Scrolling Notification

When I get time, I listen to music, or read books. If any is left, I blog!

Monday 29 October 2012

No Tears To Shed

Weeks before its 80th anniversary, and after months of free-falling readership and revenue, 'Newsweek' is closing down. Its move to dump the 'romance of print' and 'embrace the all-digital future' comes at a time when print publications like 'The Economist' are gaining readers.

Born within ten years of each other, 'Time' and 'Newsweek' in many ways, have remained two sides of the same coin. In India, they adorn hotel lobbies, business lounges and luxury cars, caressing many an ostensible ego, but failing to arouse any one's grey matter! 

Their approach to global issues is incomprehensible, analysis skewed and slanted, and expression arrogant. Be it the accession of Goa, border skirmishes with China, war against Pakistan, liberation of Bangladesh or the emergency, they have had neither the time nor the inclination to relate to our sensitivities.


The closure of such an enterprise does make us sit up and take note. What we see behind Newsweek's collapse is a mix of flawed editorial indulgences and plunging reader interest. Yet rejoice we must.  For every ton of unsolicited printing paper, 24 mature trees escape the axe, to render the world a better place to live! 

"Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky,
We fell them down and turn them into paper,
That we may record our emptiness."
~Kahlil Gibran

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