In blogosphere, many writers vent their fury on the TOI and its brand of commercial, trashy journalism for various reasons. Further, its Page 3 articles, writeups and lascivious pictures have earned it the title “The Slimes of India” Personally speaking, my children – my 6 year old son, in particular – go ‘chee, chee’ often while perusing the supplements. Being embarassed daily is an understatement.

Its appears that The TOI’s decision to translate its english edition into a Kannada version is raising a lot of hackles in the offline world too.

Can English words be translated into Kannada thought? A very disturbed M.V Kamath under the heading ” An insult to Kannada Journalism” writes:

The new ‘spit out’ of the English version is being brought out, after stopping the publications of another Kannada daily and by pushing smaller Kannada papers out of the market. Many journalists have been rendered jobless due to this move

Joining him in the fray, Jnanapith Award winner Dr. U.R. Ananthamurthy opines:

Providing the average reader a translation of what is written in English is a poor way to serving the Kannada reader, but evidently Bennett Coleman has done some research. It is a way of pushing smaller Kannada papers out of the market and imposing The Times of India’s understanding of what makes news. If Bennett Coleman succeeds, then it would have snuffed out democracy.

While newspapers usually report on events and news affairs, this time, it appears that all is not well within their own backyard. It will be interesting to see how this matter progresses over time. A lot of shadow boxing is going to be visible as media barons slug & wriggle it out in public and otherwise. One thing is for sure: money and its power is going to prevail !!!

An earlier post on this subject by Arun here