Rocking in the Free World

When I was in school, The Times of India’s sales were on the rise, as the newspaper had reinvented itself, complete with colour photos and relevant local content. A whole bunch of people had switched loyalties to move to the TOI, and I remember my folks also choosing to move to it, discarding the good old Indian Express, quite unceremoniously. Such is life, however.

Cut to a few years later, when TOI became synonymous with horseshit, and the irreverent thrash that was being printed on the newspaper was too much to bear, and on my insistence, we switched to The Hindu, and that is what I subscribe to, even at my place here in Bangalore.

Some feel that The Hindu is a boring newspaper, and that the paper caters only to the old-fogeys who don’t want to be ‘with it’. Its true that its an old-school newspaper in more ways than one, but its cryptic crossword and editorials are waaay more interesting compared to the junk you see in the TOI.

Now that the newspaper dilemma has been resolved by my sticking to the Hindu, there is one more problem I am facing, and this one is with respect to the TV news channels.

Times Now and Headlines Today have been banner, for all practical purposes, after they were cheap enough to leak out the Deathly Hallows ending right after the book was released.

Plus, they were stupid enough to cover what Salman Khan had for breakfast after his first full night in jail (80 grams of peanuts and 30 grams jaggery). What rubbish!! The Sanjay Dutt and Salman Khan jail trips were given so much footage, I bet they wouldn’t have even noticed it if a meteor were to hit the BSE, until a few hours after.

I am now in a dilemma as to which news channel to watch, a channel that focuses on the news, rather than on some random sensationalism to satiate the appetites of morons who don’t really care about anything beyond gossip.

This super article (on how trivialisation is the leit-motif of our Indian mainstream media) echoes my sentiments, albeit in a more articulate manner. Any suggestions for which news channel to put watch on?