[Reader-list] Dirty laundry at the Times of India

[Shivam Vij]

Dirty laundry at the Times of India

By Raja M in Mumbai
Asia Times / 18 May 2004
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FE18Df05.html


It's official: the world's largest-circulated English
daily has been involved in
some shady business. Exposing a long-known trade fact,
a leading Mumbai English
tabloid, Mid-Day, last week published the "rates" for
purchasing editorial
features in the Times of India. The Times has not
issued a denial, and the rogue
rate card seems to be the latest indicator of rotting
media ethics and tolerance
in India for corruption.

For sums ranging from US$45,000 to $66,000, the
Mid-Day story alleged, one could
buy a news feature plugging their business, get
interviewed (the business owner
supplies the questions and answers themselves) and
have their picture published
on the much-scorned Page 3 of the Bombay Times, the
city supplement of the Times
of India.

In the United States or the United Kingdom, uproar
would have erupted after the
expose. But the Times of India (TOI) was not even
pressed to explain the
allegation to its 4.5 million estimated readers, or to
any regulatory body.
Instead, some attempted to defend the indefensible.
Shobhaa De, novelist and
acidic columnist, incredibly called the TOI move
"brave" and the "future of
journalism", never mind the reader being taken for a
ride, if not criminal
fraud, with no distinct boundaries marked between news
and advertisements.

In a brazen display of contempt for the basic tenets
of journalism, the
"service"' meant that the clear divide between
advertisement and editorial was
blurred for a negotiable price. The Times of India is
already infamous for often
plugging its own businesses, such as its search engine
and web portal, in its
news pages.

The demarcating line and supposed safety valve against
legal complications is a
microscopic "m" in 8-point type, like a copyright
sign, that the reader is to
infer as "Medianet", a created subsidiary that "buys
news features" from
publicity-hungry individuals and corporates.
Apparently, the TOI group
established Medianet to cut out crooked journalists
and take the cut for itself.
Credible media houses generally sack bribable hacks,
but here the media house
happily joined the racket.

Medianet rose up the TOI ladder so much that its chief
keeper, Vinita Mangia,
took over as editor of Bombay Times this month. The
move makes Rupert Murdoch's
Fox News a glowing paragon of journalistic virtue in
comparison.

Such dubious, if not downright crooked, business
practices increasingly infect
the English print media in India - that usually is
never short of pompous
posturing. Cutthroat competition drives the world's
most populated print media
industry: according to March 2004 figures from the
Registrar of Newspapers for
India, 8,141 English dailies appear among a total of
55,780 newspapers reaching
142 million people, at a growth rate of 23.21 percent
compared to the previous
year.

Foreign funds and stricter standards of management
could clean up India's
largely family-owned media houses that often hob-nob
intimately with political
parties and industrial groups. Successive chief
ministers of Maharashtra state
often drop in for luncheon meetings with Times of
India top brass in Mumbai. But
inevitably, the Times of India group has also been one
of the most vocal
opponents of substantial foreign direct investment
(FDI) being allowed in Indian
media, even though it used the just-voted out Indian
government's 26 percent FDI
cap to hive off its leading magazines to the BBC.

More foreign marriages such as tie-ups between India's
Business Standard with
the Financial Times raise hopes for better pay scales
and professional standards
in Indian journalism. Presently, leading media groups
are being accused of
running rackets such as the exploitation of
governmental newspaper subsidies:
they are alleged to register new publications, inflate
circulation figures,
apply for subsidized newsprint for them, print a few
token copies and sell the
rest of the newsprint in the black market.

The manipulation of circulation figures is also an
ongoing practice, as a senior
newspaper professional explains: companies will
deliberately increase pages to
make the newspaper's weight more profitable to
rathiwallahs (waste paper
vendors) who buy copies in bulk and make more money
selling it as waste paper
than selling at the artificially-lowered cover price.
Circulation figures get a
fake boost.

Such tactics are known and ranted about in trade
circles, with the occasional
angry protest or a scathing editorial moaning about
dirty tricks without much
effect. Characteristically unabashed, TOI justified
its editorial hawking as
"edvertorials" where the editor supposedly controls
the paid content, as against
conventional "advertorials" which the marketing
department sells in clearly
separate, marked space and sometimes different fonts.

Founded in 1838 as "The Bombay Times and Journal of
Commerce", The Times of
India (called so since 1861) has consistently starred
in many other recent media
controversies, the latest being a run-in with its
competitor in New Delhi, The
Hindustan Times, over circulation figures. In a major
power shift in the 1990s,
the new generation of marketing whiz kids
systematically crushed perceived
editorial uppityness.

The TOI management undertook moves that suggested it
considered selling
newspapers as requiring the same expertise as selling
toothpaste, and editors
and journalists as dispensable as used tissues. The
prompt result from marketing
bulldozing into editorial territory was bright young
journalistic hopefuls such
as Rajdeep Sardesai leaving TOI in a huff to carve out
successful careers in
satellite TV news, with companies like New Delhi
Television (NDTV).

In a peculiar mission to show just who is the boss,
Times of India owners
Bennett, Coleman & Co, India's largest media group,
went out of its way to put
its editors in place. A former editor of the Bombay
Times and a current
columnist told this correspondent that she was flown
to New Delhi, along with
other editors in the group, for the express purpose of
being categorically
informed that they need the TOI group more than the
TOI group needs them.

Under such remarkable working conditions and tactics,
the TOI hit new
profitability but also steadily plunged to new depths
of editorial disrespect .
During the India versus Pakistan cricket series in
March, it reached giddy
heights of facetiousness, with lunatic front page
headlines such as the
screaming "Karachi Captured" after India won a match
there.

But unlike with toothpaste, respect for the truth
feeds a newspaper's long-term
life and TOI is fast losing respect, despite being
ranked one of the world's six
best newspapers. With millions of Indians having grown
up with the TOI, its
growing crisis of credibility is like watching an old
friend become mentally
unbalanced from an addiction to greed and power.

There's a dark, murky, fascinating and edifying media
story to be told of the
rise and imminent fall of the Times of India, once
called the "Old Lady of
Boribunder", now being hooted as the "Sold Lady of
Boribunder".

(Raja M is an independent writer based in Mumbai,
India.)


o o o o o


Is this journalism?

By Hemal Ashar
Mid Day (Mumbai) / May 11, 2004
http://ww1.mid-day.com/news/city/2004/may/83022.htm



The price list

These are the rates some pay in order to get
themselves mentioned in Bombay
Times: The front page window is the front page
photograph in the paper. You can
also pay to be in the Q & A feature on the front page.
Similarly, rates are also
fixed in case you wish to be featured on page 2 and
page 3 of the newspaper.


Front Page Window

Edition Size Sq Cm Slam Bang Super
Mumbai 240 3,00,960 2,59,920 2,18,880


Straight Q&A

Edition Size Sq Cm Slam Bang Super
Mumbai 160 1,91,520 1,64,160 1,36,800

Slam
1 to 2 insertions

Bang
3 to 5 insertions

Super
6 + insertions
(All rates in rupees)


=====
ZEST Reading Group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/zest-india/

ZEST Economics: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/zest-economics/

ZEST Poets: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/zest-poets/

________________________________________________________________________
Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your partner online. http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony/