I am amused with newspapers.
Open any newspaper and you see same stuff everywhere. The page layout, the advertisements, the sections, and even subsections.... right from the first page until the last page almost every thing is same. Ok, sometimes they do try to be innovative and rename their sections a bit.
They are generous enough to share their articles, so that you don't miss anything. So if you miss this "How to find out if your man is cheating on you?", don't worry. You will see it repeating in some other newspaper. In fact, if you wait for 3-4 weeks, it might repeat in the same paper. Sometimes they don't even bother to change the headings. They bank too much on the short memory of crowd. ;-)
I find Daily fortune section most hilarious of all. I think they randomly pick up lines and put together this fortune section. Sometimes they also publish numerology and some such stuff, which is equally amusing. I usually read newspaper when I go back home. So it's fun verifying the fortune, which obviously turns out to be wrong.
Relationship advices are a good time-pass. It's mostly quizzes consisting of couple of questions and then you score yourself to identify your "type". Sometimes they publish those 10 step how-to articles. Be it relationship advices, scientific studies or technology related articles.... Most of the things are copied from net... and that too without much research. I think they google for a topic and copy whatever shows up in the top three.
The Bollywood gossip is full of pictures.. which is obvious. They repeat pictures, repeat gossip and sometimes they just make up stuff and print it. I think this section is also made up more or less like daily fortune section. You have bunch of photos, you have couple of stories and you of course have a list of actors. So you pick up random names and substitute them in the stories and print some random photos along with it... and bingo! your gossip is ready.
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2 comments:
Well, that's not /that/ bad. Masala papers.
However, I heard a more insiduous thing from uncle chomsky about how the media propoganda is used to shape public opinion. The interviewer put it well "Do you think that I'm part of a plot to purposely distort information?"
To which Chomsky replied. "No. I think you believe in everything you say. If you didn't however, you wouldn't be sitting where yo u are".
I don't think so. 'The Hindu' is quite a contrast to what you're saying. You're just not getting your hands on the right newspapers, maybe.
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