Putting our Money where our Mouths Ain't

While watching watching the BBC last night, I came across this interesting tidbit. The Committee on Standards in Public Life, a British NGO, recently concluded a long term research project on public attitudes. According to this survey, while 38% of the British public trusts broadsheet journalists, only 7% of them trust tabloid journalists (even politicians did better, with over 20%). Assuming that all the respondants read tabloids, this means that 93% of the British populace pay money to read trash that they dont believe, and that they trust less than Tony Blair and Geoff Hoon!

So this begs the question, what about us? I dont think too many people really find the Pune Times and it's ilk to be really useful as newspapers, but what do we do about it? We read it anyway! The Pune Times carried an article about people badmouthing page three, and avidly reading it anyway. I think this holds true for the rest of the rag equally. No one really cares about Rakhi Sawant's mental state when she's stipping, or about the stupid mindless opinion polls that PT is prone to regularly print, but what do we do? Do we stop reading it? Do we throw it away? No! We read the silly articles, look at the semi-pornographic images that accompanies them and then curse like hell that its all crap. And meanwhile the ads continue to flow, and the owners of this "newspaper" grow richer than Croesus. I say if you dont like it, dont read it. Or post your grievances on our blog, I hear the editor reads it ;-).