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.
Monday, December 26, 2005
Will newspapers go down the dinosaurs' way?
In February, the Examiner group began distributing tabloids free of charge to affluent households (with annual incomes of $75,000 and above) in Washington DC and Virginia. The group had launched a San Francisco tabloid earlier.
The US State Department has chosen me as the Philippines’ participant to the 2005 International Visitors’ Program for Leadership in Print Journalism conducted from September 15 until October 6. Together with 19 other participants from Asia, Africa, Latin America, Middle East and Eastern Europe, the program brought me to several cities in the US including Washington DC, New York, Tampa Bay, Omaha, San Diego and Los Angeles, where we had opportunities to interact with executives from several media organizations. Below is my story.)
WASHINGTON DC-Bob Woodward, assistant managing editor of Washington Post and celebrity investigative reporter who helped uncover the Watergate scandal in the ‘70s, was in his element one cool September night at the McLean Hilton in Virginia. He was, after all, launching his new book The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate’s Deep Throat, a personal account of his cloak-and-dagger liaisons with Mark Felt, the FBI whistleblower whose revelations kicked off a political storm that ousted US President Richard Nixon in 1974 and changed the course of American history. Speaking before a huge crowd of admirers, Woodward’s reminiscences painted a glorious picture of the Post’s happy past.
However, that night may have also been a regression for him, a fleeting respite from the current storms ravaging his paper: declining circulation, readership, and advertising revenue, courtesy of the intensifying onslaught by “new media” like the Internet as well as cable and satellite TV.
Five days earlier at The Washington Post’s headquarters in the nation’s capital, Andrew Mosher, the deputy foreign editor, talked to the BusinessMirror-and 19 other print journalists from Asia, Europe, Middle East, and Latin America-about his paper’s dilemma.
“Last year, our daily circulation was 800,000; now it’s down to 700,000,” Mosher said unflinching.
In its heyday, The Washington Post’s daily circulation was more than a million. These days, Mosher said, these numbers are falling and no one in the top management could give a satisfactory explanation as to why this is happening. They have no clear ideas too on how to deal with declining readership, which eventually would hurt ad revenues and ultimately the company’s bottom line.
But the Post is not alone.
On Wednesday, the New York Times Co. said its earnings fell by more than half in the third quarter, even as sales rose, because of higher costs and a charge related to staff reductions, the Associated Press reported.
The company, which publishes The Boston Globe and the International Herald Tribune in addition to its flagship newspaper, had net income of $23.1 million for the quarter, down from $48.3 million in the same period a year ago.
In September, the Times said it would slash about 500 jobs over the next six to nine months.
At about the same time, the Philadelphia Inquirer (circulation: 388,000) also announced similar cost-cutting measures.
The big divide
MOSHER believes the problem facing US newspapers is part of a larger-possibly global-phenomenon.
“People are not really reading anymore,” he said, noting that consumers these days prefer to get their information from the Internet and other electronic media. People are just too busy to read, he said.
In reporting the story of the job cuts in New York and Philadelphia, Post reporter Frank Ahrens noted that national daily newspaper circulation in the US has declined every year since 1987.
“Newspapers once the only source of news, now compete not only with radio and network television, but also with numerous cable television networks and Internet news sources. In addition, other media-satellite radio, computer games, DVDs, Ipods and so forth-sap time required for reading daily newspaper,” Ahrens wrote.
“The death of evening newspapers across the country over the past three decades foretold the current slump.”
This depressing trend has ignited a debate within the company, and in newsrooms across the United States. On one side are young turks who are calling for a redesign of the newspaper, making it more readable to young readers by using more colors, graphics and pictures, with crisp and trendy stories. On the other side of the fence are the “dinosaurs” like Mosher who are resisting such changes for fear of alienating their current readers.
“If we change the look, readers might think it’s no longer the same Washington Post they used to read,” Mosher argued.
