Citizens group accuses Times of India of publishing News

Says hints of journalism in the last edition.

In a startling accusation that shook the media world today, citizen media watchdog Presswatch.com accused the Times of India of publishing what it termed as ‘news’ in its last edition. The accusation was put up on its website and was instantly followed by a media frenzy that attracted a swift rebuttal from the Times.
Bennet and Coleman, the holding company of the Times in a press release said, “ The Times of India group has been in the publishing business for over fifty years and not once have we been accused of publishing news. We make every effort to keep that sort of thing out of our paper and for that we have an excellent editorial team. An inquiry is being conducted and if it is found that there was any news disguised as an advertisement in the edition, stringent action will be taken.”

The accusation comes after rumors that the Times had begun to hire staff with degrees in journalism, a charge that the group said was ‘false and baseless’. “A marketing degree is still the requirement no matter which department you work in” a spokesperson for the paper said.

Later in an interview to radio Mirchi the country’s number one radio channel as per a report by the Times of India, group chairman Vineet Jain admitted that there might have been a few instances of news accidentally leaking into the paper but “nothing substantial has ever been reported by the paper and so these isolated incidents must not be focused on”.
He also assured customers that no ‘journalists would ever be hired’ by the paper and the increase in the number of pages had nothing to do with news.

In financial news, prices of rubber fell in early trading when Paris Hilton announced her abstinence from sex for a year.