"Telangana Today", Hyderabad's Newest English newspaper is here!

A new English newspaper debuting in India is always good news for print journalists, it will create a buzz in the air for some days or weeks until the dust settles down. Hyderabad gets its latest English newspaper - Telangana Today.
Even as a student of journalism way back in 1992, I used to go to ridiculous lengths to read good copy and great journalism. Those days, most of the avuncular English newspapers like The Statesman, The Times of India, Free Press Journal and The Hindustan Times used to arrive in Hyderabad in the afternoon. Hyderabadi readers usually had few choices then - it had to be the venerable The Hindu or the irresistable Deccan Chronicle or the poorly- read but respected Indian Express (even now, I am told its circulation is lesser than the number of new Rs.500 notes!). After the split in Express, we now have The New Indian Express which is the more right-wing in views. Then came a paper - Newstime -which tried to set new standards in English journalism with columns by stalwarts like Kuldeep Nayyar etc. It had a different edit page and op-ed page with long middle that now bears resemblance to The Financial Times, London which still carries 900-word commentaries by redoubtable columnists around the world.
Newstime died out after many years and got mysteriously closed down which I never understood: why the press baron who never lost money in any business did not keep the faith with a newspaper like Newstime? With time, it would have endured as a viable voice for sane minds. Hyderabad also had an eveninger called Citizen's Evening which had seen better days during an era where "breaking news" was unthinkable. An assassination, a curfew, a military coup - these were the reasons to buy that newspaper besides the S.S.C or Intermediate Exam results. For many years, I supported the paper boys who thronged the Khairatabad Cross Roads with my precious small change because I did not like a paper-selling boy to look forlorn after a hard day. That paper shut too.
So were two other newspapers which came with much fanfare - AP Times and Postnoon. Of the two, AP Times ran for a longer tenure with a harvest of best talent handpicked by one Mr Nayar who had his beginnings in Deccan Chronicle and later built Newstime brand. Most of today's veteran journalists hailed from the groups of writers who worked in Hindu,DC, Newstime and APTimes. Postnoon tried to re-set the afternon newspaper reading habit a'la a Mumbai train traveller but despite promising content and glitzy range of coverage, the newspaper folded up - it was one of a Film Star's less-celebrated failures as a business venture. There were a handful of other newspapers which were talked about in the last decade with promise of a grand launch but we never saw them come out. Or some came like The Metro India but failed to fire. The Times of India finally entered Hyderabad as a morning newspaper but quickly lost the intellectual firepower that it once commanded; few pages scintillate but many pages titliate today and most news items still look like advertorials including the trophy pieces on celebrities .The Hans India was the last new newspaper before Telangana Today which came with proper homework. It still reads good with a mix of interesting news and feature articles and rigorous writing - but the readership as evidenced by the quantum of advertising splashed on its pages looks abegging. If there is a zero-sum game in real life, you can see it in action in the English newspapers HERE. Most households in Hyderabad still get either one English or one vernacular newspaper every day - so the battle for that singular choice continues and is usually won by the DC or the Hindu or the Times. Unless your house is a bastion of multiple newspapers ( we get two vernacular, three English newspapers and all but one business newspaper ), there is little room for a second English newspaper in today's world of news apps and in-shorts. Thats the scene in Hyderabad.
But hope never dies for Hyderabadi entrepreneurs and green shoots appear at the turn of every decade. This is good news for those who like to see and nurture alternative viewpoints on local and world affairs. On first impressions, Telangana Today has made right beginnings with a 16 page mainsheet and a tabloid pullout that resembles the DC - which should insinuate whom it is planning to target. The newspaper is off-white, and has an elegant sheriff font with visually-rich appeal. It resembles a mix of DNA, Mint and Hindustan Times . What I liked In TT is the positive spin to most of the news items and the succinct mention of disturbing bits of news. But we have to observe how the content shapes up in the first few months. The attention span of a new reader is shrinking and it will be a test of TT to reconfigure what will set them apart in a city where dislodging decades-old newspapers is not easy. In many ways, this is how most newspapers start off in early days until the news editor succumbs to the cynicism that surrounds us. Whenever I see a bright new newspaper, I remember the old age: The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I hope Telangana Today turns out to be better and make a difference to make our new State come out better than when we inherited it. Good luck to Telangana Today, today and for all tomorrows.
#TelanganaToday #NewspapersInHyderabad #HyderabadNewspapers

Vinod Mehta - Always had a Bone to pick with.

