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