Tuesday, August 12, 2008

The politics of the Malayalam news papers

Yesterday, there was a news story in visual media regarding the suicide of a nun in Kerala. The family of the deceased has alleged that the nun was abused sexually and physically by a senior nun, and this was the reason for the suicide. This might be the first high profile lesbian crime case in our state, though such incidents have occurred before also.

Today morning, as I sat down to read the newspaper, I had a premonition that I would have to search for this story. I was sure the same would not be in the front page of the number one daily. And guess what, I was right. The story was found in the centre page and it was reported as an allegation by the family and there were hints to suggest the same was baseless.

Contrast this with the amount of print space that was taken up by the Santhosh Madhavans in the front page for nearly two weeks. I have become accustomed to expecting such partisan behavior from the Malayalam dailies, but still it hurts me when the same dailies pride themselves in being the number one regional language daily in India.

Strange that none of these dailies can claim to be the most ethical and unbiased ones…I guess in these times, ethics is of much lower priority than profits and serving vested interests. The tragedy is that, as a malayalee, I have become so used to reading a Malayalam daily every morning, that even when I was living outside Kerala, I made sure I started my day with the same news paper. And I must admit circulation wise and in the amount of advertisement space, the Kerala dailies are certainly number one.

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