Talk:The Times of India/Archives/2020/May

Newspaper or Tabloid?
--Iflex (talk) 04:39, 26 April 2010 (UTC) The Times of India is a tabloid by western standards and the claim that it to be included in Newspaper category should be avoided. The infobox links to the disambiguation page Tabloid. Please can someone who knows the Times change the link to tabloid journalism or Tabloid (newspaper format)? It's not obvious whether the term refers to the style or the size here. Certes (talk) 20:58, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
 * says who? ChiragPatnaik (talk) 19:16, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
 * says the management of TOI apparently, as well as the kind of news that gets printed as headlines. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.166.227.180 (talk) 14:35, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Ownership of times of india
User:Rrjanbiah The Times of India is not owned by Indiatimes as you might think. Please take a look at this link About the Publishers. The Times Group is owned by Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd.

"Today, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd is India's largest media house. The Times Group is a multi-edition, multi-product, multi-media organisation, and has to its credit several leading publications. Among the publications are The Times of India, The Economic Times, Navbharat Times, Maharashtra Times, Femina and Filmfare. The Group also has interests in the entertainment and media industry in the form of Radio Mirchi, Planet M, Times Music and Times Multimedia."

So Times of India newspaper is owned by The Times Group and

The Times of India is the flagship brand of the Group. It is India's premier English daily and world’s largest circulated English broadsheet daily. It is published from ten cities across India, has a circulation of over 21,44,842 copies, and is read by over 4.42 million people.

also for Indiatimes:

"In April 2000, Times Internet Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd, was floated to handle the Group's Internet properties. Times Internet Ltd's mother brand is Indiatimes."

--kunjan1029 04:36, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Need citations for these
I removed the reference that TOI is the world's largest in circulation among all newspapers and tabloids combined, because this claim has not verified by independent survey (the cited reference for this claim had been an article in TOI itself).

I removed these from the page.

Please provide any link or some citation for this bit of information below:

"The newspaper's magazine section published independent of the newspaper (separately in all there centers) but distributed with the newspaper has promoted raising speed limits, bringing the minimum age of drinking down, and openness of sexual ideas."

and these because it contradicts the 4th paragraph.

"This shift in style of reporting has helped the newspaper maintain its position as the largest selling English daily in India."

--kunjan1029 04:47, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sensationalism
Removed this: ''For example in 2003 the report on Uttar Pradesh government's Taj heritage project showed a computer generated photograph of a multi story building towering above the Taj Mahal in the backdrop. This of course has to be seen in context of newspapers like Indian Express, which thrive on sensationalism and taking potshots.''

Firstly, this hardly constituted sensationalism since the image is an artistic rendering of how Taj Mahal would look if the Mayavati Govt had approved the construction of a corridor behind the Taj Mahal. The infamous idea has been shelved and the project is known as the [Taj Corridor Scam]. BTW, the Mayavati Govt fell because of this, so its hardly sensationalism. pamri 12:58, 2004 Nov 3 (UTC)

Reverting this edit with slight modifications. The ambani breakup story is still valid as an example of criticism against ToI, sensational or not, irrespective of the truth of the matter. Simply because, the story failed to provide names or any other information about them (obviously because of libel concerns) although it was a front page story and failed to follow up on the story even after the fallout became public. Sensationalism also refers to news which sacrifices facts/truth for attention-grabbing headlines and this, IMO is a good example. pamri 13:11, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Editions
Is the list of editions really necessary? And if so, do they need to be links? They wouldn't seem to merit individual articles. Chick Bowen 02:03, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Regular Features
Have removed 'However, right now one can aptly call it the "Tabloid of India"' from this section. It seems incongrous with the topic of the common man and is also a personal viewpoint.

leo

Common Man
The newspaper also runs the cartoons of the popular Indian political cartoonist R K Laxman. The "common man" is a senior Indian citizen present in each one of the cartoons only as the mute witness to every event. However, right now one can aptly call it the "Tabloid of India"

Top 10 list
Whose top 10 list of best indian journalists is that. Could someone either mention the source. If its personal opinion then I think its should be rewritten. User: Aniket ray

The myth of The Times of India
Fortunately or unfortunately, The Times of India incites passions by the journalistic community in India, primarily those in competition, who can't stomach the success of The Times of India and also the group in general. The successes are most definitely due to a marketing focus, but they can hardly be termed as management interference. The owner is also the defacto publisher. Who are we as third parties to pass judgement on what style he chooses to run the paper.

