A decade of experience, and upcoming change
his is the 10th year for Foray and my Editor-in-Chief felt it needed a makeover — not just in content but also in style.
So, you will see a changed Sunday Pioneer from this week onwards — some pages stay in respect to vintage, others which seem to have lived their life, are gone, giving space to new ones (Health, Family). Also, the design, in keeping with the fast changing international trends, has been laid out afresh. One hopes, both the new pages and the look, will appeal to our readers and your response in this context is more than welcome.
Foray, as a second supplement to the newspaper, which has always believed in being different, was launched on June 6, 2000 as an addition to the Sunday reading platter and I can say with pride that the newness of its content clicked instantly.
Meant to be dealing with issues that concern society seriously, the idea was, however, to not look at everything too intellectually. That was to be left to Agenda, the other pullout which deals with issues like politics, spirituality, books and foreign thought-spots.
So Foray kept away from the usual and had a great time getting in new content which, till then, was slim on any newspaper’s agenda. The crime covers were an instant hit and risking boastfulness, I would like to believe that they powered the crime shows on television which, at that time, was also seeking out content to attract eyeballs. Many a times, I remember, scribes from various news channels would come asking for permission to use a particular crime cover and sought the relevant contacts for them to do their own investigations for their newly launched crime shows. It used to be a fulfilling feeling at that time.
The fact that a print product was, in howsoever small a way, powering TV — a medium that was then being viewed as something that would gobble up the poor old print scribes and their establishments — was a heady thought. Of course, years later, printmen are not just still around but are being taken more seriously than the audio-visualists, about whom Peepli [Live] will tell you all. More on this later though.
Other than crime, came the Twilight Zone page, which dealt with things paranormal. The hue and cry in certain circles was that the newspaper had gone nuts, that it was not acting responsibly in propelling such unscientific data and that the newspaper was playing wantonly to the gallery. Other than the fact that we were being taken so seriously in a largely cynical world, the run to get paranormal stories was frightfully exciting. We dealt with everything from past life regression (the entire department went for a session to give you the real experience) to UFOs to mysteries to even the strange dark world of Nizamuddin’s peers. Believe me, all this hunt for such stories was an eye-opener — a huge, parallel world exists in India and it doggedly believes in such happenings.
Now, though this page is no more. But, we will not be giving up on it totally — the cover stories will once in a while deal with the paranormal, crime, mysteries and the occult and we hope to get your interest nodes stimulated with well-researched articles on all such issues.
Coming to the mess the electronics medium is hurtling towards in its great run for TRPs. Yes, Peepli [Live] is a live demo of this unfortunate race of TV news channels to be number one. The film shows you very graphically what a huge trap of “news, any news, anyhow” the so-called TV journalists have fallen into, thanks to the revenue they need to raise through sheer presence.
But underlying all this starkness of making news stories out of nothing issues and blowing them out of proportion is another more important fact — news television in India, despite being the dirty Harry of sensationalism both real and engineered, is doing a good job of throwing up hidden scams, corruption, Government apathy and what not. It also shows you the heartbeat of a free media in a free democracy. It solves issues for you, it has gotten you justice, it has compelled the Government to take note, redress and rectify and this intense 24x7 focus which is helping the common man by building up public opinion cannot be all that bad, even if it errs with certain stories. I am sure Aamir Khan will agree that if these TV channels were reined in, a lot will be lost and very little found.
Source: August 15, 2010
So, you will see a changed Sunday Pioneer from this week onwards — some pages stay in respect to vintage, others which seem to have lived their life, are gone, giving space to new ones (Health, Family). Also, the design, in keeping with the fast changing international trends, has been laid out afresh. One hopes, both the new pages and the look, will appeal to our readers and your response in this context is more than welcome.
Foray, as a second supplement to the newspaper, which has always believed in being different, was launched on June 6, 2000 as an addition to the Sunday reading platter and I can say with pride that the newness of its content clicked instantly.
Meant to be dealing with issues that concern society seriously, the idea was, however, to not look at everything too intellectually. That was to be left to Agenda, the other pullout which deals with issues like politics, spirituality, books and foreign thought-spots.
So Foray kept away from the usual and had a great time getting in new content which, till then, was slim on any newspaper’s agenda. The crime covers were an instant hit and risking boastfulness, I would like to believe that they powered the crime shows on television which, at that time, was also seeking out content to attract eyeballs. Many a times, I remember, scribes from various news channels would come asking for permission to use a particular crime cover and sought the relevant contacts for them to do their own investigations for their newly launched crime shows. It used to be a fulfilling feeling at that time.
The fact that a print product was, in howsoever small a way, powering TV — a medium that was then being viewed as something that would gobble up the poor old print scribes and their establishments — was a heady thought. Of course, years later, printmen are not just still around but are being taken more seriously than the audio-visualists, about whom Peepli [Live] will tell you all. More on this later though.
Other than crime, came the Twilight Zone page, which dealt with things paranormal. The hue and cry in certain circles was that the newspaper had gone nuts, that it was not acting responsibly in propelling such unscientific data and that the newspaper was playing wantonly to the gallery. Other than the fact that we were being taken so seriously in a largely cynical world, the run to get paranormal stories was frightfully exciting. We dealt with everything from past life regression (the entire department went for a session to give you the real experience) to UFOs to mysteries to even the strange dark world of Nizamuddin’s peers. Believe me, all this hunt for such stories was an eye-opener — a huge, parallel world exists in India and it doggedly believes in such happenings.
Now, though this page is no more. But, we will not be giving up on it totally — the cover stories will once in a while deal with the paranormal, crime, mysteries and the occult and we hope to get your interest nodes stimulated with well-researched articles on all such issues.
Coming to the mess the electronics medium is hurtling towards in its great run for TRPs. Yes, Peepli [Live] is a live demo of this unfortunate race of TV news channels to be number one. The film shows you very graphically what a huge trap of “news, any news, anyhow” the so-called TV journalists have fallen into, thanks to the revenue they need to raise through sheer presence.
But underlying all this starkness of making news stories out of nothing issues and blowing them out of proportion is another more important fact — news television in India, despite being the dirty Harry of sensationalism both real and engineered, is doing a good job of throwing up hidden scams, corruption, Government apathy and what not. It also shows you the heartbeat of a free media in a free democracy. It solves issues for you, it has gotten you justice, it has compelled the Government to take note, redress and rectify and this intense 24x7 focus which is helping the common man by building up public opinion cannot be all that bad, even if it errs with certain stories. I am sure Aamir Khan will agree that if these TV channels were reined in, a lot will be lost and very little found.
Source: August 15, 2010
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