday Times of yesterday (12th Jan, 2003) (Oh! sorry, its Bangalore edition) carried on the very first page a propaganda for indiatimes.com saying that somebody became a 'Lakhpati' by doing shopping at indiatimes.com. If this is the news that can be carried on the first page, it gives people think that nothing better is happening in India. Probably this item should have been given as an advertisement for promoting Indiatimes.com and not certainly as a news item on the very main page.

As a whole, I suggest that if you want to do some casual time pass, stick to Times of India. If you are serious about knowing news, there are better news papers around. Why at all The Pioneer, The Statesman kind of newspapers do not have a national penetration?

By the way, the newspaper never pulled me towards reading its website...May be it is too good to read, I don't know.