A Rough Count: Why So Many People Are with Desipundit in spite of some Favorable (past) Coverage in the Main Media for IIPM?

When you go to Desipundit’s page (http://www.desipundit.com/2005/10/08/lies-damned-lies-and-fake-blogs/#more-1218) on IIPM you get a huge block of names that have responded to the call made by them in support of Rashmi and Gaurav. Ever wondered how many people that block is worth? I counted them by pasting them in a word document. I took multiple posts by the same author (say Harini 1, 2, 3,) as one and I did not count the people listed in the updates (so accuse me of undercounting, and not over counting).

The total number of people if we start from Harini and end with ~J~ are 247 and that is by erring on the side of caution. You interpret the numbers for yourself.

To me, this raises a bigger question. Why do so many people choose to believe a small magazine claims rather than big established magazines and newspapers? After all, do a Google News search and apart from the topmost link that is recent and talks about this present controversy (which has been forced on mainstream media), rest 9 (of which I am quoting just 2) are from established sources and they talk about things as these:

Row over IIPM blogs
http://www.ndtv.com/morenews/showmorestory.asp?category=National&slug=Row+over+IIPM+blogs&id=79968

IIPM completes 10 years
http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=131152&cat=Business

IIPM sponsors free laptops for all its students
http://www.agencyfaqs.com/news/company_news/Corporate/5428.html

Still, more than 247 people from different corners of the globe choose to believe otherwise! What is happening?

So much information that is easily available on the net to ordinary citizens like me, yet the main media cannot find it or does not find it report worthy? After all if I can find these documents freely on the net and find them shocking (see this, but it is not about IIPM) why can’t the main media? They have started raising some noises but only after it became such a huge issue in the blogland. Are you and I better at investigating?

After all, what Arzan, Gawker or Sameer or Thalass_Mikra or Transmogrifier could do, why could main media not do it in spite of its vast resources?

Arzan’s post http://www.wadias.in/site/arzan/blog/archives/2005/10/iipm_a_web_of_m.html
Gawker’s post http://curiousgawker.blogspot.com/2005/10/something-fishy-this-way-cometh.html
Sameer’s post http://constructal.blogspot.com/2005/10/web-of-deception.html
Thalass_Mikra's post http://thalassamikra.blogspot.com/2005/10/iipm-indian-politics-and-why.html
Transmogrifier's post http://constructal.blogspot.com/2005/10/web-of-deception.html (look at the comments, they also give amazing insights)

Or is it that they know about it and do not find education sector important or newsworthy? Or is it they love the advertisement money too much and common public be dammed?

My take on why so many people choose to rally with Desipundit is that the word of mouth publicity of many private institutes is already rotten. But unfortunately, it was/is known only in small circles. For example, after my Ph.D. (and it was not from an obscure place, thought the institute is not in a metro) even I went by magazine ratings and joined a place that was/is ranked as No. 1 business school after 1990 by many magazines. After working there, I realized what a joke it was but I paid very dearly with my peace of mind for that period. That is when I stopped believing in these ratings. That is why I am so vehement about the issue.

But my concern is that there still might be people away from the places where word of mouth is bad, who might be taken in my mainstream media reports and I find it a very disturbing trend.

I have already stopped reading those papers that have turned into a tabloid but still; I am deeply disturbed by this trend of mainstream media. Do they want to be taken seriously?