ToI & Amity: Partners in Crime

Peter Foster of The Telegraph has some observations about the journalistic standards of ToI. He spots an Amity ad, which resembles any other ToI article.

Under a news story about Board Examination results is a ‘story’ headlined “Rush for Amity University Forms shows preference for professional degrees”. The story has a byline and is a font identical to all the other stories on the same page.

As I read the ‘story’ I couldn’t understand why the journalist was producing such a shameless puff/advert for the Amity University brand. No other University was given so much of a mention to justify this apparent trend.

However it was only right at the end that I understood what was going on when the last word was, in small print, ‘Advt’.

Be it TV or print, Amity has been making a conscious attempt to make their ads look like the regular content of the TV / newspaper. Amity also seems to be influencing the shooting locations of CNN-IBN (via):

Amity School has been advertising furiously on all channels but perhaps more so on CNN-IBN and maybe there is a bit of quid pro quo going on here. A debate on the issue of reservations was conducted by the channel on the school's NOIDA premises with considerable airtime being given to the principal of Amity School.

I think Amity can make more money if they offer a course called Masters in Media Management. You are atleast assured of a job in Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd or TV18 :-)