The air crash story 'The Times of India' did not tell you about, not that it needed to

For which you can thank the greatest relationship between a newspaper owner and a newspaper Editor in the history of Indian journalism: Samir Jain and Jaideep Bose

This is the front page of the Ahmedabad edition of The Times of India today, the morning after an Air India Boeing 787 bound for London crashed seconds after taking off from the City’s airport named after who-else-but.

Take a look at the lead headline again: “Dreamliner Nightmare Kills 245”.

It comprises a tiny pun, and a large number of the casualties. The rest of the page is the standard TOI offering that it repeats on every big news day, be it election results or the budget. A thali of this, that, and the other, usually the other.

Safe, solid, sufficient, but nothing spectacular.

Nothing that will fetch any design or journalism awards, not even of the dubious kind (wink, wink), but total paisa vasool for Rs 4.

Now, swing back and look at the story on columns six and seven, above the fold, and spend a second on the headline: “Miracle survivor instils ‘Viswash’ in providence”.

There, too, some wordplay.

Behind both these headlines is a small story involving the newspaper’s brilliant but bizarre owner Samir Jain, reverentially called ‘VC’ (vice-chairman) even by those who left the employ of Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd in the previous millennium.

That’s the story today’s Times of India doesn’t tell you about (not that it needed to).

That story involves another newspaper on the other side of the planet: USA Today.

For those who came in late, USA Today was America’s first national newspaper, printed in every state and looking the same everywhere, as predictable as the layout of a McDonald’s restaurant and just as nutritious.

At its launch in 1982, USA Today earned itself the moniker “McPaper”, an allusion to McDonald’s nuggets. The paper was a smorgasbord of stories that ended before they began, tiny pictures, and colorful charts and graphs.

To cut a short story long, the Samir Jain story involves USA Today’s founder Al Neuharth.

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In the mid-1980s, shortly after Samir Jain had been despatched from Calcutta to Delhi to handle TOI, take on Hindustan Times, and prove his worth, he sent all editorial staff in the paper a closely typed three or four-page note of how he envisioned the paper. (Typewritten, uh, because there was no internet or email.)

In that note, Samir Jain recounted the day before USA Today was launched.

On September 14, 1982, three big events had taken place in the world:

• President-elect Bashir Gemayel of Lebanon had been killed in an explosion;

• Princess Grace of Monaco had died in a car accident;

• Dozens of people had died in a plane crash in Spain.

USA Today’s founder Al Neuharth noticed the confusion among his editors on what to lead with on such a big news day: “today-for-tomorrow”, as the code goes in newspaper patois. So, he went down to his club to get some clarity over a bourbon.

Al Neuharth found nearly nobody talking about President Gemayel’s assassination and nearly everybody talking about Princess Grace’s accident, for she was the Hollywood actress Grace Kelly before she donned the royal robes.

And, on the charter jet crash in Malaga, Al Neuharth found that very few were talking of the 55 passengers who had perished. Almost all were marveling at the good fortune of those who had survived the burning fire.

Al Neuharth returned to the newsroom and conveyed what he had seen and heard. The result was an ulta-pulta front page (above) on launch day, 15 September 1982.

• Prince Grace’s death was the lead story;

• President Gemayel’s death was relegated to page 9A.

• And bang below the paper’s masthead was the strapline “Miracle: 327 survive, 55 die”, to a set of two photographs taken by a passenger from St. Paul, Minnesota, who had scrambled through the emergency exit over a wing to escape.

The front page of The New York Times of the same day was the dead-opposite: the Lebanese President-elect’s killing was the lead story given its impact on West Asian politics; the death of 55 in the plane crash was the second lead; and the anchor at the bottom of the front page was Princess Grace’s death.

In the pre-internet era, Samir Jain had possibly picked up the story from the book The Making of McPaper, by USA Today’s editorial director Peter Prichard. But comparing the approach of the two American newspapers, Citizen Jain’s diktat to his staff was clear: The Times of India should aim to be like The New York Times, not USA Today.

NYT, not USA Today.

Broadsheet, not tabloid.

It’s another matter that after the mad race for numbers began, TOI paused its subscription to the New York Times Syndication Service and opted to subscribe to USA Today. Another matter that after the launch of the city supplements, its stories got more tabloid-ish. Another matter, it loves to wake up readers with “positive news”.

But, in circa 2025, if the death of the 241 passengers aboard AI-171 is (rightfully) considered more important by The Times of India than the survival of Viswashkumar Ramesh in Seat 11A, it is because of that important lesson learnt from the launch day of USA Today.

It is quite possibly also because of the greatest relationship forged between a newspaper owner and a newspaper editor in the history of Indian journalism—between Samir Jain and Jaideep ‘Jojo’ Bose—that has lasted well over a quarter of a century, lending the paper calmness, continuity, consistency and clarity.

Which is why when they look at the front pages of the British tabloids today, M/s Jain, Bose & Co can well afford a smile that those at Gannett can’t, won’t.

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Also read: The Bandra Bandstand Air Crash