(by Madan Mohan)
No, this is not about the famous Agatha Christie novel.
This is about the imminent shutdown of Mumbai Mirror, a tabloid-sized daily that used to accompany Times of India. Starting tomorrow, we are told, Mumbai Mirror will be a Sunday weekly affair.
Notice I say tabloid-sized. If you aren’t from Mumbai (or Pune/Bangalore which also had their Mirror editions), you’d wonder what the fuss is about a cheap tabloid going under. Why are your liberal minded friends from Mumbai bemoaning, not the death but the curtailment of a desi Daily Mail/Sun? Why indeed?
Well, for that, you’d have to have read the paper and understood what it was trying to do. Which wasn’t to spread scandal and fake news but to carry on a particular Mumbai tradition that was previously the preserve of Afternoon Despatch and Courier. As the name suggests, it arrived a little later in the day. So it would carry the scorecard of cricket matches that had gone on late into the night, like Sharjah (remember that?). What also attracted readers were the columns of its editor Behram Contractor who went by the moniker of Busybee. It was meant to be read at leisure over tea (or, more likely, on the way back on the hour long fast train journey back to the distant suburbs from your downtown office).
Once Mumbai Mirror was launched as a bundled offering ‘free’ with a higher priced Times of India, Afternoon was already embattled. Mumbai Mirror leveraged the financial strength of its parent to offer a whole roster of columnists. The columns covered everything from psychology (Sonali Gupta) to fashion (Namrata Zakaria) to economics (Ajit Ranade) to cinema (Trishaa Gupta/Roshmila Bhattacharya) to politics (Radhika Ramaseshan). I have not covered all the ones who used to write columns for the paper. Some long timers had wound up their columns already before pandemic purgatory – like Bhavin Jankharia who offered a Matunga point of view. Now unless you are from the city yourself, you cannot grasp how this Matunga point of view differs from the South Mumbai point of view offered by Shobha De in her column.
More importantly, Mumbai Mirror had a point of view. Times of India under the stewardship of Sameer Jain has mastered the art of survival by maintaining balance in the most literal sense of the word. The Sunday centre spread publishes columns by writers who are both pro and anti the ruling establishment. On weekdays, columns by Opposition leaders as well as from the Ruling party, including even Ministers, are often published. The ethics of the same may be questionable but its business sense is not.
In sharp contrast, Mumbai Mirror veered towards the point of view of Mumbai liberalism. It is a different variety of liberalism from the more noisy and activist brand practiced by the capital city or the strong leftist slant of Kolkata or Chennai liberals (as seen on Telegraph or Hindu). Mumbai voted with the nation in 2014 and 2019. But it also expressed dissatisfaction with the BJP’s machinations to curtail popular local leaders; voters in the Bandra East constituency voted for the independent Trupti Sawant when BJP would not allow Shiv Sena to give her a ticket, knowing full well that the resulting vote split would allow Zeeshan Siddique, the son of Baba Siddique, to win. Anti-CAA protests went about smoothly and without incident in Mumbai and for months.
Also, I never heard the same Mumbaiites who routinely blasted left leaning journalists like Rajdeep Sardesai also deride Mumbai Mirror. No, nobody would go that far. Mumbai Mirror was an institution. It did not indulge politicians from either side of the aisle with precious column inches and let the work of journalism be carried out by journalists (the more leisurely columns, of course, were written by eminent citizens with a knack for writing well – Jhankaria is a reputed city doctor). It did not waste time with monkey balancing on Sunday and instead carried ‘deep dives’ (before the term came into popular usage) into a wide variety of subjects.
Unfortunately, it appears that Mumbai Mirror got too successful for its own good. Word is that its lower advertisement rates were more attractive to advertisers as it offered close to the same readership as Times of India in Mumbai, to date the newspaper’s largest market. Also, as Mumbai Mirror bids us goodbye, we are offered a bundle that would have either Economic Times (with Sunday Mirror) or Maharashtra Times (a Marathi newspaper) on all seven days, with Times of India. So…does this mean ET was ailing too and Times decided to rescue it (as well as Times of India) from the cannibalizing tendencies of Mumbai Mirror?
Whatever be the reasons behind the move, it’s come to pass. And with many of the columnists saying their goodbyes this week, I have a bad feeling about just what the Sunday edition is going to look like. Well, as long as it’s not the print edition of Sudarshan TV…
In another city, this decision, sprung up on readers and Mumbai Mirror employees alike as a nasty surprise in December, may not have gone down without incident. Perhaps, a loud clamour from readers may have scared BCCL into postponing the decision and slowly killing the edition over a period of time. But activism to rescue local institutions is what New York City does. Mumbai – Mumbai just shrugs and moves on, humming the refrain of Ae Dil Hai Mushkil Jeena Yahan.
brangan
December 19, 2020
Lovely piece, Madan. We make very strong connections with newspapers, and now that they are dying out, it’s sad to keep being reminded that we are indeed at “the end of an era”.
