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On Wednesday morning, two of the major newspapers from the Bennett & Coleman Group, i.e., Times of India and Economic Times (for a change, instead of saying, "You know who," in Harry Potter style, let me commit blasphemy by using the name), decided to change the aviation landscape of India forever. Backed with exact valuation figure and details of the deal structure, the non-suspecting public at large was told of impending take-over of Sahara Airlines by Jet Airways in a sensational heading, "Jet Buys Sahara for Rs. 2500 Crores". ET in first paragraph wrote, "The first mega deal in the Indian aviation industry has been sealed..."
Touted as the first and largest take-over in Indian Aviation industry, the newspaper gave an exciting behind the scene story along with the rival figures, where other offer was of 1/3 of the actual price. And to give proper respect to the magnitude of the news, both papers gave the first heading with a box on the main page, ahead of any other news item. However, surprisingly none of the other main-line media showed same kind of alacrity in reporting this and rather avoided the subject altogether, barring a few newspapers who just posted a denial of the merger at some regular space.

To think this incident is an exception in the history of TOI and ET is itself an exception, as creativity, imagination and noise seem to govern this group more than the news. The comfort of the publishing giant in noise and imagination can be seen from the very fact that despite being the largest newspaper in India, they preferred to launch a gossip channel "Zoom" first, given the familiarity of the management with the subject compared to a news channel, for which the Reuters has been brought in as a key investor.

Further, there seems to be very tenuous line between editorial and advertorial, with all news and analysis looking more as an extension of some advertising campaign. For example, if there is an IPO coming up, suddenly there will be news reports, coverage and interviews about the company. And no please, don't expect a soul-searching story or path-breaking news or a simple investor guideline, it is all planted world, though not silicon but pure words, which have the power to shape all opinions, share prices, and as one of the leading portal says, "whatever".

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* Author: - Wet Toad is a management professional.
Disclaimer: All views expressed are persoanl and CA does not take any responsibility for them.