I was brought upon with this Newspaper for almost all of my childhood. Once my father's friend advised me to read this paper, daily from top to bottom irrespective whether I understand it or not. This advice I got when I was 12 year old. He gave me that advice for whatever reasons he had in his mind. Following the advice, my father subscribed to "The Hindu" for the first time. From then, till I completed my college, this newspaper was the interface through which I saw the world and learned things which were not told in schools.
My mornings always starts with this newspaper. I eagerly wait for those supplementary pages: Thursday's Science & Technology - which kindled my interests in science, Saturday's "Young World", Tuesday's "Open Page" (only I look for "Know your English" column), the "Folio" magazine that comes along with paper. I still have one edition of Folio in my racks. To me, the worst thing this newspaper did is to discontinue this magazine.
I grew up till my high school with all these weekly special sections. When I was in junior college, first thing my English teacher advised to read the center pages (editorial) of "The Hindu", which was never for me that time, as it looked some Greek and Latin. I used to find facts and interesting info and paste them in an album like book, which I constantly updated. This I treasure even now. When I look those books, nostalgia strikes me, bringing me the memories of hours spent in reading, cutting and pasting. One article I remember often when I think about those works (even now, while writing), is an article about 'Asteroid hitting earth in October 2028' in 'Science & Technology' supplementary. In that article, NASA predicted an Asteroid might hit earth at precise date & time and their plans to overcome the event, which otherwise, if happens, it might bring significant impact on earth. This shocked me and I used to continually share this info with all my friends and relatives. They patted me as if I myself predicted the event!! Nostalgia!!
When at college, I used to read editorial regularly and I spent first few hard weeks, to get the hang of it and I then started to appreciate it. Then, editorial page became the first page of the day. I appreciated the language and style of writing. It was excellent and some times I get dumbstruck with awe. Those were the days, I used to proud myself of having understood the editorial completely with help of a dictionary. Now I guess, those moments will never return.
Slowly, I started to see the decline in the quality of editorial, but still continued to read and at one point of time, after I started to go to work, I stopped to titles of editorials because of its lame topics and deteriorating quality in the write-ups. I heard people praise about this newspaper for its minimal advertisements but, slowly the Ads took most of the spaces and the content went back ground.
There was nothing worth to remember anything in the paper. All the sections which I assiduously followed were gone. Poor quality of content and old styled reporting invited wrath of its readers like me. There is no freshness and it is lagging a decade back, I think. All my friends who I know, grew up with this paper like me, shared my views. I once thought, because of strong market hold, this newspaper has in Chennai, it is surviving. Some one will surely see the decline of this 130 year old and take the lead. In the process, this would create intense competition among the dailies to give the best to their audience. This is what is happening now. Times of India is entering the monopolistic waters.
There are lot of noise in blogging circles about the bias coverage of Tibetan protests in this newspaper. You can find them here, here and here. I don't have an idea on this news. But, once I went through the blog posts, I realized the awareness of decline of quality of this news paper is spreading fast. This is good news for ToI and other dailies, but not certainly for this "Chennai people lover".
Update: The Hindu does it again via Desi Pundit
March 20, 2008
The Newspaper I was brought upon with
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4 comments:
Nice post da. Most of us Chennaiites would have been brought up on this newspaper. I remember one incident when my grandpa told how The Hindu can be used as the one-stop-authority on English usage and how it's next to impossible to find a spelling or grammatical mistake in it. Unfortunately things have all changed now. Not only the quality of content, but also the language.
However, The Hindu is still the best newspaper around. I don't think ToI can beat it on content. Afterall, think 'commercialisation' and 'tabloidisation' think ToI. :)
That's correct. Even my grandie had lot of support. Now he is also blaming for the poor content. I still think, a good newspaper need to keep up with changes in time without losing its core quality. This paper doesn't seem to fit into this category!
sai,
it is true that The Hindu is loosing its charm. I started noticing the biased ness and quality of its contect some few years back. At that time talk was Since after N.Ram had took over, it had started decaying, now this analysis brings more light to that point. But till any viable alternative is there, hindu will rule. Still hindu will be preferred in the houses of thsoe students who are preparing for the various exams.
TOI :) masala paper...or english dinathanthi. :)
well u can say The hindu decaying to the level of TOI.
What about indian express? how well it is doing in chennai. Is it from the press of dinamani. I think dinamani is only good tamil daily these days. Dinamalar is following The hindu or u can say The hindu following dinamalar. Reason same.
sami,
I dont agree ToI is pure masala paper. I guess it is better one in the lot. I tried Indian Express for few days on recommendation for its editorial, only to find The Hindu is better! Tamil papers - no clue.
ToI I like though it has some masala (commercial purpose) content cos, it brings the news for all ages unlike The Hindu which adamantly sticks to the age old content delivery!
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