To all those people reading/editing this article and the people who are not aware of this background, please be aware of all the negative hyperbole that is posted under the guise of neutral observations.

User: madgeek

NPOV/Loaded language in criticism section
Someone more familiar with India's political landscape and media culture should address the Criticisms section for POV issues. For example, the last paragraph's assertions about its being a "Pro-Establishment paper" and a supporter of government must either be attributed or removed. Who is to say that "its whole-hearted approval of Indira Gandhi's excessive repression measures during the internal Emergency in the 1970s is not lost on political observers?" Perhaps the person who added these comments feels that they are self-evidently true, but I can assure you that they are not from my vantage point in the US. Citations are sorely needed. Unfortunately, I'm not qualified to deal with these issues. But somebody should. Tcatts 14:00, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Criticisms Section
Much of the the criticism section is opinion based on bad facts. for.eg. 'medianet' refered in the article is used to sell space in the life style supplements and not the main paper. A fine line, but a line nonetheless. Something an impartial oberver will point out. Which leads one to think that the whole section is motivated...

libertarian?
The infobox says its political stance is "libertarian", but none of the description in the article body supports that, and it's also not in keeping with anything I know about it. I've heard it described as "centrist" and "pro-establishment", and in recent years as "tabloid", but I haven't heard it described as "libertarian". --Delirium 19:26, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

The Times Of India is an excellent paper
1.Jug Suraiya[Jugular Vein], Swaminathan S. Anklesria[ Swaminomics], Rashmee Roshan Lal[View from London] & Chidananda Rajghatta []are amongst its most popular columnists.Cartoons by Jug Suraiya&Neelabh[Dubyaman II] and Ajit Ninan[ Just Like That] are far sharper than RK Laxman's[Common Man]which too are wittier.Rajat Pandit writes on Indian defence matters & on foreign affairs.

2.The Times of India has been called the treasure island of scholarly body of work on  international relations.[]

Kushwah 11:20, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Answer to that excellency Tag
Out of that treasure island they they wack their brains to publish crap front page news like 'Madhya Pradesh banning vibrating Condoms'(20 June 2007-Pune edition) with pictures and often publishing drunk punks in parties (in Pune Times),and really third rate flutter creating news thrashes.They are nothing but the new czar of Yellow journalism in India.So they can better donate the above mentioned scholarly body of work on international relations to some educational institution.

its excellent-jigyasa thakur,journalism,mcu,bhopal(2007) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.2.102.149 (talk) 18:49, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Hear! hear! I second this! The Times of India is indeed the Trash of India. Their journalists simply steal photographs and texts form other websites and publish them as their own. The new way of journalism for the TOI is copy&paste. Whatever happened to respected forms of journalism - the TOI has no idea what this is! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.54.166.142 (talk) 10:28, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Political Allegiance
The Political Allegiance Of The Times Of India is given as "Conservative". What does this term imply? There is no political party called Conservative in India.TathD 18:47, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * The term "Conservative" is given by the world press organisation as given in the citation. I believe it would refer to fiscal conservatism as well as politically supporting nationalistic issues like defense related ones. The tag of liberal with a reference that shows it as conservative is highly misleading. I am changing it back unless there is a credible authority that classifies TOI as liberal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abhishekmathur (talk • contribs) 01:57, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Massive Quotes
I am deleting the quotes in the criticisms section because they aren't necessary and are cluttering the page, as well they are difficult to understand. Please feel free to revert, but something had to be done. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jonwilliamsl (talk • contribs) 01:22, 3 March 2007 (UTC). -- plus it's the most liberal paper in India, so the conservative tag doesn't make sense

OUT
I have removed the following paragraphs from the Criticism section, not because I don't think they are false, but because it is unacceptable to have criticism unreferenced after at least eight months in which it has sat under a notice that it needs to be referenced. This is totally irresponsible. Wikipedia was not created for the lazy, irresponsible, casual blatherings of some editor somewhere. It was created for responsible descriptions of the subject of each article. Part of those responsible descriptions are responsible criticisms. Neither I nor anybody else can tell what's responsble and what isn't unless we know the sources. Someone who knows of the sources or who can redo the criticism section, please do so.

