The mushrooming of small-time weeklies, monthlies and dailies after regime changes are not new to Tamil Nadu and there is nothing wrong in it.
However, a few of these magazines and journals, mostly run by sycophants of Dravidian majors, are now back in circulation at the press rooms at the state secretariat, Ripon Buildings and other prominent government offices.
A look around the press room in the secretariat proves interesting but what any roving eye cannot miss are the magazines and papers that one might not have heard of before stepping into the press room.
Clones of popular periodicals, the magazines are perhaps not available anywhere outside the secretariat press room. They have one goal and two methods to reach it. Conning money — through good publicity or bad publicity.
So if you find a lengthy interview of a non-entity, or a negative report on someone, you know the reality behind the scenes.
The magazines are also found in the offices of many ministers. Sources suggest that many ministers have reportedly been ‘using’ such magazines and the ‘journalists’ running the magazines have in turn been flaunting their proximity with the ministers to get things done in the secretariat campus.
The situation in the Ripon Building press room, where these diehard ‘scribes’ aim to make quick bucks during monthly council meet, is the worst.
“Earlier they used to target only errant councillors for money for these journals either in form of advertisements or coverage fee, but now most of us are targeted,” said a senior AIADMK councillor.