Monday, January 22, 2007

The Hindu speaks ...


If the Big People at the Hindu don't want their employees to blog, they could have sent a private mail to them, no? Wouldn't it have been far better than pouring scorn and humiliation on them through an editorial cartoon?


Why do the Hindu's Big People hate their Deputy Editor, reporters (1 and 2), and contributors (1) who also blog?

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The original cartoon appears here.

6 Comments:

  1. Anonymous said...

    Abi: I guess we are getting it all wrong. The true intent of the cartoon perhaps is to imply that the rest of the gang (non-bloggers) at the newspaper is yet to make it to that species stage (represented in the cartoon) in the evolution line...

    I don't think the bloggers at Hindu would mind that...

  2. Cosmic Voices said...

    I thought the cartoon was aimed at all the bloggers who are raising uncomfortable questions on quality of Hindu's journalism rather than their employees.

    Or am I missing something?

  3. Anonymous said...

    I agree with Cosmic Voices. Its Hindu's way of saying hey neanderthal bloggers we, Hindu journalists, are superior than you guys/gals. So stop indulging yourself.

    But Abhi I admire how you redirected Hindu's jab aimed at bloggers to themselves.

  4. pradeepkumar pi said...

    Their Sister publication Businessline
    has many blogs for various colums
    and they even link those in the print and web editions

    See http://sticklishissues.blogspot.com/

    http://mentorqa.blogspot.com/

    http://BookPeek.blogspot.com

  5. Abi said...

    Arunn: I like your interpretation.

    Cosmic Voices, Anon: It is really silly of the Hindu to put bloggers down. It's clear that the Big People there are angry at critical bloggers like Cosmic Voices. But this cartoon was so over the top!

    Pradeep: Thanks for the pointers to the other blogs from BusinessLine.

  6. Anonymous said...

    This is good! The Hindu is actually responding to criticism? I can't believe it. The Hindu the poodle of the tinpots in the East and the West has if nothing been a very sanctimonious paper ever since N.Ram took over. Today the paper has given up even a semblance of proportion and is pretty much shameless in its endorsement of the Indian Commies and their masters in Beijing. When N.Ram could barely control his glee and breathlessly praised the Chinese government as its tanks mowed down the people in Tian-an-men square 20 years ago it still raised some awkward questions. After N. Ram's PR piece on Tibet was printed a few years back even that twitch of conscience was stilled forever. Today all you have is incompetents who when they interview Musharraf make Larry King look like Tim Sebastian of Hard Talk! This sorry mess of a paper manages to lower itself below its usually abysmal standards every now and then. A couple of years ago when the Chinese government orchestrated attacks against Japanese interests in China - including the Japanese diplomatic missions The Hindu shamelessly downplayed the seriousness of the events and even seemed to ask the Japanese government to grin and bear it! Such gall. In March 2005, demonstrations were organized in several cities in the People's Republic of China, including Chongqing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhengzhou, Shenyang, Ningbo, Harbin, Chengdu, Luoyang, Qingdao, Changsha, Hefei, Beijing, Wuhan, Fuzhou and Shanghai. In some cases, demonstrators attacked and damaged Japanese embassies, consulates, supermarkets, restaurants (mostly franchise businesses owned by Chinese) as well as people, prompting the Japanese government to demand an apology and compensation for damages. There were some peaceful demonstrations in Hong Kong. http://tinyurl.com/2csmsk

    Unlike newspapers in other countries that have strong local and national desks, in India, it is the regional language press that has a strong local presence while the "national press" in English is mostly filled with editors - barring of course the Express and Statesman who have always had excellent reporters. When a paper like The Hindu simply prints whatever it thinks it is the truth we are better served by honest bloggers and the local press. Let's look forward to the day when The Hindu returns to its roots and stops being the den of scotch and soda socialists and limousine liberals.