India Today group today announced that it is shutting down its Delhi-tabloid Mail Today. The notice read, “It has been a privilege to be your paper of choice and inform you day after day. However, it is a fact that the coronavirus pandemic has drastically changed all our circumstances.” The print edition of Mail Today was in circulation from the last thirteen years. The notice further added, “It is with deep regret that we announce the suspension of the print edition of Mail Today, effective today.”
According to a report published in exchange4media, Aroon Purie, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of India Today Group informed the employees about the shut down in an internal mail yesterday. Purie wrote that eminent personalities lauded the paper across the country and its reports were used by the leaders in parliament to demand probe on their stories. He added that though the paper survived the financial crisis of 2008 and demonetisation of 2016, the pandemic has changed the reader preferences drastically.
The paper will be available in digital format from now on. Dwaipayan Bose, Editor, Mail Today, will join IndiaToday.in and will report to Vice Chairperson Kalli Purie. While some employees were moved to other verticals in the group, many were laid off due to the shutdown.
Previous lay-offs and shutdowns in Indian media
In October last year, DNA had shut down its Ahmedabad and Mumbai print edition. Prior to that, Anil Ambani owned BTVI had unceremoniously stopped its operations and transmission. Scroll, too, had sacked a large part of its staff. In April, leftist website The Quint sent 45 employees on indefinite leave. In June, The Hindu shut down its Mumbai edition and asked several of its employees to resign effective immediately. According to several reports in different media outlets, around 410 journalists lost their job till mid-June due to Covid-19 pandemic.
