August is a significant month at ThePrint. We just turned eight years old. In the life of a news organisation, that means we are still in our infancy. We are still growing up, learning new tricks of the trade, and always trying to get better and better.
Readers are the best judge of whether we are succeeding. From the mail I continue to receive in the Readers’ Editor’s inbox, it is clear that most of you like what you read, see, or hear at ThePrint. Some of you urge us to improve, and a few are upset. That’s a pretty fair report card on ThePrint’s journey so far.
On the less glowing side, readers mostly have ideological misgivings about opinion pieces or videos at ThePrint — factual errors have been at a bare minimum. There are also complaints about technical issues, such as the quality of a video or subscription logjams.
But a strength that has held us in good stead at ThePrint is that we do not believe in ‘publish and be damned’. Before any article is published it is edited, verified for reliable information, vetted for factual, grammatical, language errors, and for correct attribution. That sometimes delays publication but we think it’s better to be late than sorry.
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Biases and bugs
So, let’s return to the readers — and to the bad news first.
“I write this with deep concern…” wrote one reader from Bangladesh, “over the misleading nature of your headline and coverage in the article titled Yunus govt cleared path, Bangladesh top court showed the way. Jamaat back in poll fray after 12 yrs… This kind of framing distorts public understanding.”
Another reader said he was “disappointed” in ThePrint. What had dismayed him? That ThePrint had published an article by the Spokesperson at the Embassy of Israel in Delhi.
“Today, you have become the perpetrator, the one who allows the genocidal state to have a spokesperson on your network. The article called for journalistic standards in fighting fake news. The irony of this is scathing,” he added.
In a similar vein, a reader was critical of ThePrint “tilting to the right”.
“I have no quarrel against anyone taking that stance. Though, the team had long said that you stand for un-hyphenated journalism and editorial stances were pro-democratic,” he wrote. He added a suggestion: “…bring back the news.”
My own feeling is that any objective news outlet must reflect different and often opposing points of view in order to provide readers with a clearer understanding of issues. To give only one side of the argument may please readers who agree with that opinion, but it does a disservice to all readers by denying them other sides of the picture.
Subscriber login problems were “quite frustrating really,” complained another reader. He also objected to the continuing presence of advertisements. “Sadly, other than begging people to subscribe in each episode, the ‘paid’ subscribers get a raw deal,” he concluded.
I asked the team which deals with subscriptions to explain this to me, and here is what they said:
“We’re truly sorry for the inconvenience caused. We understand how frustrating it can be to face issues with accessing your account, and we deeply regret the trouble this may have caused.
Due to unforeseen technical challenges, we’ve had to temporarily disable the login feature on our website. While we are working to assess the situation, the feature remains unavailable for now.”
When readers assert their ‘right’
One reader found that a 15 June article by ThePrint’s Contributing Editor Praveen Swami — titled Israel crushed Ayatollah’s regime, but stopping Iran’s nuke programme will need total overthrow — made for “distressing reading”.
A few days later, he had changed his mind: “I ask you NOT to publish my letter. Better sense has prevailed and the conflict between Iran and Israel has ended.”
And then, just as I began to feel relieved, this popped up in the mailbox from another reader: “The video quality on these is just atrocious.” He was annoyed by the standard of the visuals in “what I consider the flagship video series of ThePrint, namely Cut the Clutter”.
He went into technical details about the videos’ “fuzzy” quality and then softened a bit.
“I apologize if this sounds like a rant. However, as a paying contributor whose main mode of consuming news is through these videos, I believe I have the right,” he wrote.
Of course you do, dear reader. We welcome criticism and accept it in the spirit it is made: to help us improve ThePrint. We are doing what we can to improve the quality of our videos — we find it as irritating as you do.
The last complaint I want to cite was regarding billing for subscription: “Last year you charged me twice… However, you did not have the courtesy to return back one amount. Irrespective of [that], I don’t want to renew any more,” wrote the reader.
ThePrint’s subscription team checked its records and clarified that “two yearly recurring subscriptions were taken”— but from one email address.
Evangelists and friends
On to the better news. After his complaint about the video quality of CTC, the same reader paid us a compliment.
