Times of India affects salary cuts

The Times of India (TOI) has decided to cut the salaries of its staffers due to the 'recession'. Several editorial and non-editorial staffers are also being sacked.

It is laughable if the TOI managers say that the company is not making profit. For decades the organisation has made huge profits and even if we agree that there is a slight loss this year or lesser profit, the company is not poor enough that it needed to take such steps like cutting salaries.

Sadly, while the employees in other departments can get jobs elsewhere, for editorial staff the options remain less, as they have to search for jobs among the few available newspapers.

Despite being one of the oldest and among the highest circulated English dailies in the world, TOI has failed to earn respect. It was the first newspaper that ended the supremacy of editorial and the editor.

It made the managers all powerful, began publishing junk at the cost of hard news, gave excessive space to news about celebrities and gossip, covered little of the problems faced by the poor and even put the editorial space up for advertising.

Now it has again added a new chapter to its 'rich' history. Sadly, Hindi and other vernacular papers where journalists are paid even badly, can take similar decisions. After all, the Times has done it now.

Shameful. Especially because the Bennett, Coleman and Company has pockets deep enough to survive such meltdowns.