As an avid, and perhaps guilty reader of HT City and DT- there’s a trend I’ve noticed by the way of gradual percolation in the subconscious [ The guilt, mind you, comes from reading HT City and DT over the national news].

What I noticed at 14-15 in DT, has now blatantly appeared in HT City. Repeated articles. In the same paper. TOI used to run the same articles on the International page in the main paper as the one on it’s last page on DT. I wonder if that still happens now, since I hardly read the main paper anymore.

Case in point however: HT City September 26th, 2009. Page 12 shows only two international entertainment pieces, titled “Angie’s going ultra slim to woo Pitt” and “Megan’s outfits on auction”. Page 10, has the same two articles, retitled as “Shrinking for Brad” and “Megan’s leather biker suit, hot pants on sale”.

The reader isn’t stupid. This isn’t a one time thing. I don’t understand why they have to run the same piece in the SAME paper. Atleast DT did us the intellectual favour of printing it once in the main and once in the supplement, although both papers are equally guilty, time and again of doing this. Does every page have it’s own team that has ugly turf wars which spiral into this duplicacy? Does every page team randomly throw darts at a big board and print whatever the dart hits? Or is it a snide joke at the reader’s expense? I’m not loffing!

I love my entertainment news. I love it in all mediums. I just don’t think I need it twice. I think I get it the first time round itself.