Tuesday 2 September 2014

Why I have stopped ‘studying’ newspapers

I recall that an article titled “Plebs and Princes” written by Frank Moraes was published in Indian Express about 45 years ago. I think I read this article, word by word, at least two times.
Interestingly this article was republished by the newspaper after a gap of month or two.  I thought the newspaper had made a mistake. But then I saw that there was a small clarification. It was mentioned that the article was being republished on the demand of readers. The article was directed against the political class, particularly those who were members of Parliament and were being giving privileges befitting princes. Despite obvious bias against the politicians, it was fair analysis of the realities. And, therefore, one was tempted to read it word by word.
And it won’t be an exaggeration if I say that most of the reporting by newspapers in those gone by days was professional.  It was ‘reporting’ in true sense of the term. Facts were reported and analysed; judgements were rarely passed by the press people. At least I enjoyed reading newspapers. In a sense I was studying the newspapers, many a time reading an article or news report two or three times.
But things appear to have changed quite a lot. Now, by just knowing the name of the newspaper and that of the author one can know as to what the news report or the article would contain. The biases are so obvious that objectivity is at a total discount. And reporting is, more often than not, pathetic.

For years I was subscribing to one newspaper only. Generally it was Indian Express; but in between I switched to HT, Times and Pioneer. And I used to spend quite a bit of my time reading the paper. These days I buy three papers, but hardly invest any time in reading them; most of the time I like to read sports news only, and even on sports page I look for Tennis news, rather Nadal news. Rest appears nothing but bunkum.

14 comments:

  1. You nailed it sir..!!! True.. today most of the newspapers offer very little. But my morning habit with 'The Hindu' continues. Though I wouldn't say it is biased... it is.. but my bias is more-or-less pretty much the same.. so I accept it..!!!

    and Good to know that you are a Rafal Nadal fan Sir.. my bias there lies with Roger Federer...

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  2. and these days on sundays.. I am reading two new newspapers.. The Sunday Standard which is basically the 'The New Indian Express' (differnet from teh Indian Express we get here in North) and another weekly newspaper 'Sunday Guardian'. Both are good reads.. and keeps one engaged the whole day..

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    1. thanks Shaan, i do agree that we can't write off every newspaper or every article or news report, but over all it is a bit of let down

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  3. So agree Aroraji, my reason of not reading the news is purely because I get depressed after reading it and more scared of the things going around. Really liked your article. And I am a Nadal fan too.

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  4. I have totally and complete stopped reading newspapers.. I used to read them in morning and get depressed by all the news around. Now I just read articles from TOI online..but only the one's that interest me

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    1. thanks Ritika for visiting my blog, eagerly looking forward to your support and suggestions

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  5. Yes, I generally agree that almost all newspapers have a biased approach to all matters, whatever be the reasons. This often leaves the reader indifferent to what is being said, as much of the excitement has been killed by being fed with the 'Expected' stuff. However, I would like to see as many views as possible on any given subject, as this would help fine-tune my individual perception of the subject at issue. Hence, shutting out news reviews may only serve to harden our view-point even when it is not a matured one.

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. only if the reviews have something substantive to contribute even as a counter point, thanx Arasa for reading and commenting on my post

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  6. These days newspapers appear as political pamphlets of different parties...and good platform for advertising.. ' real' news seldom find any place among all these trash...

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  7. Well said Arora... it's bit awkward but I'm not shy to admit that I start my newspaper reading right from the last page where they put those sports news :))

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  8. Thanks Anunoy, we are on the same side of newspaper

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