The heading captioned by me is quite an exaggeration; however, most friends would agree with the similarity. Amongst the dailies Mid-Day covers Mumbai like nobody else. For serious articles on national and international news there are various other dailies. This popular afternoon publication is sensational, sometimes bold & daring, youthful, catchy and has something for all the readers. The classifieds sections in the Mid-Day is perhaps as exhaustive as the ToI, a remarkable feat for such a young publication. That is one yardstick to benchmark the popularity of this daily.
The paper is by and large neutral and has an impartial coverage of news. Since it is an late morning / afternoon publication and targets a sizeable circulation among Mumbai’s suburban rail commuters, the paper has a racy style of presentation, which is a welcome contrast to the presentation format of the morning dailies. That is where it scores another point in popularity. I feel this refreshing style and format was instrumental in wiping out traditional rivals like “Evening News of India” of ToI. Another popular section is the one on kids and special supplement ’’List’’ on events of Mumbai.
The grievances redressal column for the hapless citizen is another good section in the paper.
The dynamism of the management is reflected in other language editions (Gujarathi for e.g.) and also editions in other Indian metros.
Negative points!
Very bold, screaming headlines – the size of the headlines simply encroach on the news material. Some sense of proportion needs to be maintained.
Page 3 “Mid-Day mate” is another eyesore. (I also feel wholly unnecessary since models featured in some news photographs put to shame these ’’Mid-Day mates’’). But this may be unavoidable considering the publication’s apprehension of losing a considerable section of loyal readers!
They can do well to improve upon their colour sections to match the quality of other Indian publications like the Hindu, IE etc.
On the whole a good daily.
In short Mid-Day has lots of parallels to good ol’ Mumbai:
Racy, Colourful, Irreverent, Irrelevant at times and yes goodness hidden in a lot of trash!