“The sweeping trend for newspapers has therefore been to move the main news of the day to the front page and today we join their ranks.”
JANUARY 14, 1958
Our Front Page
THE HINDU APPEARS TODAY WITH A NEW FACE. THE FRONT page is devoted to news instead of to advertisements. This change, though really just a technical one, has not been made light-heartedly to satisfy some passing whim but after considerable deliberation and in deference to the wishes of an overwhelming majority of our readership. It has not been an easy change for us to make either, because our former format featuring advertisements on the front page has not only stood the test of eighty important and highly competitive years but has made THE HINDU a distinctive publication among the great newspapers of the world. But the reading habits of the public have been changing fast in the last two decades, and a newspaper alert and sensitive to public opinion, has to take note of what its readers desire and keep pace with the spirit of the times. We have moved into an age when events go rushing by in such headlong fashion that a reader today has often no time even to pause “to open his paper” for the news but must get it the moment he picks his paper up. The sweeping trend for newspapers has therefore been to move the main news of the day to the front page and today we join their ranks. Thus THE HINDU which throughout its long career has striven to give a lead to its readers on matters of moment, now takes a lead in the matter of its facial appearance. That is the significance of the change effected in our format this morning.
We are aware that some of our readers, would prefer our format of yesterday to continue. To them we respectfully submit that what has happened is merely a change in arrangement, in make-up; a switch of the middle page to the front. The content of the paper remains the same and there will be no let-up in the high standards of journalism the paper has tried to maintain through nearly a century of public service. This is an assurance we would particularly like to give such of our readers as do not wish to see our format altered and we would ask them to give the new “face” a fair trial. Perhaps, when they get accustomed to it, they too will begin to like it.
Reference:
The First 100
A Selection of Editorials, 1878-1978, THE HINDU, VOLUME I