These are the paragraphs:


 * Recently, however, it is claimed that the newspaper's focus has shifted from journalistic excellence to tabloid-style pizazz bordering on yellow journalism. Its reputation has taken such a plunge that The Times of India, abbreviated as TOI, has been labeled as the TOI-let paper in online articles and blogs. Blogs have also exposed instances of plagiarism in the paper, for example The newspaper has at times been panned for its unabashed promotion of in-house brands owned by its parent company, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd, (such as Femina, Radio Mirchi, Planet M, Times Music).


 * However, the city supplements issued with the newspaper is one of the major sources for most of its controversies. The supplement usually features some games, jokes, a fortune teller and television guide but, the focus and coverage towards glamour, fashion, life style and filmy issues contributes more than 75% of the entire supplement.


 * The newspaper has also been accused of overly-sensationalizing news stories. An infamous example being the Rift in powerful biz family article, which detailed a rift within the Ambani family. Interestingly, the newspaper was the first to break the news six months before the feud became public knowledge. One recent headline was about the impending marriage of two of India's best-known and best-loved actors Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai. The newspaper has also drawn flak for its' excessive hype over its' own stories, and very often, its' own agenda.


 * Though the newspaper has traditionally tried to portray an image of political neutrality, it has been by and large viewed as a pro-establishment paper. It tends to vary in its support between the BJP and Congress Party, depending on who holds the reins of the Central Government. Its whole-hearted approval of Indira Gandhi's repressive measures during the internal Emergency in the 1970s is not lost on political observers. Since the 1980s and early 1990s, the newspaper has consistently produced some of the country's finest journalists. Most of these journalists tend to move to other publications soon after.

Noroton 00:03, 14 July 2007 (UTC) (self edit, removed some capitalization in my comments Noroton 00:47, 17 July 2007 (UTC))

YELLOW JOURNALISM
for people like us there is something yellow journalism do exists and few things only serves this form and they are said to be conservative or something else,but in real they should be supported and admired for their such contribution. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.2.102.149 (talk) 18:54, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Some Points
The newspaper has a declared Liberal stance as covered in a Leader Article a few months ago. I have changed it to liberal and quoted the appropriate article. Please do read the article, before making commentary

The Cover Price varies from edition to edition and from day to day. Can vary from as little as Rs 1.50 to Rs. 5

Regarding the criticism, it seems that a lot of people love to hate the times, simply because it is the most successful news organisation. Do consider that their editors/journalists are perhaps one of the best paid. Their marketing pretty much steamrolls all competition etc.

IMHO, most of the criticism is wholly unjustified etc. But, that is just that, My Opinion

I must compliment Noroton, for the excellent edit on this article, this was being vandalised too often by critics of TOI ChiragPatnaik (talk) 07:21, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

TIMES OF INDIA KOLKATA EDITION
Someone seems to have added a rant about "malpractice" at this paper. Not being a regular reader of the paper I can't comment on its validity, but in its current form it's quite inappropriate for Wikipedia. I've dfdfdf removed it but saved a copy here in case it can/should be salvaged.

TIMES OF INDIA KOLKATA EDITION Times of India "Kolkata edition" has a malpractice of printing the same news everyday. These activities have been well observed among a lot of fans of Times of India newspaper. In spite of written complaints the authorities keep on doing this malpractice. It has been surprisingly found that the newspaper today being sold by one newspaper dealer contains the same old news which were printed on the previous day, so as a result in a comparatively very small area there are two different versions of the same brand and day newspaper. --George (talk) 09:34, 9 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I see this has been reverted - presumably by the same person who wrote it? A person who obviously doesn't understand the point or intended content of an encyclopedia? I will correct some of the more obvious pieces of unsubstantiated personal opinon, but no doubt they will be reverted soon after. This whole page is riddled with personal opinion and bias and needs a thorough re-write according to Wikipedia style guidelines and then locked to prevent these continuous mischievous attacks. --621PWC (talk) 19:10, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
 * A rewrite is needed have added the rewrite tag.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 21:38, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

