From the Viewsroom. The inward gaze

It was a soul-corroding story of homeless eight- and nine-year-olds trapped in sex trade, and, horror of horrors, their vulnerable faces were splashed across the newspaper. As a mother who had left a newspaper job to care for my (then) two-year-old, it smote me doubly. Not only were the visuals disturbing, their publication was against the law and exposed the young lives to further exploitation.

It was a new city and an unfamiliar paper. I called up to complain, only to learn firsthand how cut off newsrooms can be from their readers. My call was transferred around until finally a voice at the other end brusquely informed me “he” had nothing to do with “it” and would “pass on the message”.

Having a ringside view of two dailies battling for readers meant a steady diet of attention-grabbing visuals: body parts, wardrobe disasters, candid moments — everything was fair game, leaving out neither celebs nor everyday folk. A health and beauty advice column on beer bellies had to, of course, rest on the picture of a conveniently endowed beer-swilling man snapped off-guard at some party. His feelings? Be damned! When a Kolkata daily recently used a leaked nude of actor Jennifer Lawrence to accompany an unrelated story, media watch website newslaundry.com wondered whether overworked and stretched “deskies” aka sub-editors were partly to blame for this blatant lapse of editorial judgment and the overriding illegality.

There’s also the bitter competition, what with Deepika’s cleavage ratcheting up thousands of rival ‘page views’. A picture is worth a 1,000-word news copy? But of course. There are even Pulitzers to acknowledge and venerate that.

The girl fleeing the searing heat of the world’s first atomic bombing tore into our collective conscience and guilt; and who can forget the piercing gaze of the Afghani girl unsettling our indifference to a country frostbitten by the Cold War. Closer home, the single image of an embattled pleading man brought home the horrors of a raging communal riot. And then you have Deepika, cleaving the outraging, outspoken multitudes right down the middle.

Slow news day? Focus, deskies, zoom right in.

( Correction:Jennifer Lawrence's name was incorrectly published as Jennifer Lawson. )

Senior Assistant Editor

COMMENT NOW