Because of “anxiety”, he wrote, he had “practically stopped watching the news around 2007”, but ThePrint was an exception.
“I never thought I’d be watching Indian news let alone pay for it (but now)… I evangelize ThePrint any chance I get,” he added.
A second reader who had also lodged a complaint sweetened it by writing, “I have had a healthy respect for ThePrint, primarily for its journalistic integrity…”
Someone else wrote that he admired “the platform’s influential voice in shaping public discourse…”
I don’t want to take up more space on praise for the website, so we can stop here. Except for this quaint message from a reader: “ThePrint will succeed more when readers find a friend in ThePrint. For example I have authored some books which I feel should be looked into by ThePrint…”
Unfortunately, we were unable to oblige him.
Praise through pitches?
One way to measure ThePrint’s reputation is the number of requests for publication of their articles from readers. The Readers’ Editor’s mailbox is full of them. Readers write on many topical — and some quite esoteric — subjects.
There was one on the ‘Land Boundary Act of 2015 in Cooch Behar along the India-Bangladesh borderlands’ on its tenth anniversary. Next up, ‘Operation Illusion: How Pakistan Mistook Survival For Success’, sent soon after the military stand-off between India and Pakistan.
“I argue how Pakistan mistook non-defeat as victory for domestic consumption,” wrote the aspiring writer.
Then there were ‘Stereotyping in the Times of Crises: Scapegoating the Marginalized’ and ‘Optics For Power: The Global Governance Syndrome’. Another reader, who happens to be a geologist, offered a more specialised topic: ‘Why India’s Future May Depend on the Narrow Straits — and the Rocks Beneath Them.’
I have noticed that we also receive submissions from university and college students. A second-year law student sent in ‘HANDLE WITH CARE – THE NEED FOR LINGUISTIC SENSITIVITY’ following actor Kamal Haasan’s comment that Kannada was “born out of Tamil” when his film Thug Life was to be released.
A 17-year-old writer and student from Tamil Nadu “with a strong passion for global politics and macroeconomics” sent us ‘India’s Diplomatic Checkmate: The IMEC Explained’. And there was a “15-year-old poet” who shared an article about himself and his work, which was really quite sweet.
Some people sent in articles as replies to opinion pieces published in ThePrint. One such was ‘Queer in India – Divided between Ideologies’ as a continuation of the opinion piece India’s queer politics isn’t about Right vs Left. It’s a matter of privilege.
Then there was a rebuttal to Pakistan’s Coldness to Iran Shows Idea of Ummah is Poetic Illusion by Amana Begam. It was titled, ‘The Ummah Isn’t a Poetic Illusion — It’s a Living Moral Community’.
Others have written in too, but there isn’t enough space to mention all of them. Suffice it to say, we do publish pieces that we feel fit ThePrint’s profile — those that are topical and meet our editorial standards. Otherwise, regretfully, we have to say no.
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Letters that defy categories
“Dear Sir/Madam, I am writing to express my profound concern regarding the recent correspondence between the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) and the Bangladesh Coast Guard (BCG) concerning the apprehension of Indian fishing boats in Bangladesh waters.”
Absolutely, but why write about it to the Readers’ Editor at ThePrint? I was baffled by this mail, although I do receive plenty with random thoughts.
For example: “I am writing to bring to your notice a matter of grave public interest involving fraud in international trade, manipulation of the legal process, and systemic police inaction – which has left a small MSME exporter like me in serious financial and legal distress.”
Or: “Only Avtar of God can save the earth and the world.”
And: “United States should help India in becoming a developed nation by economic bonding & having a long term plan…”
Press releases come my way all the time, none more bewilderingly worded than this one: “The Indian Hindutva Government Continues to Use the National Investigation Agency for its Dirty Work. Once again slandering the honest ideological party Hizb ut Tahrir… Central Media Office Hizb ut Tahrir entitled: India’s Rulers Wage War on Islam to Conceal their Blatant Failure.”
Well, that’s it for this month. Thank you for your mail. We appreciate hearing from you and value the feedback. Please keep writing in and telling us what you think of ThePrint.
Shailaja Bajpai is ThePrint’s Readers’ Editor. Please write in with your views and complaints to readers.editor@theprint.in
(Edited by Asavari Singh)