MNP in IndIA
Why India is delaying to implement MNP scheme in india... why don't the media play the key role in implementing this scheme at the earliest.. why cant the media question the minister's & TRAI members for the reason behind the delay.. why cant the strong media like u raise voice against the economic & social barriers...we the citizens are keenly looking forward for this scheme as this scheme can kick the weak operators & worst service providers.. kindly make this article a nation wide cause to implement to the earliest.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.193.231.136 (talk) 03:31, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

MNP in IndIA
Why India is delaying to implement MNP scheme in india... why don't the media play the key role in implementing this scheme at the earliest.. why cant the media question the minister's & TRAI members for the reason behind the delay.. why cant the strong media like u raise voice against the economic & social barriers...we the citizens are keenly looking forward for this scheme as this scheme can kick the weak operators & worst service providers.. kindly make this article a nation wide cause to implement to the earliest.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.193.231.136 (talk) 03:50, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Twitter response?
Can someone verify this text?

"There was a serious backlash against the paper's irresponsible coverage following the verdict of Ayodhya disputed land case. This also provoked serious criticism about the paper's poor news standards in Twitter."

And I doubt it is admissible as encyclopedic material. Please comment on why this is put here. MikeLynch (talk) 08:31, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

TOI pletform on writing news how Nirbhik ptrkar (talk) 10:36, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

public participation in corruption movement
I sincerely salute to the civil society members for herculean work done to eradicate corruption from our country. I pray to God to give you courage to carry forward this movement. I understand that this movement is being fought on the basic principles of truth and non-violence and all the activity will be carried out in the frame work of constitution of this country.

I have some basic question about the movement against corruption. Positive outcome of this movement will give benefit to each and every citizen of this country. Therefore, if any citizen wants to participate in this novel cause under basic principles laid by the civil society then civil society members should not object in participation.

Sir, India is a democratic country where individual or group of individual can have different opinion on various issue but they can have common thought on particular issue like eradicate the corruption from this country. If you start isolating the people on particular ground such as the corrupt people, RSS, Muslim league, Deoband, member of any political party can not participate in this movement then most of the citizen of this country will be isolated.

Kindly recall our freedom movement where different class of people right from bonded labour to the industrialist actively participated for common goal to get the country independent from British rule even though their aim was different.

Please note that the affected persons are very powerful and they are trying their best to the divide the people and make this movement futile as British government did in freedom movement. Therefore, I sincerely request you to give a serious thought on the point I have raised this will help in accelerating this movement to a positive logical end.

With best regards

Purushottam — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.163.30.4 (talk) 11:41, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Revert of Kingryos
To clarify, the reason I reverted is that adding a whole subsection about a single incident appears to be quite excessive to me, and thus violating WP:DUE. Now, I think that the overall info could be added, but I'd say it should come down to 2 or 3 sentences and incorporated into the rest of the section. Let's follow WP:BRD and discuss the issue here. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:10, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Why is there no 'Criticism' section?
I see TOI publishing biased news regularly. Most of these get exposed too. I'm providing the latest one that I came across here:

Times of India, in a desperate attempt to defame Gujarat's Chief Minister Narendra Modi, published the following article: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-08-10/ahmedabad/41265948_1_ahmedabad-mall-mall-officials-fee

