There hasn’t been one day that passed without me lamenting the lack of a quality Indian newspaper with a decent online edition. Dailies like the Times Of India (which really should be called the ‘Tabloid of India’) are not only among the worst websites, they also happen to excel at publishing what can only be labelled as trash.
Take the Deccan Chronicle, for instance. Andhra Pradesh’s largest-circulated English daily, apparently. Open an issue of the print edition and all you’ll find is the most titillating of pictures – semi-nude women, their breasts, backsides and everything else imaginable. And that’s not all – in the supplements of the day, you can even read about who these women are doing and what the current gossip in the city is. The Times of India is no better, of course. On the front page you’ll find reports with graphic detail of Paris Hilton’s sex romp on video and the latest on Britney Spears’ sex life.
The Economic Times has become the latest to join the bandwagon of rotten, sensationalist newspapers. I remember thinking a few years ago that it really was a respectable newspaper with some quality reporting. Not anymore! If you’ve been reading the online edition with any of the regularity that I have (it’s sad, I know), you might have noticed the alarming rate at which a certain author, Lopamudra Ghatak, publishes her stories.
If Lopamudra Ghatak is to be believed, IT/BPO pros in India have troubled marriages, earn enough money to splurge on Mercedes-Benzs, have no sex lives, invariably get into relationships with co-workers (apparently encouraged by some employers to reduce attrition rates), are the most sought after people in the world, have US techies jealous of them, globe-trot all the time and overwork themselves so much that they seem to be developing serious health issues, all at the same time!
That everything she churns out is completely fiction is not what I find outrageous. That the Economic Times has her articles published on the front page every single day with the most ridiculous sounding titles just completely has my goat. And what’s more – they are among the most widely read articles on the website! With titles like ‘The girl@work or the girl@home?’ – all they ever make me do is close the page in disgust.
Apparently, I am not the first person to discover this. I found 2 other blog posts on the web [this and this (Google cache version)] that express disgust at precisely the same thing.
Don’t expect any dwindling readership or mass uprising against the quality of reporting in these newspapers, though. The masses will continue to feed on what makes them thrive.