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Madan
December 19, 2020
Thanks BR. Yes, the sense of a great change grows stronger. At least up until now, the ‘relics’ hung on and survived but the pandemic may have pushed many of these things we cherished over the edge.
Sanjay Nagral – a doctor who wrote for Mumbai Mirror – wrote a very emotional piece about what it meant to hold a newspaper. I’ve actually been on the ‘reading online’ beat for a good many years. But the pandemic brought back the habit of reading the paper in the morning now that I had nothing else to do. So for the same pandemic to take it away from me feels saddening.
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An Jo
December 19, 2020
This is hardly a surprise. This decision was out almost 3 weeks before. They now say it will be a weekly but I will hardly be surprised if it completely goes digital. Print media is dying, just like the art of hand-writing; cursive writing is dead in the US and is slowly withering in India. Mumbai Mirror had indeed become a habit for us. What is surprising about its launch and success initially in 2005 is that most of the crew was new with fresh faces and hands, including Meena Baghel, the founding editor. I guess that gave them the boldness to go ahead and print news without too much of a balancing act.
I am quite curious as to how Mahendra Watsa will handle the onslaught of India’s myriad sexual problems on a weekly basis from now on…
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Madan
December 19, 2020
AnJo: I wrote an entire column about Mumbai Mirror and forgot Mahinder Watsa, damn!
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Karthik
December 19, 2020
Wonderfully written, Madan!
I have fond memories of reading the Mirror on evening bus rides many years ago. The demise of a “local” institution is sad in so many ways. Even if we have gravitated towards globalized worldviews, the comfort of a local anchoring is hard to replace.
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Madan
December 19, 2020
Thanks Karthik. Yes indeed. Feels like some part of the city itself is gone. I hope the Sunday edition survives but like AnJo said, I am not hopeful. It’s a harbinger of a move to a pure digital play and if that doesn’t pay for itself, they will just shut shop. The Mirror was particularly convenient for the ride back home in a bus or train because opening the pages wouldn’t result in the paper butting into your co-passenger’s ‘space’ (unlike a broadsheet).
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Anu Warrier
December 22, 2020
The demise of journalism – real journalism, that is – is definitely to be mourned. And I’m sad that MM is closing. They covered a lot of local news, and human interest stories that were rather decent.
I did a lot of my reading on the local train coming back from work at crazy hours of the night. Fridays and Saturday, it was always the last local from Churchgate – with the fisherwomen for company.
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brangan
December 22, 2020
Anu Warrier: The demise of journalism – real journalism, that is – is definitely to be mourned.
Actually, I will go one step further and say “the demise of READING” is to be mourned. Imagine this. Because people were not reading long reviews, we go to video and say “okay, here’s the capsule review in five-odd minutes”.
Now, thanks to Instagram Reels, we are saying” okay, you find five-minute reviews too much, so here’s the capsule in thirty-odd seconds.”
And this (30-seconder) is the format that is REALLY clicking. We will never again return to the kind of glory days where writing a book or a novel actually meant something. Sure, you may find a publisher who simply wants to add a title to his/her catalogue, or maybe you will even self-publish. But good luck trying to get people to buy it.
Even in my 2000-word reviews, I know exactly how many people clicked on the review vs how many people actually read all the way to the end. Digital media actually tracks where (i.e. which para) the reader moved on from. Scary, but true.
And with these kind of measuring mechanisms, it will only be a while before companies decide it’s just not worth paying people to write when no one reads 🙂
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Madan
December 22, 2020
Anu Warrier: I have fond memories too of reading on the journey back from VT to home. That was the beauty of travelling to and from Fort. Fix up a starting train from home and while returning, the trains anyway start from Churchgate/VT. That’s a solid near-two hours of reading time. I actually used to complete homework assignments of CA coaching class during the journey back. And when I finished CA, the local train was where I was reading Animal Farm or 1984. And being in VT, you could get those second hand books easily too. Neither is reading the same, nor is South Bombay. End of an era.
BR: I have been thinking about this too. And I agree completely. The larger upshot is the reading HABIT is dying. I have mentioned this before too – I feel a little handicapped in the video age where people are comfortable with watching hour long podcasts and discussions. I am not, I don’t have the attention span for that. But give me a book and I will devour it.
But I remember well that in those days that when I was the inveterate bookworm, many of my classmates hated reading. Reading a short article was ok or maybe a comic book but a novel was too taxing for them. Now the boot is in the other foot. I will adapt, eventually; one has to get on with how things are. But you are absolutely right; reading is dying. The reality really hit me when this all day book fair where I live, offering books at amazing discounts, shut down. There weren’t enough book lovers to support this fair that was a walking distance from Vashi station.
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Madan
December 22, 2020
“, it will only be a while before companies decide it’s just not worth paying people to write when no one reads” – Yes. And I think back to how I turned down a gig to work for a cricket website back in 2012. I turned it down then for two reasons. One, I wasn’t really being paid to write but to be an editor. With the principal editor bemoaning the lamentable spelling and grammar of the submissions he received. I was like, well, why do you think I will enjoy it then? 😀 Two, even at that time, I used to be asked to write lots of spoofs and while he would praise me for writing cerebral pieces, he would simultaneously carp about how no one was reading them. Something in my gut told me that this didn’t look like a good gig then long term.
