Scanning through the newspaper I realized that the news always remain constant. Only the people and places change. How true it is, a bomb blast in Hawaii, a plane crash in Sao Paolo, discovery of natural gas in the Krishna godavri basin, new born Siamese twins fall in love with the same baby girl….and so the news go on.
Sometimes these news become too monotonic to be really exciting. I don’t know but I have noticed people taking sadistic pleasure in tragedies. They always look for a train derailment which has killed in multiples of 100, a breakup between beckham and posh spice, wife killing husband and cutting him and stocking him in the fridge, etc. I have noticed that more the horrendous the disaster or calamity or accident, more the coverage it gets.
Let us analyze the how the newspapers play on the readers mind.
As I am an avid sport fan an undoubtedly cricket catches my fancy. I used to read the sports page in the beginning and then progress to the other news with the front page coming last. Weird it may sound but I found lot of guys practicing the same strategy in going through the papers. I have my mother who never visits the sports page and for her the page is purely a matter of wasted paper and more garbage addition to the house. My dad also fleetingly glances the sports page to stay up to date with the increasing influence of sports in the equity market.
And I am sure that in the various surveys that these shrewd paper printers carry out they must have figured this fact out. Lo! They come out with a strategy to make this piece of news more sensational and exciting. They introduced WAGS in them. For all those who are wondering what on earth this WAGS are, be rest assured that they are not the emotional outburst of a canine through the posterior extension of their buttocks which has become obsolete in homo sapiens, but they are the Wives and Girlfriends of the English football team(notice the ‘s’ at the end of the females – believe me polygamy is still not a thing of the past, talk of the skewed sex ratio in India). These sensational long legged beauties adorn the sport page and suddenly I notice all the uncles and fathers developing a sudden interest in sports and the aunties and mothers too keep close watch on this section to know what their respective hubbies are looking at.
The international page is also the favorite among the youngsters who strain their eyes which if they did in the exams then the unemployment department would have small burden to bear. Scattered among news are sensational topics like new moon found around Saturn, chimpanzee clone involved in wardrobe malfunction, a 60 year old woman gives birth to triplets by getting artificially inseminated by her long dead lover, etc. graphic depictions strewn over the page sometimes overshadows the news itself.
The business section of the paper lacks behind in the glamour department but makes up for it by using caricatures which would make anyone with a funny bone to pause and have a peek. It also generously accolades the vivacious and vibrant Indian economy and describes exploits by the chocolate honchos of the corporate world like Vijay Malya and Ratan Tata.
The least read but the most informative editorial page has surprisingly not received any facelift in the recent times. Although I like them the way they are but it sure does not increase the popularity of the section. Looking forward to how they attract readers to them. These editorial pages are like the tunas in the sea who provide a lot of nutrition and meat but are lesser recognized then the beautiful goldfishes.
The regional additional accessory that we get with the main paper (Bangalore times or Mumbai times) by far breeches the glamorous boundaries set by all the rest of the sections. A section dedicated to pure entertainment truly personifies the page 3 concept. With Sudoku and loop the loop forming a daily routine of one’s life and the congregation of the stars at parties, this section definitely makes life more bearable.
The towering pile of unread newspaper in my room reminds me that I am not at all eligible to analyze them so leaving the rest of the job to you people.
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