Alpana Lath is the editor of Mumbai's renowned Sunday MiD DAY newspaper. The 34-year old has been at the helm for two-and-a-half years. She passed an MA in International Journalism at City University in London in 1999 and has interned at The Sunday Times.

Sunday MiD DAY sales stand at 1,20,000 copies. It’s a 56-page tabloid size Sunday paper. Split into 32 pages of a features section called Play and 24 pages for news (city, nation and international) and sports. BizAsia.co.uk caught up with Alpana to get the scoop on what's hot at the paper.

Why are newspapers so popular in Mumbai when the circulations of newspapers in London continue to fall?
A lot of money has been pumped into the newspaper market in Mumbai – and now also in other Indian cities. With the markets opening up, everyone wants to sell to the Indian consumer, and my guess is that a need is felt for more media to sell these things through. This is why the boom is not just in print [newspapers and niche magazines] but also television. It would literally be impossible to count how many new channels, newspapers and magazines have been launched in this last year.

I don't know who is reading or watching everything but it sure is a lot of advertising revenue.

I'm not sure that younger people are reading all these papers, so it is still the older generation that forms the bulk of readership. As for circulation, it is actually quite difficult to get an accurate idea of what that is for any newspaper.

How is MiD DAY trying to capture its market? What makes a good front page for your newspaper?

MiD DAY is targeting young, upwardly mobile professionals and are the first to woo them exclusively and extensively, with a daily features section that keeps just their needs in mind; this means issues of life-work balance, how to spend your money in the best way possible, what does the city offer in terms of brands, unwinding, cultural recreation, eating out experiences. How to enhance and better your performance at work and how to make the most of your time outside of it.

MiD DAY has always set the trend. In the late 90s, for instance, it was the first to go with Bollywood and TV news in a big way, while other people were still covering film and TV on and off, MiD DAY introduced a daily film and TV supplement. MiD DAY has taken areas that were the mainstay of magazines and worked them into a daily format: film, TV, fitness, lifestyle, fashion, work, balance...

The tabloid style as you [British] would understand it still does not go down well here. MiD DAY ran a front-page story when Shamita Shetty turned up at a Bollywood event with no pants on. We obviously covered certain parts up ­– but some of our readers were disapproving of the fact that we ran that kind of story on the front page. While MiD DAY is mainly a commuter-paper, a lot of copies go into people's homes as well and there is a tradition of family members reading MiD DAY one after the other.

There is a clear line that determines what is acceptable on a front page and what is not. So it's not like we are The Sun and that is not our goal. Nor do we go into people's private lives the same as the British press does ­­- the paparazzi set is not quite as evolved towards that.

But Bollywood does get written about the most because they have the biggest celebrity status, next only to cricketers. But because sports journalists devote themselves to hardcore sports coverage, who is sleeping with whom gets written about in gossip pages devoted to Bollywood. You won't find journalists sifting through celebrities' trash cans though.

But consumerism is big. And since it's no longer embarrassing to like Hindi films as it once was, when it was felt that films did not reflect the realities we lived in, Bollywood and its fashions have become the trendsetters here. Films like Bunty Aur Babli and Dhoom have inspired fashion lines (from the original designers as well as rip-offs) based on their looks.

Any regrets?

The decision to put the Shamita Shetty story on the front page was not mine, so it's not for me to say. But since tabloid is an evolving phenomenon, in order to define what the limits of tabloid can be, you have to push the boundaries just a little bit.

What challenges do you face in your position as an editor of a tabloid newspaper in India?

Everyone's pulling stunts to get into the papers. How to spite them is a big challenge. For example, political parties pull stunts to get publicity. It is something that we have to constantly look out for. Like every Valentine's Day, members of the Shiv Sena go into shops that sell cards and gifts. And, they create a big song and dance outside them about the effects of it on young people's morals. I have made a decision never to cover that kind of stunt because having their photo in the paper is like a badge of merit [to them].

What has been a highlight of your tenure as editor?

It was when the Page 3 phenomena was on the rise and spiralling out of control. We wanted to see how much media coverage an ordinary person could get just for no reason whatsoever. The story said a lot about this city and the people that we the media make into celebrities.

So we dressed an ordinary person up [she was a law student] and sent her to the best parties to fake it to Page 3, to see how much coverage she could get. She was snapped standing next to actress Preity Zinta and also next to director Subhash Ghai. We turned all kinds of tricks to get her featured – it eventually worked when we dressed her up in an outrageous gown with Aishwarya Rai painted over its front and Shah Rukh Khan across the back. Her photo appeared in a few newspapers and there were some clips on TV – so our job was done.
There was outrage when the real story about her came out, that she wasn't really a celebrity, but all the TV channels went crazy over how she'd faked it and extensively covered our expose and the issue of 'how little it takes to become a celebrity.

What is the status of women in Indian media?

There are a lot of women working in the media. Why? Because Mumbai has traditionally been a safe place for women to work in. I am told that Mumbai's old mill industry culture, where a worker’s shift got over at 12 midnight, meant that people were out on the streets of Mumbai for much longer and later into the night than in other cities. The roads were not deserted and it was business as usual, so for the longest time, shops stayed open till way beyond midnight to cater to these people. Because of that heritage, this is a safer city than others, and now there is so much entertainment that is open until late, too, such as shopping malls, cinemas and bars.
Although, there are politicians who will occasionally try and put curbs on this.

As a woman, I have never perceived any discrimination against me while working in the media.

Are you worried about competition from TV news?

So far we have been lucky that people still like to read newspapers, it is still a habit. Newspapers are facing more competition from each other than from TV. I think TV with its ‘24x7’ hour feed is in another league. But with the newer papers offering ads and subscriptions at throwaway prices, that is the big challenge to meet. MiD DAY's unique selling point has always been in being onto the pulse of the city and, right now, it's in knowing that this city has gone consumerist in big way.

What do you think of the British press?

When I interned at Sunday Times, I was shocked at how cutthroat things were. There's politicking in the Indian newsroom too, but it's nothing like what I saw there.

Interview by Hamant Verma, editor of Eastern Eye for BizAsia.co.uk