I hate days that begin without the morning newspapers. Like today. This happens five times a year, on major national holidays and some religious festivals. The primary reason, as I understand it as a veteran newspaperman, is that the powerful vendor lobby refuses to pick up and distribute newspapers on these days. This is a massive overnight network involving thousands of local agents, vendors and delivery hawkers. Their unions decide these holidays. The editors and advertising managers of newspapers, mostly overworked and underpaid by stingy media moguls, happily go along. But the reader is left without his morning fix.
I get my newspapers at 6 am. Before anybody else. I pay the delivery boy extra for this service. It is an old habit of editors. We like to be among the first to read the news. I can lie in bed and switch on my smartphone. Google tells me what’s happening around the world, up to the minute. Newspapers, on the other hand, give me yesterday’s news, repackaged. With handbills offering discounts on property, gym memberships and restaurant menus tucked between the pages. But the newspaper is an old friend. Turning to the Internet is an impersonal way of getting the news. Worse still is asking an AI assistant for the headlines. Why use artificial intelligence when I have my own!
I enjoy the romance of receiving newspapers at home, still warm off the press. The printer’s ink not quite dry, leaking from the headlines and staining my fingers. The pages smelling like fresh bread, steaming hot out of a baker’s oven. I take all the English dailies and read them cover to cover over my first ‘cuppa’. I laze in bed every morning, listening for the soft ‘plop’ of the newspapers falling onto the floor. It is like the familiar knock of an old friend at the door. I enjoy walking into the hall in my PJs, while the city is still fast asleep, to find the newspapers waiting for me on the floor. It is the way I start my day. A little ritual I have cherished for decades. Not this morning, however. And I am not a happy man.
About Mark Manuel
The above thoughts/content has been proudly copied from the wall of Sir Mark Manuel. Being interviewing almost every role model of this country and going stronger each day. Mark Manuel is a respected Mumbai editor, writer, and columnist.
With over three decades of journalism in leading publications. This includes the Free Press Journal, Times, Dainik Bhaskar, Mid-Day, and Afternoon. He is famous for his brilliant pen interviews. He himself is a TEDx speaker.
Further
His interviews have featured in several leading media houses. They include the Hindustan Times, Huffington Post, BBC, and Network 18. Almost every famous person has been interviewed by him in the country from Mother Teresa to Muhammad Ali. His first book is just out. It’s titled Moryaa Re! It is a crime thriller that is perhaps the country’s first police procedural. He began his career covering crime. And in a tribute to his experience and knowledge of this beat.
Several distinguished officers of the Mumbai Police and its Crime Branch collaborated with him to make this book possible. Amitabh Bachchan wrote the foreword in a statement of friendship for Mark Manuel and admiration for his work.
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