Thankfully, Tweeters exposed TOI's lie: http://www.niticentral.com/2013/08/10/toi-says-ahmedabad-mall-charged-muslims-on-eid-tweeters-expose-lie-116744.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.184.163.68 (talk) 15:26, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Since Niticentral openly admits to being a non-neutral, persuasive opinion source, it doesn't meet WP:RS. Also, to include in this article, we would need to see a wider discussion of an alleged bias/problem at TOI. If the problems were with only 1 TOI news article, well, that's not important enough (WP:UNDUE) to include here. If the problem is more widespread, however, and we can see a discussion of that, then we can include it. Note that I do not mean that you find a bunch of different criticisms--we'd either need individual criticisms that were highly important, or a single analysis that discusses widespread bias/faulty reporting (if it exists). Qwyrxian (talk) 15:37, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Deepika Padukone Controversy
Please include this, this is a neutral article and all aspects must be covered. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.162.73.48 (talk) 15:27, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Revert
Citition needed for stating that person was arrested under FERA .Further removed the Mauritius story that is about an article which was disputed now this 150 year old paper we cannot a single article can confirm it to be controversy .Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 18:03, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Controversy section tag
WP:CSECTION advises us to integrate contents and rather can give WP:UNDUE focus on them and label the section as "Controversy". Currently, almost 50 percent of the article body goes to the controversy section.
 * Promoter scandals: Both the Government take over and the Jain family case are already mentioned in the History section. Why repeat them just to shoehorn them into a controversy section? In any case, I feel they are given undue weight in this article as they concern the family, the management rather than the paper. I haven't looked fully into that yet.
 * Editorial controversies: "Mocked the worst headline ever"? Why is a twitter/event on the social media even reported here? What about WP:NOTNEWS? If this has some historical value, then the onus lies on the editor who wants to put it to justify its inclusion. Same goes with Padukone controversy and the "Responses from Other media". I don't see any thing besides NOTNEWS. If we were to add such controversies, then all our articles would overflow with such content. -Ugog Nizdast (talk) 17:10, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Fully agree with you removed some part as per WP:NOTNEWS and Controversy section is over 50% of the article.This is nearly 175 year old and is clearly WP:UNDUE.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 18:49, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Removing the Promoter scandals as noted above it does give WP:UNDUE weight further it has nothing to do with the newspaper but with the family it can be mentioned in the subject's page and note opindia.com is not a reliable source started in December 2014 by a group of friends and and People's Union for Civil Liberties link is not working .  Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 21:31, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The Padukone controversy was a very infamous incident in the paper's history, leading to further allegations of sexism, including in a lifestyle article and an article on Kate Middleton. Concerns on the title of the section may be justified even though they seem quite commonplace now. I plan to integrate it into the history of the paper, in order to avoid a separate section. I'm sure an "Allegations of Sexism" section may be a little too much. I'll give it some brevity as well, because it's taking up a relatively large proportion of the article, although it's hardly fair to say that criticism should be limited because the article isn't detailed enough, the section is simply a step in the right direction. I'm open to suggestions.--Norcaes (talk) 12:28, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * This crosses WP:NOTNEWS and WP:UNDUE given it going into all the details irrespective of whether it's in a integrated in History or in a separate Csection.
 * The above discussion besides complaining about the amount devoted to the Csection talks about NOTWEWS--especially care while giving weight one temporarily notable incident to a subject having 150 years of history. That's why WP:NOT exists, we have to draw the line somewhere.
 * Comparing to other articles cannot be taken as a reason, see WP:OTHERSTUFF. News agencies do have editorial incidents but whether it's historically relevant needs to be proved. Beyond it being a news scandal, which will be widely reported across the remaining media only for that given time, what we need is coverage beyond that. One news agency criticising another news agency is not anything new and should be dealt with carefully. Especially something particularly quite damaging and controversial like an accusation of sexism against a major media corp., something which has to be demonstrated as being a significant viewpoint relevant here rather than the usual allegations taken from the media deluge. Ugog Nizdast (talk) 23:51, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Political stance citation
Actually, the citation for the "conservative" stance is worldpress.org not wordpress. I did find it being asked at the RSN at Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_8 but it got no response. Overall, it maybe less than reliable IMO. Whatever it is, it's page talking about each newpaper's political stance is widely cited in many pages; I wonder if that's a problem. Ugog Nizdast (talk) 12:35, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Opening paragraphs
I would like to suggest an edit (relocation of contents) here.

I know that one always likes to recount what certain people in history might have said about a certain entity, especially when it sounds favourable, but is what Curzon said really relevant for the opening section of this wiki? I accept that it is relevant enough for the subject, and can be placed somewhere else within the article - perhaps in the history section, but wikis of other prominent newspapers like The Times, Washington Post and New York Times do not seem to add such glorifications in the opening paragraphs.

In the same breath, the BBC survey seems really dated to write in the opening section, since they have these each year. Wouldn't this be more appropriately placed in the awards section? Notthebestusername (talk) 10:41, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Reliability of Indian media
buidhe 22:44, 2 April 2020 (UTC)