At 72, The Lucknow Boy, Vinod Mehta, is no more. Can’t believe this larconic editor will not write again. I am sure a lot of us have reverence for his irreverence. I am not the one who will not break the rule of irreverence on his obituary because even Vinod Mehta may not like a panegyric in his memorium. If thou shalt not talk ill of the dead after they’re gone, thou shalt never get another opportunity. What is the legacy of this memorable editor to Indian Journalism?

To begin with, he spotted trends and swung to wherever momentum lie - whether it was the Congress-I for the most part, clinging to the Red Sari for as long as he could, later turning the javelins at BJP and paying left-handed compliments to them. Then endorsing AAP. He had his political leanings but never suppressed ideologies that questioned the ruling establishments. So he broke many taboos on whistle-blowing the mighty, taking on pan-Americana, backed the most candid surveys on sex that India has never done before (not even during the days of The Illustrated Weekly), explored the schisms and the patios separating and joining the business and polity. 

He had his muses, mostly women, thankfully. And he backed them  - Saba Naqvi, Neerja Choudhary, N Mahalaxmi, Shobhaa De and Arundhati Roy, considered the apple of his eye, churning out mammoth cover stories in Outlook Magazine on themes which had the most diabological feedback. Quite poetic, the most-loved and hated Indian Editor of recent times passed away on the day feminism is celebrated world-wide.

The publications he started, abandoned and got thrown out are all some of the greatest experiments in Indian English journalism. Debonair used to titiliate males before imports from America downed the market. Pioneer became a fierce voice in daily newspapers for as long as he served as editor. Sunday Observer became the most-awaited weekend newspaper for  even lovers of good prose flung far out of Mumbai and Delhi. Then came the paper that created a great tradition of pointy and pithy journalism - The Independent, modelled on the lines of the famous British newspaper - it had epic articles and opinions (many of them still preserved by me) elegantly laid out on Surf Excel white paper. The paper’s death in the 90s became a much talked about chapter for students of Indian journalism. One of my closest friends who inspired me to write - Marcellus D Souza used to write for this paper. It was later that Outlook India was born. Even before Vinod took over the reins of the magazine and instilled his core team, epitaphs were written about his “short” tenure - people rubbished that this pesky and idiosyncratic editor will desert the Rahejas soon like other publications and vanish to his villa with his whiskey. The ask was also tough because Vinod Mehta and the publisher Raheja were taking on the No.1 weekly of the times -India Today and the formidable Aroon Purie. But Vinod Mehta played to his strengths in dishing out fearless, sensational and panoramic cover stories and articles giving a distinct flavour and taste of the finest writing to the Indian urban readers. Some of the world’s greatest living writers from Naipaul and Rushdie to Garcia and Gawande, from Ruskin Bond to Khushwant Singh were writing routine short stories, memoirs and opinions for the magazine. The success of Outlook changed the condescension of Aroon Purie forever and humbled his fledging print empire at New Delhi. For the next ten or fifteen years, Outlook India became the new new thing that was avidly read, collected and preserved - even if readers not always agreed with its choices of reading material. The centrepiece of the magazine is the most widely read reader’s mail acerbically aimed at the Editor - who took everything with characeristic poise and disdain, even celebration that readers were calling him so many names. Though the comments were edited, the original diatribes with the most vitriolic, vandalist vocabulary ever written were most eagerly read. You need a different gall to take comments like that on your chin - and Vinod Mehta was a master at it.

The success of Outlook made him take so many sister publications - Outlook Money (which absorbed “The Intelligent Investor” publication into itself), Outlook Business, Outlook Profit (now defunct) and Indian editions of popular foreign magazines like “MarieClaire” and “People”). Outlook Money, despite fall in standards is the superstar of personal finance magazines beating the pulp out of “Moneylife”, “MoneyToday” and “DalalStreet Journal”. What it has achieved is an unprecedented jump in financial literacy of millions of men and women in India used to administered savings rates on one side and snake-oil selling commission agents on the other side wayfaring them into dangerous territories of risk. Many of the scribes on Outlook Money have gone to set up desks in ET and other Personal Finance websites. 

