Frontline....an ode to a trusted friend.

Frontline is one of the few things that I can swear by.

And for a naturally cynical person like me, I consider that quite a feat.

I woke upto Frontline in my first year in college, about the same time that I was becoming aware of the general dumbing down of newspapers and other newsmagazines. I marveled at the level of analysis that the Frontline offered but I marveled more at the critical analysis that each piece was subjected to, each article having a depth that would easily wear out a reader fed on the regular diet of the likes of India Today (once a very good magazine which has now become nothing more than a pure sensationalist magazine at worst and a an advertisement catalogue at best) and other magazines which cater to the ever decreasing attention span of the reader (by giving ever shorter and increasingly simplistic write ups coupled with lots of pictures).

Speaking of depth, I found the range of the magazine nothing short of breathtaking…

how many media outlets cover issues ranging from Latin american politics to cinema analysis (the movies that matter that is and no, there are no reviews with star ratings, thank god, it wants us to think for ourselves) to the problem of continuance of manual scavening and issues of dalit ostracisation in rohtak to books reviews to economic analysis?

The range itself is enough to put its better known and more celebrated North American counterparts to shame, if not the depth and the neutral criticism of both left and right.

Some people have commented that the magazine is leftist in character….to those people, I wd say that either they are those who would prefer to read entertainment pieces and consider themselves well read and who don’t know what ‘leftist’ mean , except that vaguely, it is something that they don’t like, or those who have surrendered their critical thinking facilities for the sake of a simplistic (and to them more convinient) worldview.

If critical analysis and in-depth, well thought out arguments on topics that people are not even aware of, are deemed leftist, well, so be it…its better to be branded a leftist than become a magazine that Paris Hilton would have no difficulty understanding……

Frontline has been my constant companion for the last 4 years and would be for a long long time unless something happens to make it go the same way as India Today and co which would be nothing short of a tragedy for media of this country, it being one of the few magazines that is still upholding the values of classical journalism (among the english magazines, there are many such regional magazines in different parts of the country in various languages).

What triggered me to write this humble piece of mine was the newest issue of Frontline which sports a new, more aesthetic look. It was a transformation that was long overdue (the edit piece said that no less that Satyajit Ray had wanted to change the look and had offered to do it himself). When I got it, I thought that they had given me The Economist or something. It was more pleasant to see that the inside has changed only in look (much better placed and spaced out on its pages), the depth and range of articles remaining the same. Aesthetics are important because of human appreciation of beauty and symmetry and its good to know that the magazine has appreciated this factor without compromising on its substance.

May it never.