Apul posted about a satirical article by The Spoof where Aishwarya was supposedly going on Jerry Springer to wrestle a woman over a mullet. And the infamous Times of India reported that same story as straight news! Hilarious!
Aishwarya Rai is slated to appear in a special version of the American show ‘Jerry Springer: Too Hot For TV’ episode in which she will contest with a 380 pound woman. Simone Sheffield, manager to Aishwarya Rai, said, “Miss Rai would be appearing on a special version of ‘Jerry Springer: Too Hot For TV’ episode where the beautiful actress will fight with a 380 pound woman in a trailer over some guy with a mullet, no teeth, and a 7th grade education…”[In Blind Date] Aishwarya will date Lorenzo – a former stripper who… wants to form a love connection and score on the first date.
And then the ToI reporter felt compelled, compelled, to add a topping of snippiness and whipped cream to what s/he believes to be an actual story:
We’ll just have to see how far he gets with Aishwarya.
The reporter virtually defines the phrase ‘irony-challenged.’ Great Bong has me rolling…
Now let’s consider the TOI staffer who wrote this. He stumbles across an article in a webzine called “spoof.com”. No warning bells ring. Evidently he does not know what “spoof” means. Nor does he want to find out… Does TOI have an editor or do correspondents just barf anything they want to?
Update: The reporter with the Times byline, Soumya Menon, disclaims any connection with the story. Dal mein kuch kala hai…
Update 2: The Times pulled the story from its site. Cached copy here.
Update 3: A commenter on CSF says, ‘She [the reporter] has quit ToI but I do not know if it is related to this incident.’
Times of India is one of the worst newspapers in India. It is becoming more like a Tabloid as every day passes. The fact that if you pay them enough they will put up an editorial (or aditorial as they call it) in favour of whatever you are selling is just low low low.
They are a big bully as well, dont like competition too much. Oh well, one should know that the day a company cares more about its profits it starts to care a lot less about the truth. The bottom line is all that matters to it!
LMAO !!!
Some more “jewels” i found are here.
TOI used to be great on paper and I used to read it daily in India. The early web edition was also quite decent since I think it was mainly a reprint of the paper edition. For the last two or three years, the online edition has degraded immensely into a tabloid (and a bad one at that too). I stopped reading it altogether last year. I don’t know how the paper edition is doing an I hope for the sake of nostalgia that it is still doing alright.
Hey! Not all Menons are irony-challenged. But, I will admit, I have been working on my need to have the last word 😉
-D
I never gave the TOI any credit for journalistic ethics. I remember them reporting how a cure for aids had been found (in the print version). That was in 91! After that I kind of new what they thought of as “news.”
Does anyone know of any good newspapers of India?
Sometime back one these Times of India “journalists” filed a report (wasnt a spoof or parody) where she claimed to have found a transcript of conversation between two “American” workers about Indian contractors working in their company. The supposed transcript had converstion (derogatory ofcourse .. otherwise it wont be a story) that involved phrases that americans never use. (one example ..calling people ‘bloak’) It was a sloppy fabrication.
That is what passes as “jouranalism” in the Toilet-paper Of India.
I don’t know anything first hand, but I thought The Hindu was supposed to be good?
The Telegraph seems well-written.
This in my opinion is Sepia Mutiny’s greatest hour. Take a bow fellas.
I hope Aishwarya Rai sues the crap out of Times of India.
Didn’t TOI also run the boy who won the NASA contest story.
Thanks… just to clarify, it wasn’t our satire. Someone at The Spoof wrote it.
Why yes… yes they did.
The Hindu is very well written, albeit slightly boring newspaper. However the TOI is a badly disguised tabloid, riding on its 150+ year old reputation, so I’d rather read the Hindu than the TOI.
The ‘boring’ design of the Hindu print edition extends to its online edition too, but they put all their ads neatly to one side instead of blinding you with a zillion of them like the TOI-online edition. Also the Hindu online edition gives each story on a single page instead of splitting up each story into three or more pages regardless of the story length (sometimes putting just a couple of paragraphs on each page) like the TOI.
Now how did I miss the “by The Spoof” bit. : )
But seriously, if the reporter, had gotten the story from The Spoof, I think she would have known it was a spoof. Could anyone be that clueless?
