aditya kumar's weblog

There was a recent story on CNN-IBN about a murder in broad daylight in East Delhi. What was peculiar about it, from the journalism angle, is that they showed scenes of the dead body lying on the street. There was no panic situation (as there is, in times like a bomb blast) while the camera focussed on the dead body, as if it was a commodity to be screened long enough for prime time. As reported, the police had failed to turn up before the press found out about it and there was no one to take control of the happenings at that point of time.

I think this is where journalism crosses the line. It is this line that electronic journalism needs to honor but fails to do so. It’s disappointing and perhaps alarming that the news channels find it so difficult to respect the dead. In a bid to fill the prime time slots, these channels go overboard. There have been enough voices raised by bloggers and by a few journalists of the “old school” kinds but clearly no one is listening.

All this while, the print media is dipping to lows of a different kind. Print media houses are essentially organizations that intend to make profit and they need to target a particular audience if they are to be in the market. In a bid to capture this audience, newspapers tend to disassociate with values they earlier stood for. The writers and articles that once formed the elite of the newspaper are compressed and done with in two pages.

So what we have, in the end, is basically something like those 10 pages that come as a “supplement” to the main newspaper. The first and the last pages usually have photos of skimpily clad women and news of their (not so) private affairs. I was in Delhi and I think it was in the mid-90s, initiated by The Times of India, that the “supplement” started to come 7 days a week with the main newspaper. A few months later TOI had eaten into Hindustan Time’s share. HT couldn’t bear it for long and what soon followed was a total overhaul (thats what they call it) of the look and feel of Delhi’s most popular Newspaper. Changes didn’t restrict themselves to the supplement. The whole newspaper, soon, had hardly any relevant news.

I know some people who start their morning reading the supplement first. I know some who read just the supplement. Now, many would say that this is what the people want. People asked for it and thats what they are getting. I think that argument is crap. People never asked for it.

It is not the people who have been calling the shots. It is the publication itself. You take up an aggressive marketing stance. Then, you feed people with the most irrelevant news that you can find on the planet and you continue feeding them that. You go to schools and you distribute the newspapers with supplements, free, to kids in the name of education. The kids grow up and by that time they are so used to your newspaper that…well, they start reading only the supplement. Then you claim that this is what people want. And, this, is just one way of doing it.

Even then, my problem is not with how a newspaper looks. My problem is that the quality of writing that makes up the newspaper is not of the standard an editor can look up to. I don’t have any problem with the photos that take up most of the space but I am concerned with the quality of the text that lies in the space that remains.

Another point: Blogs are serious competition to newspapers. Blogs vis-a-vis Newspapers; Not as sources of authentic information but for something as basic as quality of prose. The difference between the reader that you were 10 years ago and the reader that you are now is that you have less time to read. And if you spend most of that time reading blogs, shouldn’t Mr. Newspaper editor be concerned?

Switched to this new theme, “the journalist”. I love this plain, simple theme.

The previous one (Sajiv, you asked for this) was a two column version of the style, “Dots”. It was customised heavily. Feel free to ask me for it.

But if you ask my opinion, I still think “journalised sand” is one of the best WordPress themes ever, if you like the three column layout that is.

This, from here, language cleaned up by Dilip and posted on his blog here. Just like Dilip, I agree with this too. That is why it makes it here.

I realize that nothing I say matters to anyone else on the entire planet. My opinions are useless and unfocused. I am an expert in nothing. I know nothing. I am confused about almost everything. I cannot, as an individual, ever possibly know everything, or even enough to make editorial commentary on the vast vast majority of things that exist in my world. This is a stupid document; it is meaningless drivel that I do not expect any of the several billion people on my planet to actually read. People who do read my rambling, incoherent concertos are probably just as confused as I am, if not more so, as they are looking to me for an opinion when they should be outside playing Frisbee with their dog or serenading their life partner or getting a dog or getting a life partner. Anyone who actually takes the time to read my sonatas probably deserves to ingest my messed up and obviously mistaken opinions on whatever it is that I have written about.

Signed: Aditya Kumar, a.k.a Truman

And for good reasons!

:)

(Link via Sujatha)

Okay, there have been some problems with the comments on this blog lately. Now, no more.

Comments will be moderated though.

I have been unable to access Blogger (blogspot) blogs all day today. At work and from home, the site has not been accessible.

At home, my ISP is Hathway Cable.

I did not think much of it until I read this report on rediff.com. It seems the DoT (Department of Telecom) has issued specific instructions to the ISPs to block blog sites, in particular, the most popular Blogspot (In fact, I am not aware of any other blog service being blocked).

Obviously, a response from the Indian Blogger community must be in the waiting. You could say this response here, could be one of the first of many to come. I do not think banning a website like that is right. This is not acceptable. In fact, it is surprising. Besides, the purpose (if any, and there is only one that I can think of) is not served.

Gagging people like that does not help, has never helped. The voices, next time around that you shall get to hear, will only be louder.

If bloggers evoke emotions, it is because they talk about unsaid things, unspeakable emotions. When the glossy media talks about celebs and their pitiful lives, bloggers choose to highlight those aspects of life that the media never dares to display, for it is obsessed with the ratings.

Though the reasons for this blockage are yet unknown, I believe this to be an aftermath of the Mumbai train bombings. The intention of the Government may be right but this is one of the most hopeless ways to cater to it. Practically speaking, this will achieve nothing.

And I have not even started talking about Democracy and rights that come with the deal.

Update: As expected, the responses from the bloggers community have started pouring in. Desipundit.com has one sticky post here. A google group here. List of the ISPs here. Meanwhile, an official explaination from the Government on this issue is still awaited.

Note: “Writing”, in the context of this post, refers to publishing in the electronic media. It could be a blog, a portal, anything. Let’s just keep it at that.

To claim that you write is a very dangerous thing. Tell an audience that you actually ‘write’ and a million questions seem to be directed at you.

But why would you dare to claim that you “write” in the first place? Only if you take your writing seriously. Or if you don’t, you want to. If you’re the weaker kinds, you’d be flattened, down and out by the time the questions are done with. So much for your claim of writing.

But most people don’t take their own writings seriously. Or at least, they think they don’t want to. They refer to their writings as “ramblings”. The literal meaning of the word “rambling”, in the writing context, is “writing casually”. Until they don’t get paid for what they write or until they achieve an audience, it remains a ramble.

And those who get paid for it or those who get an audience, start acting modestly. They claim they do it for fun, they even get surprised when people talk about their writings and can’t believe someone actually takes their words “seriously”. “I don’t take my writing seriously, so why do you?”. Truth is, if the writer never took his writing seriously, s/he would not reach the stage of having an audience. Deep inside, they love it. They love to write, they want to do it better, after all, accolades are the ultimate drug. It gives them a high.

But what does our writer continue to say? “Oh, its just a ramble!”

So, writing, by all definitions, remains, of all things, a ramble.

And what happens to those people who actually are true to their claims of not taking their writings seriously? They stop writing, obviously. Whats more, they don’t really miss the whole thing. Chances are, no one else does too.

Where am I going with all this? I have taken you to the middle of nowhere, so what next?

Well, I have the ultimate defense, I tell you. Here, take that:

“Now, I hope you don’t take all that I just said seriously, after all it’s just a …”