What was that doing on the front page? I could not help posing this question to the editor of the New Indian Express in Chennai a few weeks ago. I was referring to the report "Michelle came close to dumping Obama". It certainly did not deserve front page display. Poor editorial judgement, I thought, for a well established and reputed newspaper like the Express.

I was not surprised that the newspaper decided to dump my letter into the waste paper basket. Some years ago, another newspaper gave a seven-column spread on the front page to Ian Botham's "nose-picking" habit mentioned by his wife in a London court. There was also the case of the Times of India carrying on the front page a story about a book unveiling Jacqueline Kennedy's brief affair with actor William Holden. Most other newspapers published it on the foreign page.

Another instance of poor editorial judgement comes to my mind. When veteran journalist Sharada Prasad, who had served as media adviser to late prime ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, died in September last year, The New Indian Express dismissed the news in exactly four paragraphs on the inside page. The same newspaper carried an 800-word obit piece on the death of an American Pulitzer Prize winner, whose name, I am sure, may not have been familiar to a majority of the newspaper's readers.

It is pertinent to point out in this connection that American newspapers hardly took notice of the death in October 1991 of Indian press baron Ramnath Goenka. I was then representing the Indian Express in Washington, and I scanned in vain leading American newspapers for an obit piece on Goenka, whom veteran journalist George Vergheese had described in a biography as the "warrior of the fourth estate."

Some years ago, the Week magazine, used to publish a box "off track". giving samples of editorial bloomers appearing in leading newspapers. They touched only a fringe of the malady that was becoming more and more chronic, with newspapers vying with each other for the highest score in the competition for sloppy editing.

The earliest recorded editorial slip occurred in 1915 in a society item in the Washington Post. President Woodrow Wilson, then engaged to Edith Galt, had escorted her to a theatre. The Post report wanted to imply that the President paid more attention to his betrothed than to the play. Thanks to a typographical error, the Post reported that President Wilson, while at the theatre, had spent most of his time "entering" Ms.Galt. In today's Post, such bloomers are a thing of the past.

Over the years, in pursuit of my pet hobby, I have made a rich and interesting collection of glaring howlers from various newspapers just to underscore that the editors don't seem to care about accuracy or the way a news story is handled. The transformation of some of the words and phrases is mind-boggling. A front page report in a leading chain newspaper had spoken of "imminent" personalities. I would have thought it was a typographical slip but for the fact that two successive paragraphs had distorted the word "eminent". Another leading daily carried this headline: "HC arrainges policemen of charges". Not to be outdone, its competitor told its readers that there is no proof of an aphrodisiac being peddled by a street hawker possessing any properties which would make "important" persons virile.

The Paramacharya of Kanchi is no morewith us, and he is too noble a soul to turn in his Samadhi over a report in a leading daily in the capital that he had spent his entire life in "medication". Obviously, the reporter or the sub-editor must have been meditating while handling the copy. What could you do except to laugh or cry, depending on your mood, when "ground water" becomes "grand-daughter." just one more opportunity for you to laugh. V.N.Narayanan, who was once editor of the Hindustan Times, told readers of his Sunday Musings column that he was greatly amused to read the copy of an interview of him— wherein the interviewer had referred to him as "no non-sense editor of the Hindustan Times" which in the actual text appeared as "the no-editor of the non-sense Hindustan Times." Some times our media get so hooked to scams and scandals that they throw to the winds some accepted journalistic norms. Vague allegations against politicians and bureaucrats by acknowledged criminals and doubtful characters hit front-page headlines and trial by the media goes on along with trial by a court. When I left PTI about two decades ago to take up another journalistic assignment in Washington, the staff on the foreign desk which I had headed, presented me with a nice little book Nonsense Verse with a nice little note in verse: "After serving long years with PTI, Editor Balu thought he must say goodbye. His Desk, he knew, was a jolly lot, though of commas and full-stops his subjects knew naught. But it was their ENGLISH that made him pack up and fly." I still cherish that compliment, although I must confess I am not immune to making editorial mistakes. While deploring the role of the American media during the 1992 presidential election campaign in which Bill Clinton had a rough ride, former Washington Post editorial writer Ward Just observed that the primary responsibility for what appeared in a newspaper did not lie with reporters but editors who are "supposed to edit" and "to edit is to choose." Our editors are no doubt choosing, but unfortunately even as they separate the chaff from the grain, they decide to publish the chaff. That indeed is a pity and newspaper readers certainly deserve a better deal. Our newspapers may perhaps benefit from engaging ombudsmen to look into the fairness, accuracy, objectivity and relevance of news stories they publish. The Times of India had once former chief justice of India Justice P N Bhagwati as its ombudsman, but his role was perhaps limited to looking into legal proprieties. What the newspapers need is an internal watchdog and critic. The Washington Post, for instance, has an ombudsman, who is named for a non-renewable contract for two years. Among our newspapers, the Hindu has an ombudsman, called Readers'