Who knows maybe she did get the story from here. (How many other websites carried this story?)
Go ahead take the bow, don’t be so damn modest.
t
Decent newspaper? There’s only one: The Indian Express. Good editorials, though the subbing can be terrible. Also the Telegraph seems to have some of the most colourful – read: descriptive – language around, which makes it a good read.
You can’t find The Hindu in the so-called cultural capital of Bombay. The Telegraph? No chance.
Rahul’s right about the Express. I’d also buy the IHT. Pricey, but, hey.
oh and i’d like to see a dateline on the Spoof story. any ideas?
not to be all self important and all but i did mention i’d like to see rai on springer in a comment here and later on my, uh, blog. just a nod would be nice.
oh god i’m a fuckwad look at me wanting bhaav for something i’m not even responsible for.
Well, I don’t have anything else to say about the article. But I would like to comment on the sex of the reporter. The ‘great bong’ has decided that the reporter is a male. Logical, if you go by Bengali thinking. ‘Soumya’s are generally males among Bengalis but not so among South India and perhaps the rest of Indians. Since the reporter is obviously a Malayalee (Soumya Menon), it could be only she.
By the way, now I’m subscribing The Hindu. They have totally revamped their layout and I thought I should be encouraging them for finally deciding to be bit innovative and for accepting changing tastes of majority readers. It seems they have hired a Latin American designer for the make over.
was it mario garcia who the hindu hired? my god!
was it mario garcia who the hindu hired? my god!
yes it was: http://www.garcia-media.com/NeArticl.asp?PageId=277
was it mario garcia who the hindu hired? my god!
Sounds like he has a very interesting reputation. Details. Please.
ToI sucks monkey-balls! These guys are a friggin’ embarrassment.I’m just glad that no one apart from the Indian dispora reads this daily rag.
What is amazing is that there is a disclaimer at the end of the Spoof article. This is pretty darned cracked up.
“The story as represented above is written as a satire or parody. It is fictitious”
Can’t argue with the crappy-ness of the Online Edition of TOI – I downloaded FireFox just so I wouldn’t get any of the spyware on their site or have to deal with popup windows! That being saidm, their ePaper is readable, and I highly recommend that to anybody with a high-speed net connection.
I cant stand the TOI….Who wants to bet on how long it takes them to remove the link of their page? The only thing they seem to pay attention to is when someone tries screw them…
This person gives us Menons a bad name. 🙁
The ToI, of course, hasn’t had a good name in ages.
The TOI link doesn’t seem to be working now, but so what? Here’s the Google cache of the page.
Good stuff, Manish.
And yes, the Indian Express is by far India’s best broadsheet. But that isn’t saying anything.
Hmmmm, It has been on there for atleast a week now! Stupid TOI! But it takes 6 days to explode out? Thats surprising too. I posted on this a week ago (saw the link on another blog) and everyday, this past 5 or 6 days, I went on the page to see how ppl are reacting. But apart from one solitary comment, no one seemed to comment about it. And usually such article contain a gaggle of comments from every John and Janardhanan concerned about the image of their dream queen :p I have to confess that my reaction to the post was similar and I actually ranted on how she’s been taken for a ride by her agent/manager, till I read the article better and googled for “Spoof.com” (the url/title is actually “thespoof.com”! Deliberate?).
Cant believe the correspondent didnt even bother to check who/what Jerry Springer was all about. I guess she wanted her 15 secs of fame, and look where it’s gotten her! Aish is sure gonna sue the ToI group, unless ofcourse it’s a publicity stunt (much like her supposed better half)!
And the cry goes out “Sue TOI! Lynch TOI journalists! Stake TOI editors ! Burn the place down”
Some one do it please! I hope my great-uncle’s ghost (a TOI editor in the fifties, sixties and seventies, and a stickler for perfection and standards) haunts and sabotages the TOI offices.
Hillarious!
Yeah, sure 🙂 A recent headline went something like this “Amid Labour pain, Blair delivers again”
lol
manju: mario garcia is a hot shot designer who among others has worked on the WSJ.
