Deccan Chronicle, the Hyderabad-based group that is listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange, has just launched its Bangalore edition. Hoardings like these that greeted Bangaloreans on the first day of publication, 26 May 2008, raise fundamental questions about how a bottomline-driven media (pun unintended) views its role in society and the kind of equations it seeks to build with readers it intends to serve.
Like, are well-sculpted “bare bodies” the only way of getting “young minds” interested in reading newspapers? Like, are male “young minds” so devoid of imagination as our media heads seem to think? Like, is there any proof that “young minds” have a problem with serious, meaningful content? Like, is this just a Bangalore/IT/BPO phenomenon? Like, are “middle-aged minds” and “old minds”—not to speak of “female minds”—totally out of the pale of our newspaper proprietors and managers?
Since the paper is landing at our doorsteps free of cost, maybe we shouldn’t look a gift-ass in the mouth. But, pray, what is this gorgeous young lady doing sitting like that?
ps: “young minds” might like to note, as my husband did, that the bird at the top left-hand corner of the
