Some Criticisms on a Print Medium - Frontline

Some Criticisms on Print Media 

There was a time, about three decades ago that I eagerly read the letters from the readers published in newspapers and magazines; in fact, every morning that space used to be one of the first ones I visited (perhaps after the first page headline items). I sought out the various and varying viewpoints of the public on the issues of the day. The Hindu and Frontline, not to speak of the readers themselves, did not disappoint me.

These days, the self same pages repel me. If you scanned the "Letters" page of Frontline dated June 30, 2025, you would find six letters (four on the conflict between India and Pakistan, one on the rights of forest dwelling people, and one on Gujarat politics), each referencing an article in the magazine dated June 15,2025. These letters, I suspect, carry not a single idea that is outside of what is said in the magazine’s earlier issue. 

I have scanned and attached the Letters" age of the Frontline of Jue 1, 2025. And, in it you would validation what I have written above.

The above is one of the two criticisms I am going to level at the magazine Frontline. I will take a long detour here to set the stage for this post. 

I live in Srirangam, a suburb of Trichy, in an apartment building, and I cannot afford to subscribe to the magazine. Hear me out, please. The hardcopy would not be delivered to my apartment in the second floor, but dumped in a metal basket kept near the lift in the ground floor. I have missed erhas two or three issues, in all probability stolen to be monetized through a kabadiwala! There is no watchman (the other tenants argue that as there are only sixteen apartments, we cannot afford one; I disagree, but am a lonely voice). I have subscribed to digital publications of both the newspaper and the magazine of The Hindu Group (THB). I do access them once in a while, but I don’t derive the pleasure I gain from flipping the pages, adding marginalia etc. that convey a sense of my prideful ownership. I scan interesting pages on a flat bed scanner and store them in .pdf on my computer hard drive. I could do something similar with the digital pages but it is not the same thing.

In Srirangam suburb I have located only one paper/magazine vendor who gets a copy of Frontline (a hole in the wall who gets me a hard copy, not every issue) and he calls me out during my evening walks if he has managed to procure a copy (I have newspaper The Hindu dropped at my door step, though only around 8:30 AM).

The magazine vendor missed the copy dated June 15, and so I did too! Now, I am back on track. Luckily for me, I got my hands on the June 30th issue and I have referred to the page “Letters” earlier.

None of these letters do anything more than what must have been printed in the dated magazine. Not an idea more. This can mean one of two things or both. Readers do not read between the lines, analyze the ideas deeply, and write something at least moderately different, not necessarily opposing. No sir, they would not do so as it may expose them to the powers that be and there could be mid-night knocks on the doors (I am being facetious here!), and who has the time to invest brainpower in these matters.

Secondly, the magazine might not want to be shown the gaps in its thinking and/or analysis, which could possibly bring it down from its high perch.

I now come to the second of my criticisms. It is truly below substandard! In one of the articles under the rubric Book Review, Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar writes in A professional in full bloom and makes clear, in the fourth line and no later, that the author and he are on nickname proximity (in Hindi langotiya yaar!). 

How does that help what he has written? And, from this first mention, not once did the reviewer write the full name of the author! It is, twenty times, the langotiya yaar and not the name of the author. This, in my opinion, is a complete surrender of the chief editor of the magazine to the vanity of the politician, the reviewer. In what way does the nickname of the author (to his close friends of long ago) have more relevance to the topic than his given name? I can’t think of even one.

I would have criticized in the same manner whoever else has used the nickname that may times in an article, even the so-called Mahatma (the “so-called” is appended to the honorific only as I do not believe in atma, the soul). What exactly did the book reviewer think he was achieving stressing his long association on nickname basis with the author of the book? He was stoking his vanity! That should be a severe negative. What gets my goat is that even the magazine’s editor did not dare to correct this infirmity.

I had not much to add either of the two thoughts I have espoused here. Hence, I clubbed them and the magazine Frontline is the only connection. Please read the very tenuously connected two criticisms as two distinct pieces.

Raghuram Ekambaram