In my blog last week I wrote about the phenomenon of restaurants pushing feedback forms on diners. And a certain reader by the name of Ajith Kumar took umbrage at my choice of subject. I do not deny Mr Kumar's right to his opinion, but his outraged response is based on certain assumptions that have a bearing on the media and readers and I think it is fruitful to discuss them.

If I can take the liberty of paraphrasing, Mr Kumar's main contentions are as follows: one, that giving or not giving feedback in a restaurant is my personal problem and two, that it is not a subject fit for a 'national newspaper' .

Let me take up the second point first. What is a subject fit for a national newspaper?

If one looks back, one is likely to find no single answer. In the immediate post-Independence era, for instance, politics or rather political speeches were the mainstay of the front pages of major Indian newspapers. In the 70s and 80s, investigative journalism brought to the fore issues such as corruption (in areas such as cement allocation, for example) and destitution (say in stories on malnutrition and human trafficking).

The entry of women professionals in substantial numbers into the media and the rise of the feminist movement brought the phenomena of dowry deaths and environmental depredation into prominence and also provoked a rethink on traditional notions of what constituted a hard story (politics, defence) and a soft story (society).

... contd.