Then the many books Vinod Mehta wrote that stood the test of time - the most damning and revealing account of Sanjay Gandhi called ‘The Sanjay Story” and his own memoirs called “The Lucknow Boy” and more recently a collection of his reminiscences called “Editor Unplugged”. Vinod Mehta writes without apology or a missing apostrophe - his writing is so squeaky clean, racy, witty, crisp and refreshing. He mastered the art of story-telling, knew how to give every devil his due. His writings were read by all the Prime Ministers because it was irreverent yet professional prose. At the same time, his writing informs, entertains and regales us with the rarest of candour. We never know who really influenced his style of writing- is it Malcom Muggeridge or Henry Luce but whoever set his writing up, the literary trails left by Vinod Mehta will stand forever. Yes, he strode like a colossus in journalism and also plundered the riches that came with writing that got greased by the high and mighty. He had his loves, his loose ends and his moral strands plucked and tugged at will by the powers but he never bored us. He may have betrayed at times with his brand of journalism but he dared to do something different each time he manned a publication. And he opened the door for so many creatives in penmanship to flourish, without fear but lot of favour. We will miss Vinod Mehta as surely as the greats in Indian Journalism. For students and practitioners of it, his loss is irreparable. Can we bury his dogs with him so he can be as playful as ever?

#VinodMehta #OutlookMagazine #IndianJournalism #OutlookMoney #Pioneer #Independent #Debonair #VinodMehtabooks #LucknowBoy #EditorUnplugged

Why I love The Hindu

Thoroughly impressed by "The Hindu's aggressive ads in paper and TV taking on the likes of "The Times of India". The ad aims to take a direct potshot at Times of India - for feeding readers with mindless drivel on pageants and gossips and page-3 profiles and not giving them stuff thats relevant, useful or rooted in Indian heritage. During my journalism college days, we had an ebullient editor one Mr Jagadeesan who was holding out "The Hindu" newspaper and pointed out everything they do right editorially (though may not always have the content you like to see). The quality of reporting, the neutral stands on most mattters, the vibrant letters page, the many supplements that only keep getting added everyday of the week, the way the stories on page 1 are laid out - no story has a "runner" (like, say, turn to page 12 for more and so on), uncluttered reportage and layout, fonts that keep changing with the times (pun unintended), emphasis on developmental journalism and narrative panache, the group that brought out Businessline - my favorite business newspaper.


Mr Jagadeesan was right in 1992 - there will be no interference by Advterising Divion into editorial matters and there is almost always a "Kaizen" of sorts happening - continuous improvements in printing quality, supplements, new insights, features like "Reader's Editor", "Literary Review", "Cinema Plus", etc. Of course some legendary analysts like KK Katyal or GK Reddy are not there anymore but the paper never compromised on ethics. The staffers still get humble but inflation-adjusted paypackets, the ladies get a Kancheevaram saree every Diwali and the gents get a Pattu Pancha. Every employee of "The Hindu" group gets lifetime subscripiton of the newspaper besides Sportstar, Frontline etc.

Way back in 1978 itself, when it completed 100 years of existence, the newspaper was voted as one of the six great newspapers of the world on line with the likes of Manchester Guardian, La Monde, Times London, and New York Times. Amongst the initial bunch of pre-1900 newspapers which grew from strength to strength - "The Hindu" alone has created a respectable tag for its stories, reporting and associate publications. Not "The Statesman" (which shrank after CR Irani and SK Datta Ray), not the ToI as they have commercialised news, legalised page 3 as another celebrity league, and vandalised local news into coteries serving different interests. Of course, "Hindu's family feuds even though a strict Iyengar secret keeps getting out into the open and gives some salicious salvation to newbies like "the Mint" to comment on their goings-on. The newspaper is also disliked by many for it's haughty views on the Sri Lankan issue, BJP, communist shortcomings, secularism and love-hate relationship with the politicians in Tamil Nadu but the paper is very clear for what it wants its readers to notice it for - conservative but egalitarian. It is in that sense very Nehruvian in its views - Nehru always believed that the ruling majority must encourage and respect the minorities else the minorities can feel threatened to air their views or assert their cultures otherwise. "The Hindu" follows this in publications - they may not appease the "Hindus" but they never isolate the "minorities". Ethics wise also, they deserve a pat. Who else but "The Hindu" could have sacked the great cricket journalist - R.Mohan. It is interesting how the Times will respond to the changing times.