I am one of the few people in Hyderabad (if not India) who has been associated with almost every daily newspaper in his city. I have headed a Deccan Chronicle Group Company for a few years, authored the Times Food Guide for two, hosted the Hindu Metroplus Theatre Festivals for five odd years, orchestrated the launch of Vaartha, produced an ad film for Udayam, contributed to Newstime, lent my voice to Eenadu and so on. And I have managed to maintain cordial relations with most if not all the publications and people involved. So I guess I qualify to be termed safely impartial. And to further cement my claim, I am a subscriber to all the Hyderabad papers – DC, TOI and the Hindu.

And quite naturally I have slipped into a kind of order as to how I read the papers every morning. I must admit at this stage that the order has been indirectly influenced by my newspaper vendor who bundles the papers with the Hindu on the outside, the Times in the middle and DC the innermost. Also naturally I have seen patterns emerging in the papers. Deccan Chronicle for instance carries a more colorful reportage of crimes, accidents and rapes. The Times is known for its single minded focus on the issue of the moment. For instance when the Satyam scam became news, all the papers reported it but soon realized that the subject had been beaten to death and moved on to other topics. Not so the Times. It bashed on relentlessly, day after day, losing no chance to remind its readers about the evils that the Rajus did. And was seen to be guilty of a crime no newspaper should even be accused of …sheer, unadulterated glee!

Of course Deccan Chronicle too has not been entirely innocent. I remember the Babu bashing, the YSR taunting, the Margadarsi exposes etc, But I also know that there was some politics involved in this. DC has always been regarded as a Congress mouthpiece and may therefore be partially excused for its misdemeanors.

The Hindu, true to its reputation has always come across as the less sensational, more balanced, more mature viewpoint and I enjoy its worldview.

Of late however some battle lines seem to have been crossed. Especially with the Times that has gone hammer and tongs at the Deccan Chronicle Group. Almost everyday there is an update about the number of creditors who have crawled out of the woodwork. Almost everyday there is a personal attack on an individual or a group of individuals reporting something as petty as ‘their dhobi bill has not been paid’, ‘their electricity is being disconnected’ and so on. In fact the tone and tenor of the reporting has taken on an obituary feel…DC is dead, Long Live the King!

Whether DC will survive its troubles is a mystery. Your guess is as good as mine. And I am sure everyone of us who has grown up with this phenomenon hopes and prays that someone will pull out a rabbit from the magic hat and make the bad times disappear.

But in the meanwhile may I suggest a truce of sorts. Let the parties concerned take positions that are more gentlemanly. If DC is guilty of a crime there is a law and a time that will do the needful. The Times has definitely not been given the mandate to emerge as the sole reporter of the Chronicle Sagas. And it would be good for everyone concerned to go about the business of keeping a populace informed on the basis of values set by people bigger and better than all of them put together.