I was going thru’ the reviews on times of india and was not at all surprised to see the polarised opinion. I think we indians are basically like that - we love to put things in either of the two avtars viz. god or demon, be it indira gandhi or times of india (toi for the rest of this article). probably the truth lies somewhere in between. after all it is one of the largest circulated (may not necessarily be read)newspapers in the world!
in my opinion newspaper is something with which we develop some sort of relationship as we grow along. i’m here in mumbai for last seven years reading toi everyday but still have a nostalgic yearning for the good old statesman. but if we let that personal bias aside and try to take an objective view on toi, I think it will come up as a bad (may be very bad, possibly one of the worst)newspaper but a very succesful (in fact one of the most succesful) media venture in india.
their view is totally bombay centric (atleast their bombay edition is) with undue importance on some 3rd grade celebreties created by themselves. their language has long been changed from english (particularly if you compare with the statesman). I must provide one or two recent examples here. they described the no. of deads in ghatkopar landslide as ’whooping 71’ (i’m not sure about the no.)- whooping 200 runs I can understand but to use the same adjective in such a sad situation! now take yesterdays paper where they have mentioned about handing over of dead bodies of bsf personnel by bangladesh.i don’t remember the exact phase but it was something of this sort - ’they will handover the bodies of 15 dead as well as that of 2 injured’ - for god’s sake don’t use the word body to describe some living person, however injured they may be. even think about todays (21/4/01) front page picture - a dead bsf person hanging from a bamboo poll and being carried away. this may be fact but think about the impact on people, on the family and friends of that person. such thoughtless, soullless jouranlism is possible only in toi.
another very bad and quite common practice of toi is to publish the same news on different dates under different section. in fact once or twice i’ve noticed same news with different headings and photos in different sections of the paper on same day. that says all about their editorial skill and lack of content.
their only strength lies in marketing themselves and generating hype (also for their own events or for events patronised by them). I think the recent ad from indian express describing their use in pune (they have a higher circulation but lower readership) is the most apt description for them. incidentally they have filed a defamation case against express for rs500 crores. lekin beijjati to uski hoti hai jiska ijjat hoti hai (excuse my hindi)!
since i’ve started telling that i’m a regular reader of toi and have such strong negative views about it, it is logical to demand an explanation from me. well i’ll provide that also. one reason is price. second is production quality. thgird is pure lethargy - an inertia against change. and last but not the least (as rightly pointed out by some other reviewer) the photographs and the middle on editorial page.