Listening Post

Even as Mumbai Mirror launches, DNA fails to keep its promise, Mid-Day is unsure of what time it should close and what kind of late news it should carry.

DNA fails to keep promise

You spoke up, but you didn’t win. DNA, as a token of gratitude to the 11,00,000 citizens for “sparing time with” them promised respondents that each has been entered into a mega draw, with chances to win a “once-in-a-lifetime” experience at Florida to “Walk like the moonwalker Neil Armstrong et al during their pioneering lunar mission (sic)” and a host of other prizes. The small print in the flyer says that winners would be announced in the “3rd week of May through a press announcement in a local newspaper in Mumbai”. The third week has come and gone, with no announcement. Let’s hope postponements don’t become a habit.

Mumbai Mirror launches

By the time you read this, the Mumbai Mirror would have launched. The launch ads, reproduced here, clearly hijack the DNA campaign, and no doubt, will cause some confusion in the consumer’s mind. Is this the paper that Mumbaikars have “created”?

The paper launches on May 30 and the date promises to be a Manic Monday. ‘Impact’ will do an in-depth review of the newspaperloid or magpaper or broadpaper or broadloid or tabpaper or whatever in the next issue.

Appropriate use of style and fontography, after holding the city to ransom for so many years?

Mumbai Mirror’s rate card

The paper’s launching on Monday; and there’s no sign of a rate card as of the previous Thursday.

Times launches e-paper

The print avatar has got more pages, more sections, more colour, more user-friendliness (at least a projection of it) than ever before. But this new initiative, the improved e-paper, is a magnificent product. You can now “read” the Times of India wherever you are in the world — all you need is to be connected to the net, The pages load quickly, you can zoom in on any article, photograph or advertisement. The navigation is simple, moron-proof. Visit the site: epaper.timesofindia.com. I still don’t have a fix on when they upload the e-paper, I saw it at 11 am.

Mid-Day or morning?

What time does Mid-Day go to bed — any later than the morning papers? Mid-Day’s Thursday edition that I read had no coverage of the Champions Trophy – a match, which finished at about 2.30 a. m. on Thursday. With a name like Mid-Day, the early edition loses out if it does not beat the regular morningers with news that breaks at 2-4 a. m. And, with a humdinger of a match, Mid-Day could have “owned” the story; now they will compete with Friday’s Times of India, Indian Express and Asian Age.

How will your obit read in The Economist?

This, they say, is a question that achievers ponder over as they go grey. And The Economist may not say much about Sunil Dutt, but the newspapers did. They said plenty. And if column centimetres are a measure of a man’s stature, Sunil Dutt walked tall. All papers devoted significant space to cover the achievements of the man, the actor, the husband, the father, the politician, the friend.

May his soul rest in peace. Breaking News and all that at Istanbul

This is how the Liverpool Football Club’s official report on their web-site read halfway through the Champions’ League Final:

“The Reds' best chance fell to Garcia who fired wide after a good move involving Gerrard, Riise and Baros but it has been a disastrous opening 45 minutes in Turkey and our dreams of winning a fifth European Cup look to be in tatters.”

And this is how it read a couple of hours later:

“Amazing, astounding, awe-inspiring, breathtaking, extraordinary, hair-raising, heart-stirring, magnificent, marvellous, miraculous, moving, overwhelming spectacular, spine-tingling, striking, stunning, stupefying, stupendous, wonderful.

Pick your own word to describe what 500 million people around the world have witnessed here in Istanbul tonight.

What the hell — pick a few. No single word can describe the greatest comeback ever known in world football. Liverpool's amazing European Cup adventure ended in triumph in Istanbul on Wednesday night as 40,000 scousers painted the city red on what must go down as the greatest ever victory in the club's illustrious history.”

In this age of breaking news, a reminder that it ain’t over till the fat lady sings. Or, as in this case, Schevchenko misses a penalty.