Front Page

There was a time when the front page of a newspaper was a precious piece of real estate. Only the most important of the important news would find mention, and even then, the story would be cut short and continued elsewhere for it was unwise to waste so much space on a single story. (The exception being the Hindu, which always has complete stories.)

Although I dont have first-hand experience, I think there was a time when the front page determined newspaper sales. Especially during high profile murder trials or controversies, people would buy the paper after glancing at the headlines. Also shown in innumerable movies where paperboys at busy signals are carrying tabloids screaming with the latest headlines.

Well, all that would be history soon. Our newspapers have realized how precious these front pages are - literally. The front page has dumped news in favor of ads. I believe every single major newspaper now comes a "wrapper" with ads on both the front and back. The trend started with tabloids such as Mid day and Mumbai mirror but even TOI and HT have adopted this. I wonder how long before our dailies go the magazine way where ads dominate and content has a token presence.

Today’s news, Tomorrow’s history

Until last week, swine flu deaths were prominently reported on the front pages of leading national dailies. But now, they have been relegated to a mere statistic. Has swine flu suddenly become less dangerous? Is it no longer the epidemic it was made out to be?

Hardly, but our imagination has moved on. Even Jaswant Singh is so last week. Force India and Fisichella are in. And the debate on Pokhran II is brewing and will probably be the next big story. The aphorism that public memory is short sounds so true, and if anything, it seems to get shorter. But what is often overlooked is that memory can be easily rekindled, especially in the Internet age as is beautifully captured in a scene in the film, Notting Hill.

Julia Roberts, playing an American actress in the movie, ends up spending the night at Hugh Grant’s place. The next morning papparazzi show up and pics are snapped. Julia is all hyper about the situation, but Hugh asks her to chill for the public memory is remarkably short and this too shall pass. But Julia retorts that it will pass for him, but every time a journo wants to write something about her in the future, he will search the archives, come across this image, and make sure to print it. (Am trying to find the exact lines. Even IMDB doesnt have it.)

I guess my point is if you are in the news for the wrong reasons, the entire nation doesnt have to actively track your fortunes. It only takes one person to run into you several years after the incident and exclaim, “That was you? Wasn’t it?”

Where's the media when you need them?

The flurry of media channels has ensured that even a fart by a politician or celebrity would not go unnoticed. Yet, they are nowhere when we need them the most. It has been coming down hard since last night here in Mumbai. When I woke up this morning, I was positive that several areas would be waterlogged. Adding to this, a metro pillar collapsed near Sakinaka, arguably the busiest traffic junction in Mumbai. I scanned the news channels for updates, but except TV9, no channel was even running a ticker about the rains. There was no source of getting a real-time update on the situation. The authorities were mum on what citizens are supposed to do, but thats typical. Most Mumbaikars know enough about the rains and chose to stay home I think. Thats what I did too based on my past experience here!

I am most appalled at the state of the news websites. It is incredibly easy to update a website and post live notes as the news pours in. But none of the websites had any mention of the rains until 10AM. All of them waited until noon and posted "articles". By then, everyone that cared about the rains knew about them. The less said about the Mumbai traffic police website the better. Its not that these websites cant do live coverage - they do it with budgets, bomb blasts etc. I have no idea why they dont do it on occasions such as these.

I wish we had a website that posts minute-by-minute updates on situations such as these. Maybe I could start one.