The daily wars
On the 12th of Feb this year, I woke up to this news in the TIMES OF INDIA (TOI)
I could only shake my head in disbelief. Is "Hubbies set snoops on wives" a front page news in a leading national daily? I put the paper aside to pick up The Hindu. Don't get me wrong - I have been a reader of TOI ever since I have been reading newspapers - which means for a good 20-25 years of my life, I have read ONLY the TOI. In fact, when my husband had proposed to shift to The Hindu - I had protested vehemently.
But as they say, if you are looking at something everyday, you fail to notice the change. And I had failed to notice the quality of news (read the deteriorating quality of news) that TOI was delivering. Last year, for some reason, somebody brought The Hindu home on the first sunday of a month.
I was pregnant those days, and since I wasnt allowed to do anything else, I started reading. To my pleasant surprise, I ended up reading all the columns of the six pages of the supplement called The Literary Review. In fact I thoroughly enjoyed the intellectual invigoration the supplement provided. We did not waste another day - the next day onwards The Hindu was delivered at our door-step.
It has been almost a year now, and I have been reading The Hindu every single day since that day.
The Hindu seemed to have noticed what I had noticed. Because for the past one month, we have been seeing these ads all over Bangalore -
The ads are funny :)
I dont know if they have helped The Hindu gain any readership. But they definitely seem to woken up the TOI. It has been only one week, but the changing quality (this time for the better) of TOI is very noticeable. I do hope the quality stays.
Here's wishing both TOI and The Hindu all the best.. !
