Post on 19-Feb-2016
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Dina Thanthi-Aarthi Chandru
Beginning Began in 1942 as a daily in Madurai, Tamil Nadu
Started by S. B Adityan
Adityan- a barrister & a staunch Congressman
Lawyer trained in Britain who had practiced in
Singapore
During his stay in Britain- admired the English tabloid,
the Daily Mirror, for its ability to reach a mass audience
Aimed to bring out a Tamil NP that would make ordinary
people want to read it
Wanted to introduce the commoner to regular reading
Launched Dina Thanthi
Deliberately aimed at lower class & semi-literate
population
Paper indulged shamelessly in sensationalism
4 pages dedicated to crime & cinema
Wrote in a casual, colloquial style & language used was
extremely easy with no ‘high’ words
Did not require much effort to understand the language
Supplied the readers with what they liked & the in turn
lapped it up
Paper’s circulation boomed
Brought out more editions, all over TN
Published from over 10 centers, Chennai being one
Meanwhile, the Dravidian parties (Dravida Kazhagam
+ Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) began to dominate
the political scene in post Independence Madras State
Adityan resigned from Congress & joined the
Dravidian movement
Tamil Journalism developed a lot during his times
He took the NP to the doorstep of the underprivileged &
downtrodden, the rickshawallahs, the factory laborer
Aroused in semi literate workers the desire to read NPs
Inculcated the reading habit in the poorest sections
Over the years, the readership increased
Largest circulated daily today
Dina Thanthi- (The Daily Telegraph) The path laid down by DT- followed by other Tamil
dailies like:
Dominance of crimes & violence related stories
Sex & cinema
News on political warfare
ABC 2005- Circulation of 4,12,000 copies
Evaluating DT Observers of the Tamil press were both admiring and
patronizing when they discussed DT
The admiration stemmed from the way in which Thanthi
created a new class of newspaper readers long before
such a development was contemplated in other regions of
India
But the tactics that made this possible also provoked the
ridicule.
Based in a regional town of TN, it used the public bus
system to distribute the paper throughout the Tamil
region
Until then, if a Tamil daily reached these areas, it had
been printed in Madras at least 24 hours earlier.
Adityan brought a fresh paper to Tamil towns each
morning-something most proprietors elsewhere in India
began to do only 40 years later
Main point reason for the distinctive character of the DT
From the 1920s- the 'anti- brahminism’ tone through
Tamil politics
Tamil Brahmins-roughly 3% of the Tamil population
The first Tamil daily, Swadesamitran, began as a weekly in
1882 & became the only Tamil daily from 1899-1917.
Owned and edited by Brahmins, it reflected the
concerns of the established elite Brahmin
In 1934, Ram Nath Goenka's Indian Express group
started Dinamani which - seemed lively and
sometimes even frivolous but though still edited by
Brahmins (It later on went on to become the 2nd
largest circulated daily & a very serious NP)
Adityan, on the other hand, was a non-brahmin
Also, a strong supporter of the DMK, a party founded on
anti-brahmin rhetoric
Thanthi therefore had a political message for its potential
audience
Anti Brahmanism was subtle undertone of the NP and the
non Brahmins, the majority were its target audience
Thanthi also prided itself on its language
Did not use the earlier applied literary language but
instead used colloquial Tamil, the Tamil spoken by the
masses
Refrained from using chaste Tamil, most commonly
spoken by the elite & sophisticated Tamil Brahmins
Took the credit for reforming Tamil prose and making it
accessible to large numbers
Emphasized local news
Especially crime, the courts & Panchayats
Used photographs as extensively as technology allowed
Brought the big banner headline to Tamil journalism
Used to take a broadsheet page to tell a single story,
mostly in headlines that its newly literate readers could
digest
Crime, film stars & politics provoked a fascination
for the masses which Adityan understood & from
which DT benefited
Most often that not, the Tamil film industry became
entwined with Tamil politics
All this spelled success for Dina Thanthi
Source• http://www.indianprinterpublisher.com/aug/publishing/2
000/november-robi.htm
• Journalism in India- R Parthasarathy