About this blog.....

Well, let me confess that I had to start a blog all over again after I couldn't access the one I created here yesterday, for the very same purpose--write about newspapers in Hyderabad, India, from the first of Jan. 2007. I'd like to write about their 'slants' and 'style'. I'm talking about the ones I get to read--'The Hindu', 'The Times of India', 'The Deccan Chronicle', 'Eenadu', 'Vaarta' and 'Munsif' and 'Siasat'. Fortunately, my Urdu is pretty good and my Telugu would pass muster.
I may have to repeat what I wrote yesterday--that I'm a self-styled 'media-critic' of sorts. I'd like to look at the coverage and reportage of these newspapers, warts and all, more as a layman than an expert.
For starters, let's take the coverage of what is snowballing into a major political issue here in A.P.--the 'Margadarsi' issue. 'The Hindu' went so far as to write an editorial ('Dangerous Intolerance', Sat.23.Dec.2006) taking the A.P. Government to task and commented that Nehru's party should be ashamed of what the YSR regime was doing in A.P. The Hindu had no comment on whether Margadarsi Financiers had violated any law in accepting deposits from the general public. It also had 2 four column stories in the Sunday paper, one quoting Digvijay Singh who said that the Congress would not muffle freedom of the press and another, which reported the criticism of the YSR government on this issue, by all the other political parties. It also ran a single-column story reporting the Congress M.P. Arun Kumar's version--that he raised the issue for depositors' sake. That the depositors themselves are silent is something the honourable M.P. aaparently doesn't like to talk about.
The TOI in its page 2 round-up (25.12.'06) that goes in the name of 'True Lies' took a gentle swipe at YSR's previous regard for 'The Hindu'--"Till recently chief minister garu used to publicly name a particular English daily as the one he preferred to read and in the past has also recommmended the newspaper on the floor of the assembly....But now YSR's favourite English daily has taken up the cudgels on behalf of one of the Telugu papers whose owner is now being hounded by the state government." It doesn't take much to see that the writer's tongue is firmly placed in his cheek. The TOI has 2 more pieces following 'His favourite daily' , one suggesting that Ramoji Rao has considerable clout in Delhi and another hinting that the RBI Governor, Y.Venugopal Reddy would act quietly if he found something amiss, without making a song and dance of the whole affair.

• The DC had a story (24.12.'06) on its third page on the Congress MP, Arun Kumar's statement questioning 'The Hindu' editor, N.Ram's defence of Eenadu and Ramoji.

Let's see what happens as the plot thickens and how newspapers and tv channels view this and other events.
Starting Jan. 1 yours truly will take a close at all this and more--including style and language, columns and columnists.
So, come join the party and tell me what you think.

Saty