Politics in the US also tend to delineate between conservatives (or those perceived to be adherents of free markets and the war in Iraq) and the liberals (thought of to be adherents of big government). Hence there are views in newsrooms about the need to “play it to the middle” in order to capture the attention of the greater number of readers who are assumed to dwell in the gray areas of the American political spectrum.
“Should there be more analysis? Should it have more ‘attitude’? No one has a satisfactory answer,” Mosher sighed, reflecting the anxieties of an old media institution that is getting less sure of itself.
A changing audience
MEDIA experts from the Poynter Institute, a Florida-based journalism training center that owns the St. Petersburg Time, say multi-tasking is now the name of the game. Citing a recent study by Middleton Media Studies Project by the Indiana-based Ball University, Howard Finberg, Poynter’s director for interactive learning noted that 30 percent of American’s observed waking day is spent with media as a sole activity, while 39 percent of the day is spent with media while being involved.
Citing the same report, Finberg said Americans spent 240.9 minutes watching television and 93.4 minutes surfing the Internet. Only 32.8 minutes are being spent reading various print media. But for newspapers per se, Americans spend a mere 12.2 minutes a day.
Ken Auletta, a New York-based media critic who writes incisive analytical pieces on media and communications for the New Yorker magazine, said new forms of media are displacing the newspaper in significant numbers. In 1960, all daily newspapers in the US sent out 59 million copies a day in an effort to reach 180 Americans. In 2004, that figure dropped to 54 million even though the US population doubled.
This trend, he said, came at a time when Americans were increasingly getting cynical of traditional media. Around two-thirds of Americans think the press in general is biased, which Auletta pointed out, has contributed to the decline of print media. That most traditional media organizations are affiliated with large conglomerates only strengthen the perception that they represent powerful special interests groups. Hence, Auletta said, the younger generation tends to look at new media as an alternative source of “empowerment.”
Auletta believes this situation could be dangerous. “Every one seems to think their audience is shrinking, so media, both print and broadcast, tries to shout louder to get attention,” he said. Taking this approach, however, risks alienating audiences even further. This largely explains, according to Auletta, the rise of so-called “silly journalism” that’s focused on sensational stories, tasteless entertainment, and gossip.
Rising tabs
AS circulation numbers drop, news organizations are being forced to evolve as they grapple to find the business model of the future.
Just this week, the Asian Wall Street Journal scrapped its broadsheet printing style for a smaller tabloid format. In a letter to readers, its editor, Reginald Chua, said the new format “is designed to make it easier to navigate through the paper.”
The American edition of the Journal will also shrink its format slightly in line with other major US newspapers including the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and USA Today. The redesign of the US edition will save it $18 million per year, the company said.
The shift to tabloids, which started in the United Kingdom several years ago, is one of the most notable trends in the industry.
Established by the Anschutz Group, whose business interests include oil exploration, film, soccer teams, and entertainment, the Examiner focuses largely on local news that run no longer than 250 words.
“This is a newspaper for people who want to be informed about their community but are too busy to read,” said John Wilpers, the paper’s editor-in-chief.
It carries only a few stories on foreign events save for developments in Iraq because the editors believe their readers are not as interested in such news. Instead, Wilpers and the other editors are pushing for “civic journalism” or stories that are closer to home and which “connect with people’s lives.”
For Wilpers, the Examiner represents the future of journalism as its business model due to a lower operating cost owing to its lean staff.
“The Washington Post, New York Times and Wall Street Journal will still be there in the future but they will evolve into niche newspapers with significantly lower circulation, say 500,000 or less,” Wilpers predicted.
So far, several major broadsheets like The Washington Post, the Tampa Bay, Florida-based St. Petersburg Times and San Diego Union-Tribune have introduced their own tabloids to cater to younger readers while maintaining their own broadsheets. These tabloids are distributed free in subways, bus stops, hotels and other strategic public spaces.
In San Diego, the San Diego Reader, which feels like a folksy version of the New Yorker or Harper’s, regularly runs blogs of emerging creative writers in the city in an effort to get the attention of young readers.
The average reader in America is 50 years old. Hence, there are fears that broadsheets would lose their financial viability as readers grow old and die and the younger ones gravitate for “new media.” By introducing free tabloids, print media executives are hoping that someday these readers would “migrate” to broadsheets as they mature.
Still there is a fear that these free tabloids could cannibalize their broadsheets’ circulations. To avoid this, executives do not allow their tabloids, which have a separate staff and use different corporate identities, to use stories that appear in their broadsheets.
“Kids go college, graduate, get married, have kids, get involved in community affairs and start reading the newspaper,” noted Jim Booth, senior editor of St. Petersburg Times. “That’s the cycle then but not anymore. How to address this problem I don’t know. If I do, I’d be making millions by now.”
Other broadsheets like the Baltimore Sun and the Long Island, New York-based Newsday are freshening up their design in the hopes of winning back lost subscribers.
Many are apparently taking their cue from USA Today, whose colorful layout and feel-good stories enabled it to buck the trend of declining circulation.
Online news
THE one trend that everyone seems to agree on is establishing a presence on the Internet. News organizations in the US—and elsewhere— have poured huge investments into beefing up their online editions.
Media critics like Ken Auletta liken this to “planting a flag on the moon.” Many of the big names like New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post are experimenting on how to generate revenue from their online editions, from charging a few dollars for access to certain content to web advertising.
And it seems to be paying off for some.
After ten years, the Post has started to earn money from its online edition but others have not been as successful.
Still media executives are hoping that there will come a time when accessing online newspapers will become a daily routine that readers will pay for content.
Auletta himself is convinced that the future is on the Internet. There are indications, he said, that online advertising will continue to grow in the next ten years. If online newspapers could provide the kind of readers that advertisers want to reach, they could turn in tidy profits.
The San Diego Union-Tribune (circulation: 300,000 on weekdays and 400,00 on Sunday) seems to be doing just that. The newspaper’s SignOnSanDiego.com not only contain breaking news to compliment the paper, but is a portal in itself as it also provides extensive information on jobs, real estate, cars and boats, shopping, travel, health and fitness, sports, restaurants, museums, and even wireless news for Web-enabled cellular phones, personal digital assistants, and other portable devices. To access the day’s paper, one has to answer a little questionnaire, thus enabling the company to continuously capture demographic data about their readership.
“Right now, we are primarily a news organization,” explained Todd Merriman, senior editor for news of the San Diego-Union Tribune. “In the future, we are going to be a news media organization.”
Despite such developments, some media executives are still wondering if there’s really room for print media in the brave new world of instant information.
Auletta himself conceded that print media is, technology-wise, obsolete. Data now flows at the click of the mouse, while the newspaper has practically remained unchanged since the Gutenberg Revolution, delivering tangible papers to readers a day after.
But no one’s giving up the fight.
“Are we a dinosaur? Yes, we are,” Auletta said. “But hey, dinosaurs lived for millions of years!”
The US State Department has chosen me as the Philippines’ participant to the 2005 International Visitors’ Program for Leadership in Print Journalism conducted from September 15 until October 6. Together with 19 other participants from Asia, Africa, Latin America, Middle East and Eastern Europe, the program brought me to several cities in the US including Washington DC, New York, Tampa Bay, Omaha, San Diego and Los Angeles, where we had opportunities to interact with executives from several media organizations. Below is my story.)
WASHINGTON DC-Bob Woodward, assistant managing editor of Washington Post and celebrity investigative reporter who helped uncover the Watergate scandal in the ‘70s, was in his element one cool September night at the McLean Hilton in Virginia. He was, after all, launching his new book The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate’s Deep Throat, a personal account of his cloak-and-dagger liaisons with Mark Felt, the FBI whistleblower whose revelations kicked off a political storm that ousted US President Richard Nixon in 1974 and changed the course of American history. Speaking before a huge crowd of admirers, Woodward’s reminiscences painted a glorious picture of the Post’s happy past.
