The Times of India is an irresponsible paper

I find that the Times of India is an apology of a newspaper. It has built up its reader base on sensationalism, at the same time pretending to be a paper that needs to be taken seriously. It is more of a tabloid. The worst part is, it has gained readership in cities like Delhi and Bangalore, at the expense of more respectable journals like the Hindustan Times or Deccan Herald.

In the Bangalore edition, the reporting is substandard. The English is below average. The headlines as well as the articles themselves are not objective. A lot of items are printed without even proper verification.

For example, when Karnataka CM Kumaraswamy Gowda's son was involved in a vandalism incident, it published a picture of him on the front page. A day later, it apologised saying that the picture was not his, but rather his cousin's. I cannot believe that such a blunder could have happened if due diligence was done before publishing.

And what is this page 3 nonsense anyway? I have lived in the US for a significant time and have read many of the newspapers there, but have not come across this concept at all in any of them (if one leaves out the true tabloids like the National Enquirer).

In the Bangalore edition, you see pictures of middle aged women wearing gaudy make up in a drunken stupor in some party somewhere (curiously enough, both the date and place are seldom mentioned; for all you know, they could have been recycled from a couple of years ago, and no one could tell). And the people who make it to page 3 could be anyone - once, my contractor made it (yes, I swear).

Now, unfortunately, in order to compete with the TOI, other papers are following suit by having their own P3. Quite an unfortunate development.

I can understand how the younger generation can identify with the TOI more than sober ones like the Deccan Herald or The Hindu. Which is kind of unfortunate since they do not even know what to expect of a good newspaper.

On 15th Feb, in Bangalore Times' page 3, there was a caption about some people in the Kannada film industry protesting the Cauvery verdict. I have attached the image of the article.

The caption says "Our stars recently met up to show their solidarity with the common people and it was all for a great cause. Sweet!" Huh? According to the editorial of the TOI soon after the verdict, it hailed the judgement. The "cause" in question is critical of the verdict, so what is the actual stand taken by the TOI then? Just because the heading appeared in the city supplement's page 3 does not mean it could print any nonsense and get away with it. In the absence of any person's name attributed to an article, the default assumption is that everything printed is an endorsement of the TOI editorial board.

Perhap's the Bangalore Times' editor is unaware of this obvious implication. When I wrote to the editor of the Bangalore TOI, I got no response back (and the email didn't get published either).

So it seems that the TOI is culpable of the very misdeeds it attributes to the "parochial interests".

A couple of years ago, there was an article in the Bangalore Times where it openly endorsed extramarital affairs. No author's name was given in the article, so again it would lead to the assumption that it was the editorial position of the TOI to endorse extramarital affairs. Such an article in the New York Times or the Chicago Tribune would have enraged readers who would have demanded an apology, if not boycotted the papers. However no such thing happens here in India. There is no conscious effort to maintain standards and integrity in something as integral to our lives as the daily newspaper, which is really sad.