The Hindu

Last week, the English-language public sphere and social media networks in India rippled with excitement after The Hindu launched an attack on its competitor through a stinging print and television campaign. The print ads, running with the common tagline "Stay ahead of the times," mocked the dumbing-down of the news by the Times with lines such as "Because government malfunctions matter more than wardrobe malfunctions" and "Read about political parties. Not Page 3 parties." The video commercials, each lasting a minute, showed a group of young people unable to answer a set of simple questions about Indian politics, business, sport and mythology, but reeling off the correct answers to questions about film stars. Then, they are asked, "Which newspaper do you read?" Their answers are bleeped out, but aren't hard to decipher.