A ToI reporter showed up to a small Delhi blogger meetup several days ago under an assumed name and did a Page Six/Page 3-style takedown of our very own TTG:
Most mainstream Indian papers are glorified scandal rags.. the active blogging community in India is a shockingly tiny group… Their preoccupation nevertheless continues to be slamming and analysing a very wide variety of things in an attempt to display their intellectual might… Their favourite pastime remains MSM (blog speak for mainstream media) bashing, often without caring to provide substantiations and taking cover behind free speech platitude…… the 3rd annual Delhi bloggers meet just proved how big (or small) is the Indian blogosphere. Just four bloggers attended it, counting the host… ”I have booked the entire section of the restaurant,” he added, pointing at the empty sofas reserved for an army of bloggers that he had expected…
The Indian blogosphere has a long way to go before it even comes near to achieving the influence of the American bloggers… We are yet to see the Instapundit of India or an Andrew Sullivan. And this is not lost on them. ”We are the elite bloggers of India,” announced Tarun… [Link]
There’s no law against snark, but the aggrieved organizer says the story is full of inaccuracies:
Barista is not a restaurant. I hadn’t booked the “entire section” of it. And there was ONE sofa, which could hold 2 people, and ONE chair that was empty…I SAID I WASN’T one of the ELITE bloggers of India, and went on to roll off a list of all the A-list dudes…
Now I know how celebrities must feel when they see their quotes in print. Is anything in the paper the truth? [Link]
We’re familiar with being misquoted. TTG was a little frustrated at first, and amputation seems to be a running theme:
“I will slice off your penis and feed it to you”… [Link]‘If you steal from us we will cut off your hands’ [Link]
Mmm, member flambé. Someone needs to meet Armin Miewes 
(very NSFW, and non-veg to boot). The real reason for his frustration will be familiar to all bloggers:
Had the journalist at least advertised our URLs, I would have forgiven him… [Link]
No linkback — ye bastards! Great Bong refocuses our attention on the real issue, crappy Indian papers. What kind of paper writes a snotty column on four people having coffee, calls it news and puts it on the front page of the Delhi section?
How do Indian newspapers (MSM) compare to US newspapers? When was the last time the New York Times had Robert De Niro’s birthday on its front page? When was the last time Washington Post debated whether Paris Hilton’s video footage is fake or not? When was the last time you opened LA Times and found at the right hand side of your screen a picture of a busty blonde in a push up with the caption “July Babes”?Besides Tehelka, which newspaper in recent memory has shown balls to go after the real bad guys? … most mainstream news outlets… are glorified scandal rags that report on lifestyle and spicy politics and what Bipasa Basu’s future acting assignments are. [Link]