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Srinivas R
December 22, 2020
“Digital media actually tracks where (i.e. which para) the reader moved on from. Scary, but true.” – this doesn’t make much sense IMO. I could drop off at some point because, I plan to revisit it later when I have more time to read it. I have done that with your reviews and also other long articles on the net.
I love long form articles. I can read and enjoy 3000 word articles as long the subject is relevant to me and it is well written. Sad they are rarer these days.
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Venky Ramachandran
December 23, 2020
“And with these kind of measuring mechanisms, it will only be a while before companies decide it’s just not worth paying people to write when no one reads ”
Let me offer my story as a counterpoint.
Since 2017, when I decided to join an agritech startup, I began writing about my journeys in agriculture. In 2019, I quit my startup and decided to become free agent. In aug 2019, I decided to make my agri newsletter a paid newsletter in substack. I charge 3/4th of what netflix charges for a month to watch movies in a desktop for a single reader. I write one article per week, each 1 – 2K long. My subscribers have only been growing up steady like a stream.
I agree that the economics of writing in the internet is asymptomatically moving towards zero in an aggregate sense. However, in the world of subscription journalism, if you have identified your niche, you could very well charge your readers and build a community of your readers. I know of so many journalists/analysts like me, who are building an active community of readers and writers.
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Voldemort
December 23, 2020
BR : And with these kind of measuring mechanisms, it will only be a while before companies decide it’s just not worth paying people to write when no one reads 🙂
Don’t say that BR. ☹
I love reading long articles and I agree with Srinivas R, I might open them sometime on a quick break, and close to come back later. Sometimes I even read select parts of an article or a book repeatedly.
A lot of people in my circles who were once avid readers have now either gradually lost the habit or reduced reading books to a large extent. Some of them prefer watching television series/movies to books. But I don’t think reading will completely go away. It will diminish hugely, and become a luxury hobby, like say interest in modern art. I hope we aren’t the last generation to have international bestseller authors.
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Anu Warrier
December 23, 2020
BR, so agree with you! My blog posts are l-o-n-g. I’ve had readers say I should ‘perhaps write like Buzz Feed’. My general response to that is, then why aren’t you on Buzzfeed’s site instead of mine?
But yes, my reading had reduced quite a bit in the interim – lack of time, the stress of work/kids/home, long driving commute… I’m not a great TV viewer, but I discovered YouTube and that’s a black hole.
In the past few years, however, I’ve deliberately made time to read. At least a few pages every day before I go to bed.
@Madan, I worked at Nariman Point. My lunch break usually involved hurriedly gulping down whatever I’d bought, and whizzing off to Fountain-VT to visit my second-hand bookwallahs. One of them even asked me for a list of books I wanted, and would call me at work to let me know if he had them. I’d his card for a long time. Much of my book collection came from him and his brethren on that sidewalk.
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Madan
December 23, 2020
“It will diminish hugely, and become a luxury hobby, like say interest in modern art.” – In essence, it will become like the music industry today but without even the sliver of a 1% popstars who still get to enjoy a luxurious lifestyle. But neither books nor music seem to have the scarcity value of a painting. I think both writers and musicians need to start reimagining how they offer their works to fight their way out of commodification. Like, a great singer could make a recording of which only a few copies on LP will be sold. Likewise, a paper only hardcover version in only limited print. Without this, it will be very difficult to monetize a published work in both music and books.
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Madan
December 24, 2020
To add to what BR said about the dwindling of the reading habit and fewer views for long articles, I shared this Reader’s Write on my FB and out of a total 6 likes, only 2 were friends (and not family/relatives). One of those friends wrote a very detailed and informative comment drawing parallels between Mumbai Mirror and Evening Standard in London. So that comment made writing the article worth it for me as the one who wrote it. It is that conversation that I am trying to start by writing an article. But as a business proposition, to depend on so small an audience would be murder.
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Madan
December 24, 2020
Jeeva shares his Readers Writes on his FB too. He can also corroborate my experience. There is hardly any engagement on his FB space too on the articles he posts.
But – and I omitted to mention this in my earlier comment – when I post clips of myself singing on my FB, I easily get 25-30 likes and around a 100 views minimum (some have gone up to the 300 views mark). Many of the likes are from friends and some of the views may even be from people I don’t know. I don’t even think I sing as well as I write but it’s much easier to attract attention to video format, is the point.
i got a better response to my article on Queen’s Gambit because it was much more topical. But that’s still 15 likes with half a dozen or so from friends. Check out likes on articles of big outlets like New Yorker, Independent etc and they will be in the few hundreds/few thousands. And just compare that with the likes on the hottest Youtube videos. Yeah….
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Madan
December 28, 2020
We talked about Dr Mahinder Watsa in the comments. Well, he’s dead. RIP.
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