Pros
A few pros, and they are indeed good pros. Peaceful and relaxed atmosphere, unlike a conventional newsroom. Infrastructure is very good and supports the work. Canteen availability reduces the need to worry about food. Most of the staff who are paid at below industry average rates will find the canteen handy as a savings mechanism.
Cons
Harassment through tasks which are impossible to fulfill (considering the limited space and huge number of publishable stories -- both agency and from inhouse staff of the newspaper -- being filed every day) and personal disrespect shown often by editor and senior staff (who are forced to fall in line) through uncalled for comments and pointing out non-existent mistakes, forcing team-members to quarrel with you, incitement to plagiarism, high level of entitlement to free gifts and junkets among employees, to name a few. The most common harassment tactic was the editor randomly picking up some story or the other from the pages of any of the numerous general and business papers in the Bangalore market and saying, "This story SHOULD have appeared today." Such claims cannot be made on hindsight, especially when a news cycle is running. Note that the above statement is made the day after the edition appears and insults all norms of fairplay and commonsense, besides making a mockery of independent news selection and working autonomy. The whole thing seemed to be some kind of farce at best and joke at worst. The put-on show of anger in the above instance was clearly personal, as really imporant stories "missed" by others were always immediately glossed over. This is followed by rude and dismissive remarks by the editor, who also refuses to discuss exactly what his problem is. The problem seemed to be only in my case, which again, was clearly personal, as admitted to me by employees with proximity to the editor -- this, after repeated enquiries. Other cons include widespread plagiarism of reports filed by news agencies, copycat stories or replications of stories which appear in other newspapers, lack of independent story-boarding and constantly peeping into what other papers are doing, "follow-ups" of inconsequential stories appearing in other papers forced upon reporters without discussions, non-existent mistakes being pointed out, behaviour designed to personally provoke and bring out strong outrage in you by planning and creating unnecessary arguments and quarrels, not to mention, repeated attempts to abuse the editorial process by questioning established reporting norms and style-sheets. As it is, this newspaper has too many mistakes (factual at the reporting level and grammatical/syntactical) to merit mention. Recruiting mediocre people with an eye on reducing overheads is a strategic imperative. Numerous careless mistakes, oversights and errors brought about either by sheer ignorance of the language or general issues are the inevitable results. Finding these mistakes and pretending to be shocked about them keeps the editor and his senior staff engaged. Avoid Deccan Herald whether you are a starter in the profession or experienced. The more you know your job, the more likely that they will treat you like an alien. If you are a starter in the profession, you will stagnate for years while going through the motions in an emotionally retarded state without talking to anybody around (best way to keep your job!); if experienced (and the editor "likes" you), prepare to enter otiose hibernation and spew half-knowledge on everything around (looking very serious throughout as a grave visage is mistaken for scholarship), till the day you retire.