Simon Jenkins
Newspapers have shown they can grasp each new technology and bend it to their will.
JOHN McEnroe was once asked why he got so angry. Did he hate his opponents? Good heavens no, said the great man. He loved them. What he hated were tennis balls. I feel the same about computers. They keep hitting the net or bouncing out of court. They attribute their own failings to my "human errors." To add insult to injury, their salesmen tell me, year after year, that they mean to reduce my newspaper to cat litter.
Hence my delight at this week's report from Las Vegas that Google was considering the launch of a $200 computer, since denied. I assumed it had recognised that personal computing is where motoring was before Henry Ford. Manufacturers have their customers driving over-engineered Lagondas and Hispano-Suizas. They design ever-fancier and more costly machines, and then rig the market to prevent anyone undercutting them. They honour Marx's dictum that capitalism is a conspiracy not by the free market but against it.
Older but faster
My first word-processor was faster to use and had a longer battery life than anything produced since. In these crucial features, each new computer has been less efficient than the last. (I have recently been told that my new machine cannot handle my excellent 10-year-old software but requires the slower, messier and more vulnerable Word.) As a result I can download the Library of Congress and divert a moon rocket to the surface of Mars, but I cannot write a faster sentence or keep going five hours. I want an electronic typewriter that can display words at page length, edit, and transmit them. I just want a PC version of the Model T Ford.
If it is the case that monopolists have contrived to throttle the $200 computer, I pray that some genius will come to my aid. In the back streets of Bangalore or Shanghai must be waiting another John Walter, whose mechanical presses in 1785 put technology at the service of that greatest democratising force in history, the newspaper.
Such thoughts are brought to mind by the publication this week of the seventh volume of the history of Walter's paper, The London Times, from Rupert Murdoch's purchase in 1981 to the present day. It has been attended by the usual undertakers, dusting off their black hats and rehearsing their dirges on the industry. The world of newspapers is once again on its last legs, its words going on screen, and its advertising online. We have only so much "eye time" in a day, and not enough to waste on print. Presumably the Times' seventh volume must be its last.
On my first day as a trainee at The Times many years ago I was warned by an old hand that I was making a terrible mistake. Within five years, he said, there would be just three dailies left in Britain, as in Paris and New York. The market was exhausted. Real journalism would be on television. There was no future in smearing black ink on dead trees and getting child labour to deliver it on cold mornings. Get out, Jenkins, while the going is good, I was told.
My informant was a victim of those classic media afflictions, techno-dazzle and pessimism. Even today it is impossible to go to a journalism seminar without being told that newspapers are finished. In future they must fight their corner online. Columnists must "blog or die." Why read an article by some pompous preacher when you can air your views to the world and get it to answer back? Most of this doom-talk emanates from America, where newspaper circulations have indeed been falling for decades. The popular view is that this is because of competition from television and the Internet. Fewer people use public transport. The electronic media offer more readily accessible information. As a result, not a year passes without another noble title sinking like a battleship in Pearl Harbor, its reporters re-enacting The Front Page for gleeful television cameras.
America's serious newspapers are declining because they are dull, worthy and uncompetitive. Graham Stewart's Times history points out that in 1981 the outlook for British papers was indeed grim. This is not because they were losing money — most had relied on outside support for years — but because their production and editorial methods were inflexible and deterred competition. Even so, daily circulation was little changed from 20 years earlier, hovering at a million either side of 14 million.
Cost structure transformed
From the mid-1980s two things happened. The first was graphically illustrated by The Times' move from central London down the river to Wapping. The industry's cost structure was transformed. Publishers stopped handing out banknotes to their print workers on demand each night, hoping that this would force weaker rivals to close and deter new entrants, as was happening elsewhere in Europe and America.
More important was the impact of Wapping on editorial innovation across the industry. Newspapers could compete in size, design, and content without incurring extravagant union penalties. As The Times showed in 1966 and again in 1993, price cuts could send sales soaring and increase the market overall, albeit at a heavy cost. Rivalry led to editorial experiment; The Independent was founded. Sales surged when it and then The Times went tabloid. The same surge greeted The Guardian's successful Berliner relaunch last year.
British popular newspaper sales have continued to fall, from 13 million overall in 1965 to less than nine million today. But they are a separate publishing market. Upmarket newspapers show a reverse trend. Their daily circulation has defied every pundit, rising by a third since 1965 from two million to close to three million. The figure for the serious Sunday titles is the same today as it was then, 2.7 million. Add The Economist, which calls itself a weekly newspaper, and the figure would be one million higher. This growth in serious newspaper sales is unique. Britain has a wider choice of national titles at this end of the market than ever — and than any western country. America's five leading papers have lost more than seven per cent of their gross circulation in the past decade alone.
There is one reason for this. Elsewhere in Europe and America publishers are trapped by archaic unions in a quasi-monopolistic market stripped of any zest to compete. Try to start a new newspaper in an American city and you will be met by a wall of monopolistic behaviour, from unions, advertisers, and usually an existing dominant title. America has ignored British experience, but people will go on buying newspapers provided they keep updating their content and presentation. The competition here is frantic and costs most publishers a fortune in cross-subsidy. This year only The Daily Telegraph is reportedly profitable among serious titles. But cross-subsidy has long been a feature of newspapers. The market is healthy.
Newspapers are, like books, damned by futurologists because their medium, print on paper, is antique. In truth they have shown that they can grasp each new technology, including computers, and bend it to their will. What Gutenberg invented no one has bettered. Dead trees live. Read on.
Saturday, January 07, 2006
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
The end of journalism? Not at all
Wednesday January 4 2006 07:13 IST
SAEED NAQVI
The debate on new journalism, to which sting operations are a recent addition, runs the risk of being divided along generational lines, between the fuddy-duddies and the harbingers of a new dawn. It is a mistake to see transitions in stark colours. True, journalism no longer is what it was and shall not remain the way it is. My own hunch is that sheer public pressure will restore to it that which may have been discarded in a hurry and which may be the “essentially useful”. Credibility is only one such value.
Look at the American (and British) media in the context of the Iraq war. It is a universal truth that when war breaks out, the first casualty is the truth. Not surprising, therefore, that the American media, embedded or not, lined up behind what it perceived as the national purpose. As would happen in a free press, soon stories appeared about official deception, brazen management of the media, a whole system of planting stories and concealment of atrocities. Not surprisingly, President Bush’s ratings plummeted alongside that of the media most enthusiastic about his enterprise. The self-correcting mechanism in the media, which in a democracy is public opinion, is at work. This will happen in India too. The public over a period of time will endorse, discard or refine the journalism of soundbites and sting operations.
Once, as a cub reporter, I drove around Rajasthan for The Statesman to cover one of the severest famines in history. Returning to Jaipur, I found the front pages of all my rivals splashed with photographs of a tributary of the Rajasthan Canal, with headlines which played down the severity of the famine because canal waters would bring irrigation to the parched land. “What have you done?” I shouted at Rajendra Shankar Bhatt, state government spokesman, “The countryside is groaning under famine and you’ve planted photographs of canal waters.” With almost mocking indulgence, he said: “Relax, Naqvi, that which has been published is the truth.”
I thought I was at my furious best that afternoon as I hammered out my story, replete with Bhatt’s Goebbels-like approach. Instead of being praised, I was called back to New Delhi and rapped on the knuckles by the editor for being “intemperate”, and quite unworthy of being the paper’s representative. Judge for yourself. Was the editor being excessively fastidious? The result of his stern view was that Bhatt remained a powerful officer for decades. Had I received editorial support, he would have lost his job, such was the credibility of The Statesman those days.
That, paradoxically, was the problem. How could a newspaper, which valued its credibility above all else, place its reputation on the line on the basis of an “incomplete” report filed by a cub reporter? “Incomplete” report? Of course. The story was based on visual descriptions of famine and the photographs in the other papers were designed to divert attention from the people’s misery. I should have interviewed Bhatt, spoken to the Rajasthan Canal authority, the chief secretary, MLAs on the treasury benches from affected districts who were disgusted with official apathy, even sought an interview with the chief minister and Opposition leaders.
That was the sort of labour required for a credible investigative story. It was that sort of rigour which imparted to media organisations the credibility which is rare these days. There is no alternative to rigorous training. But how do you have trained hands for a media industry burgeoning at break-neck speed, requiring thousands of reporters and editors each month?
There is no solution except to brace yourself for an extended period of a professionally imperfect media. It is like flying through turbulent weather. Eventually you will reach your destination. After all, in the midst of professionally indifferent media, there are newspapers and TV networks which are professionally competitive. These will serve as models, even as newer and better media institutions begin to churn out trained hands. Sting operations are a part of the hectic pace at which the media is evolving, carrying with every sting as much promise as risk.
I am afraid sting operators will have to draw up some such catalogue of their targets. Technology cannot be thwarted but it also has its limits. The button-camera will take pictures of Bangaru Laxman or cash-for-question MPs. What next? It is now in the hands of the marketing departments of competitive button-cameras to place the implement in the hands of sting operators from district to district, panchayat to panchayat — wherever the common man comes into contact with the corrupt.
In the end, public opinion will determine the durability of sting operations. We are either passing through a phase or entering one where the sting operator will become a permanent feature of the media scene.
SAEED NAQVI
The debate on new journalism, to which sting operations are a recent addition, runs the risk of being divided along generational lines, between the fuddy-duddies and the harbingers of a new dawn. It is a mistake to see transitions in stark colours. True, journalism no longer is what it was and shall not remain the way it is. My own hunch is that sheer public pressure will restore to it that which may have been discarded in a hurry and which may be the “essentially useful”. Credibility is only one such value.
Look at the American (and British) media in the context of the Iraq war. It is a universal truth that when war breaks out, the first casualty is the truth. Not surprising, therefore, that the American media, embedded or not, lined up behind what it perceived as the national purpose. As would happen in a free press, soon stories appeared about official deception, brazen management of the media, a whole system of planting stories and concealment of atrocities. Not surprisingly, President Bush’s ratings plummeted alongside that of the media most enthusiastic about his enterprise. The self-correcting mechanism in the media, which in a democracy is public opinion, is at work. This will happen in India too. The public over a period of time will endorse, discard or refine the journalism of soundbites and sting operations.
Once, as a cub reporter, I drove around Rajasthan for The Statesman to cover one of the severest famines in history. Returning to Jaipur, I found the front pages of all my rivals splashed with photographs of a tributary of the Rajasthan Canal, with headlines which played down the severity of the famine because canal waters would bring irrigation to the parched land. “What have you done?” I shouted at Rajendra Shankar Bhatt, state government spokesman, “The countryside is groaning under famine and you’ve planted photographs of canal waters.” With almost mocking indulgence, he said: “Relax, Naqvi, that which has been published is the truth.”
I thought I was at my furious best that afternoon as I hammered out my story, replete with Bhatt’s Goebbels-like approach. Instead of being praised, I was called back to New Delhi and rapped on the knuckles by the editor for being “intemperate”, and quite unworthy of being the paper’s representative. Judge for yourself. Was the editor being excessively fastidious? The result of his stern view was that Bhatt remained a powerful officer for decades. Had I received editorial support, he would have lost his job, such was the credibility of The Statesman those days.
That, paradoxically, was the problem. How could a newspaper, which valued its credibility above all else, place its reputation on the line on the basis of an “incomplete” report filed by a cub reporter? “Incomplete” report? Of course. The story was based on visual descriptions of famine and the photographs in the other papers were designed to divert attention from the people’s misery. I should have interviewed Bhatt, spoken to the Rajasthan Canal authority, the chief secretary, MLAs on the treasury benches from affected districts who were disgusted with official apathy, even sought an interview with the chief minister and Opposition leaders.
That was the sort of labour required for a credible investigative story. It was that sort of rigour which imparted to media organisations the credibility which is rare these days. There is no alternative to rigorous training. But how do you have trained hands for a media industry burgeoning at break-neck speed, requiring thousands of reporters and editors each month?
There is no solution except to brace yourself for an extended period of a professionally imperfect media. It is like flying through turbulent weather. Eventually you will reach your destination. After all, in the midst of professionally indifferent media, there are newspapers and TV networks which are professionally competitive. These will serve as models, even as newer and better media institutions begin to churn out trained hands. Sting operations are a part of the hectic pace at which the media is evolving, carrying with every sting as much promise as risk.
I am afraid sting operators will have to draw up some such catalogue of their targets. Technology cannot be thwarted but it also has its limits. The button-camera will take pictures of Bangaru Laxman or cash-for-question MPs. What next? It is now in the hands of the marketing departments of competitive button-cameras to place the implement in the hands of sting operators from district to district, panchayat to panchayat — wherever the common man comes into contact with the corrupt.
In the end, public opinion will determine the durability of sting operations. We are either passing through a phase or entering one where the sting operator will become a permanent feature of the media scene.
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