I hope his team looked at the Hindu Web site.
check http://www.garcia-media.com
Sunil I just lynched them with my soup. Plus there are other ToI goodies lying there 🙂
We’ve got a spate of Indo-Anglian authors.. but check out the state of Indo-Anglian journalism — abysmal (as I pointed out in an earlier rant) — sorry for the shameless plug, but still holds true ..http://www.stringinfo.com/pkblog/archives/002653.html
Re the TOI’s sinking standards, check this out
http://ww1.mid-day.com/news/city/2004/may/83022.htm
Hi, I’m the ToI writer who has been credited with writing this article. I would like to state that I did not write the article or edit it, nor was I aware of it’s existence. I do not know why it was credited to me.
You are free to crticize ToI, but I would really appreciate it if you would leave my name out of further discussion as I had no part to play in putting that story online.
Soumya, it looks like your honourable employers aren’t beyond using your name to cover up their intellectual shortcomings.
You will understand, however, that the folks who run this web site, or anyone else for that matter, had no way of knowing you didn’t write this.
I would have a word with your editor if I were you.
Having worked with the Times group (editorial, not marketing) for four years, I would say they’re unlikely to give someone credit for a story he/she didn’t write. (Forgetting a deserving byline is quite another matter.)
Besides, TOI wouldn’t possibly have the foresight to give a random byline before it became aware that the story’s a spoof. Of course, there would have been frenetic passing of the much-abused buck after the story came to light.
Hey — I’m really thinking of changing my surname to Bush now. I wanna sound intel… intellictual.
From some rumours Im hearing TOI is suffering from a massive staff shortage these days…the new Zee Group backed Nespaper DNA apparently has a standing offer to anyone at TOI to bring their payslip and they will be hired on immediately with a 20% raise.
The link no longer points to the ash article.!.Did they remove it or is it that they dont have a fixed URL for stories ? I did a search but it didnt turn up the article.
hahahaha…. thanks for google cache link.. i was ROTFL reading it….. surprised to know the actual Soumya Menon did not write it…
I am not the right person comment on ToI coz i stopped reading it abt 4 yrs ago(both online and toilet paper version). I am in bangalore and i read deccan herald and i like it.
I had saved the TOI pages since I knew they would remove the page sooner or later instead of putting an editorial note on the link, so here are the screenshots. [1], [2], [3], [4]
Also, the google cache will disappear soon since the TOI link now points to a different story. Those shifty bastards 🙂
Hey, is this Soumya Menon for real ? She seems to have posted exactly the same comment on my ‘TOI recipe’ post, and on desimediabitch.blogspot too? There’s one more ‘Deepa’ claiming to be a TOI staffer, not only supporting Soumya, but also pointing out some principles of journalism to bloggers. I hope, if they are for real, they come out in the open & ‘do something’ abt it than just the handwaving. I would be glad to post a correction for it. Soumya, are you listening… ? I mean it. I WILL post a correction if you show us conclusive proof of what you claim.
Hello People, We have some early signs of confirmation that Ms Soumya Menon who commented here and on my blog might not be responsible in any way for this story. She has supposedly left ToI, however it’s not clear if it’s related to this incident.
come off it guys, having worked with the TOI’s online version, i know for sure the desk staff are very good at doing what they are suposed to — copy and paste; which we now have ample proof of .. Soumya Menon may or may not have written the piece. but i would not have been been surprised if she had. once a correspondent colleague sent captions for a picture gallery to the desk, and they put up those pix captions as a story minus the pix! and if you send them a copy saying “please don’t change headline if it doesn’t fit, check with me” they put that up too with the copy, it doesn’t surface in blogdom as correspondents most often check copy immediately to be spared the same ignominy as Ms Menon ..
TOI has never been an Indian newspaper. For them Indian culture is just Bollywood, with half naked models, actors and actresses with plunging necklines. Local content, culture, happenings is never given the seriousness and importance it deserves.
Thank you guys for putting in words what I had been pondering over for a while. Its not just the TOI that sucks, even their sister publication Economic Times (online edition) also getting uglier. As if its not enough to screw ur mood thro’ TOI, now they have decided to screw up the lives of uninformed indian retail investors by offering silly “stock ideas”. I hope some dumb ass really follows their advice and gets busted and then sues them.
well, i thk all these r just perceptions. but yet the survey has shown that TOI still holds its impression as 150yrs ago. its just its becoming more adaptive and proactive. after all it too runs a business and yet the annual sheet of TOI states its leading and the best.