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C. Srinivas, Moulali, Secunderabad: I have been a reader of The Hindu for over 20 years … Of late what I observe is a drastic fall in the standards. These standards are not spelling errors or grammatical mistakes, rather they pertain to the larger issue of journalistic ethics. I see a clear political tilt in your articles … I firmly believe newspapers should be unbiased and should be more like an umpire. But now I see you are a player … They have the right to be critical of any party, but the moment it degenerates into a mindless (or rather a single-minded) assault on parties that don’t fit in with the ideology of the editorial team the readers will switch papers just like I did!

Editor-in-Chief: His opinion; our prerogative to have opinions — it is not just one.

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Arvind B., National Institute of Technology, Tiruchi: This is a letter from a 19-year-old without “the background” to “command attention” expressing views in a non-“refined, sober way.” So it qualifies as an extremely biased letter … It is extremely sad that an accusation of partiality was countered with even more prejudices and that too in a supercilious manner … I have been a reader since 1993 (when I was 5 years old) … But looking at the quality of reporting or the lack of it … the all too obvious bias in the editorials and even the frequent typographical and factual errors make me want to go back to my 1993 days ….

Editor-in-Chief: I stand by this approach and policy (of fair and balanced coverage).

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Gopi Krishna Maliwal, Wanchai, Hong Kong: Mr. Ram says “… it is factual, nothing embroidered or propagandist …” and “we don’t do campaign journalism …” but what would he (or you) say about the regular editorialising seen in the “reports” by Ms. Vyas on BJP … There was no report (at least in the web edition) … on the death last year of Mr. Zhao, the former general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party … I wonder why this omission. That also goes for general China coverage.

Editor-in-Chief: It is true that Neena Vyas and some others used to do it. I am opposed to editorialising in the guise of news — in all daily newspapers and on television as well. We have done our best to eliminate editorialising in the garb of news. It is likely we published the news of Mr. Zhao’s death. If not, it was certainly not deliberate. No newspaper can be comprehensive in this sense.

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Balram Rathod, Bharuch, Gujarat: Whilst selection of news items might be subject to the bias of the editor, it is appalling to note that news that is not palatable to the leftists is being regularly left out. You should not assume that those readers who complain of The Hindu’s leftist bias to be biased themselves … What is expected of The Hindu is unbiased, fair reporting of national and international news.

Editor-in-Chief: Like what? What “news” has been deliberately left out? He must be referring to some campaigns or campaign journalism done by some other newspapers. The Hindu doesn’t do that!

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S. Pushpavanam, Tiruchi: The headline on Page 1 of the October 2 edition [of The Hindu] regarding the judge’s outburst … is incorrect and inappropriate. The caption gives the impression that the judge was being ruled by emotion rather than guided by emotion.

Rajeev Jacob, Peroorkada, Thiruvananthapuram: An outburst is an explosion of anger, emotion. Apart from editorialising in the headline, this has needlessly prejudiced the reader when the story itself does not take any such position … the same could have been expressed in an editorial … By railroading the reader … the news story has lost its impartiality.

Editor-in-Chief: It was an over-the-top, incensed even if caveated, comment regarding President’s Rule and the dismissal of a State Government. If this was not “outburst” in court, what is?

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N. Ramakrishnan, Chennai: While I agree with the editorial that the observations by the Hon’ble Judge of the Supreme Court were very strong and premature … the editorial itself was unnecessary. Only the previous day The Hindu had expressed regret for having published the Supreme Court’s earlier oral observations on the Madras High Court. Both in the editorial and the earlier note of regret, the newspaper had clearly observed that the oral observations of the judges … do not have any legal sanctity. If such was the case, what was the necessity for The Hindu to make such a hue and cry about an oral observation?

Editor-in-Chief: It was necessary and timely

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I have reproduced the comments and reactions without any alterations in the style, except for condensing them for reasons of space and some minor editing for grammar.

readerseditor@thehindu.co.in

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