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Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Decade of the Swimsuit Special
Krishna Moorthy, responding to my post about the Times of India and the jargon they use, writes in:
When it comes to the frivolity and the celebrity obsession, perhaps they are already changing. Since DNA and Mumbai Mirror were launched, the TOI has had more human-interest stories and hard reporting making their way to the front page. So perhaps the competition is reason to hope that they'll find the right balance between the serious stuff and the fluff. But what about their selling of editorial space?
What will it take for that to change?
Update (May 25): Ravikiran Rao's emailed response to this is here, and Charukesi Ramadurai reveals more jargon here.
Indian newspapers are way too fond of jargon and marketing-speak. ToI's "prosumer" is but one such nerve-jangling example.Indeed. And that brings me to another thought. Much as we keep complaining about the ToI, it is the way it is because that's what its readers want it to be. What will change this? Competition? An increasingly enlightened readership (that perhaps also reads blogs)?
I've read at least a half-dozen interviews with Indian film-makers where the interviewer asks a variant of this question: "What is your film's USP?" (To which our astute, market-savvy film-maker replies "music is my film's main USP".)
But seriously, a newspaper designed for and by the reader? Oh, why don't they simply declare this the Decade of the Swimsuit Special and really delight their young readers?
When it comes to the frivolity and the celebrity obsession, perhaps they are already changing. Since DNA and Mumbai Mirror were launched, the TOI has had more human-interest stories and hard reporting making their way to the front page. So perhaps the competition is reason to hope that they'll find the right balance between the serious stuff and the fluff. But what about their selling of editorial space?
What will it take for that to change?
Update (May 25): Ravikiran Rao's emailed response to this is here, and Charukesi Ramadurai reveals more jargon here.