However, that night may have also been a regression for him, a fleeting respite from the current storms ravaging his paper: declining circulation, readership, and advertising revenue, courtesy of the intensifying onslaught by “new media” like the Internet as well as cable and satellite TV.
Five days earlier at The Washington Post’s headquarters in the nation’s capital, Andrew Mosher, the deputy foreign editor, talked to the BusinessMirror-and 19 other print journalists from Asia, Europe, Middle East, and Latin America-about his paper’s dilemma.
“Last year, our daily circulation was 800,000; now it’s down to 700,000,” Mosher said unflinching.
In its heyday, The Washington Post’s daily circulation was more than a million. These days, Mosher said, these numbers are falling and no one in the top management could give a satisfactory explanation as to why this is happening. They have no clear ideas too on how to deal with declining readership, which eventually would hurt ad revenues and ultimately the company’s bottom line.
But the Post is not alone.
On Wednesday, the New York Times Co. said its earnings fell by more than half in the third quarter, even as sales rose, because of higher costs and a charge related to staff reductions, the Associated Press reported.
The company, which publishes The Boston Globe and the International Herald Tribune in addition to its flagship newspaper, had net income of $23.1 million for the quarter, down from $48.3 million in the same period a year ago.
In September, the Times said it would slash about 500 jobs over the next six to nine months.
At about the same time, the Philadelphia Inquirer (circulation: 388,000) also announced similar cost-cutting measures.
The big divide
MOSHER believes the problem facing US newspapers is part of a larger-possibly global-phenomenon.
“People are not really reading anymore,” he said, noting that consumers these days prefer to get their information from the Internet and other electronic media. People are just too busy to read, he said.
In reporting the story of the job cuts in New York and Philadelphia, Post reporter Frank Ahrens noted that national daily newspaper circulation in the US has declined every year since 1987.
“Newspapers once the only source of news, now compete not only with radio and network television, but also with numerous cable television networks and Internet news sources. In addition, other media-satellite radio, computer games, DVDs, Ipods and so forth-sap time required for reading daily newspaper,” Ahrens wrote.
“The death of evening newspapers across the country over the past three decades foretold the current slump.”
This depressing trend has ignited a debate within the company, and in newsrooms across the United States. On one side are young turks who are calling for a redesign of the newspaper, making it more readable to young readers by using more colors, graphics and pictures, with crisp and trendy stories. On the other side of the fence are the “dinosaurs” like Mosher who are resisting such changes for fear of alienating their current readers.
“If we change the look, readers might think it’s no longer the same Washington Post they used to read,” Mosher argued.
Politics in the US also tend to delineate between conservatives (or those perceived to be adherents of free markets and the war in Iraq) and the liberals (thought of to be adherents of big government). Hence there are views in newsrooms about the need to “play it to the middle” in order to capture the attention of the greater number of readers who are assumed to dwell in the gray areas of the American political spectrum.
“Should there be more analysis? Should it have more ‘attitude’? No one has a satisfactory answer,” Mosher sighed, reflecting the anxieties of an old media institution that is getting less sure of itself.
A changing audience
MEDIA experts from the Poynter Institute, a Florida-based journalism training center that owns the St. Petersburg Time, say multi-tasking is now the name of the game. Citing a recent study by Middleton Media Studies Project by the Indiana-based Ball University, Howard Finberg, Poynter’s director for interactive learning noted that 30 percent of American’s observed waking day is spent with media as a sole activity, while 39 percent of the day is spent with media while being involved.
Citing the same report, Finberg said Americans spent 240.9 minutes watching television and 93.4 minutes surfing the Internet. Only 32.8 minutes are being spent reading various print media. But for newspapers per se, Americans spend a mere 12.2 minutes a day.
