On Yellow Journalism

Reuben Abraham from ZooStation writes in about the pathetic state of journalism in India, especially the TOI, long hailed as the benchmark of Indian news and features journalism. Read about it here.

Now there is talk of setting up a collaborative weblog to be an Indian media-watchdog. Do you think that Indian bloggers can make a difference?

Mediaah's recent debacle with the powers-that-be at the Old Lady of Bombay indicate that bloggers can make people wake-up and take notice. But I think there is a larger point to this activity viz. it will be a good place to generate the sort of editorial letters that no body writes to the newspapers any longer, some sort of lens with which to correct the often distorted perspective of the TOI. And it could prove to be entertaining to take on Big Media, as Jon Stewart has proved with The Daily Show that runs on a cable channel in the US.

In recent times, TOI published an article about Aishwarya Rai being slated to wrestle a 380 pound toothless trailer-crone over a mullethead. The article is supposed to have been lifted straight off a satirical article in The Spoof. Unfortunately though, the reporter was immune to the obvious irony and decided to peddle that to TOI's unwary readers. Sepia Mutiny has a hillarious article about the entire incident here.