Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Reading between the lines ...

Recently I have been telling myself to read more and waste less time online. That mission, as the recent spurt in junk posts indicates, has failed miserably. Apart from Harry Potter and 'The Complete Bible Handbook' by John Bowker, I haven't read anything useful for a while now.

Anyway, in the infinite blog hopping loops that I have been making, I have observed a curious phenomenon. That of, experienced pros being harassed by absolute newbies who don't seem to have a clue about reading newspapers! If you believe whatever you see on print, you should probably not read at all!

So heres an expert (?!) guide to Indian News media. I have compiled a list of sources, my opinion of their journalism and their supposed political affiliations.

Tamasha:

IBNLive - Uneducated, Anti-BJP
NDTV - Liberal, Pro-Left
Cricinfo - Immature, Anti-Ganguly

Dailies:

Indian Express - Center Right, Pro-BJP
Hindustan Times - Liberal, Pro-Congress
Telegraph - Centrist, Pro-Ganguly!
DNAIndia - Liberal, Independent
Hindu - Pseudo-secular, Communist
Times of India - Farcical, Independent
Daily Pioneer - Farcical, BJP Mouthpiece

Pink Papers:

Economic Times - Sensational, Independent
Business Standard - Accurate, Independent

Magazines:

Outlook - Liberal, Pro-Congress
India Today - Center Right, Pro-BJP
Tehelka - Center Left, Independent

The Also rans

Times Now - No Opinion, Independent
Zee News - Nonsense, Doesn't matter

Deccan Chronicle - Sensational, MJ Akbar
Deccan Herald - No Opinion, Don't know
Asian Age - Nonsense, MJ Akbar
New Indian Express - Farcical, TJS George, Gurumurthi
Tribune - Nonsense, Ramachandran
Star of Mysore - Good Editorials, Pro-BJP?
Statesman - Nonsense, Doesn't matter
Central Chronicle - Nonsense, Doesn't matter
Herald (Goa) - Nonsense, Anti-BJP
Mid-day Mumbai - No Opinion, Independent?
News Today (Chennai) - Farcical, RSS Propaganda

Financial Express - Nonsense, Doesn't matter
LiveMint - Good Op-Eds, Don't Know

The Week - Political Gossip, Doesn't matter
FrontLine - Left, Communist Mouthpiece

6 comments:

GuNs said...

I don't know about any others but I can definitely say one thing -

Times Of India = Non-glossy Entertainment Magazine

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

Oracle said...

India Today / Outlook : Indian version of Playboy.
TOI : Tabloid version of Playboy
Dainik Jagran : Bjp Ideology

Anonymous said...

There we go again. The I know it all crap.....

Balaji Chitra Ganesan said...

you read Tribune or Asian Age, don't you?!!

Anonymous said...

Balaji,
Can u tell me why u feel Indian Express is pro-BJP?

Balaji Chitra Ganesan said...

hmm... I have been reading Indian Express everyday for few years now. The general tone of the articles and the amount of print space allocated to BJP seems to point to a bias. (not that i'm complaining!!)

besides several right wing/bjp stalwarts regularly write on IE. Sudheendra Kulkarni, Tavleen Singh, Soli Sorabjee and occasionally Arun Shourie (ok, he was the former IE editor himself!), Arun Jaitley and Balbir Punj. Even without editorial intervention these articles may provide the BJP point of view. but I feel IE is also happy to be center-right and pro-BJP.