Ken Auletta, a New York-based media critic who writes incisive analytical pieces on media and communications for the New Yorker magazine, said new forms of media are displacing the newspaper in significant numbers. In 1960, all daily newspapers in the US sent out 59 million copies a day in an effort to reach 180 Americans. In 2004, that figure dropped to 54 million even though the US population doubled.
This trend, he said, came at a time when Americans were increasingly getting cynical of traditional media. Around two-thirds of Americans think the press in general is biased, which Auletta pointed out, has contributed to the decline of print media. That most traditional media organizations are affiliated with large conglomerates only strengthen the perception that they represent powerful special interests groups. Hence, Auletta said, the younger generation tends to look at new media as an alternative source of “empowerment.”
Auletta believes this situation could be dangerous. “Every one seems to think their audience is shrinking, so media, both print and broadcast, tries to shout louder to get attention,” he said. Taking this approach, however, risks alienating audiences even further. This largely explains, according to Auletta, the rise of so-called “silly journalism” that’s focused on sensational stories, tasteless entertainment, and gossip.
Rising tabs
AS circulation numbers drop, news organizations are being forced to evolve as they grapple to find the business model of the future.
Just this week, the Asian Wall Street Journal scrapped its broadsheet printing style for a smaller tabloid format. In a letter to readers, its editor, Reginald Chua, said the new format “is designed to make it easier to navigate through the paper.”
The American edition of the Journal will also shrink its format slightly in line with other major US newspapers including the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and USA Today. The redesign of the US edition will save it $18 million per year, the company said.
The shift to tabloids, which started in the United Kingdom several years ago, is one of the most notable trends in the industry.
Established by the Anschutz Group, whose business interests include oil exploration, film, soccer teams, and entertainment, the Examiner focuses largely on local news that run no longer than 250 words.
“This is a newspaper for people who want to be informed about their community but are too busy to read,” said John Wilpers, the paper’s editor-in-chief.
It carries only a few stories on foreign events save for developments in Iraq because the editors believe their readers are not as interested in such news. Instead, Wilpers and the other editors are pushing for “civic journalism” or stories that are closer to home and which “connect with people’s lives.”
For Wilpers, the Examiner represents the future of journalism as its business model due to a lower operating cost owing to its lean staff.
“The Washington Post, New York Times and Wall Street Journal will still be there in the future but they will evolve into niche newspapers with significantly lower circulation, say 500,000 or less,” Wilpers predicted.
So far, several major broadsheets like The Washington Post, the Tampa Bay, Florida-based St. Petersburg Times and San Diego Union-Tribune have introduced their own tabloids to cater to younger readers while maintaining their own broadsheets. These tabloids are distributed free in subways, bus stops, hotels and other strategic public spaces.
In San Diego, the San Diego Reader, which feels like a folksy version of the New Yorker or Harper’s, regularly runs blogs of emerging creative writers in the city in an effort to get the attention of young readers.
The average reader in America is 50 years old. Hence, there are fears that broadsheets would lose their financial viability as readers grow old and die and the younger ones gravitate for “new media.” By introducing free tabloids, print media executives are hoping that someday these readers would “migrate” to broadsheets as they mature.
Still there is a fear that these free tabloids could cannibalize their broadsheets’ circulations. To avoid this, executives do not allow their tabloids, which have a separate staff and use different corporate identities, to use stories that appear in their broadsheets.
“Kids go college, graduate, get married, have kids, get involved in community affairs and start reading the newspaper,” noted Jim Booth, senior editor of St. Petersburg Times. “That’s the cycle then but not anymore. How to address this problem I don’t know. If I do, I’d be making millions by now.”
Other broadsheets like the Baltimore Sun and the Long Island, New York-based Newsday are freshening up their design in the hopes of winning back lost subscribers.
Many are apparently taking their cue from USA Today, whose colorful layout and feel-good stories enabled it to buck the trend of declining circulation.
Online news
THE one trend that everyone seems to agree on is establishing a presence on the Internet. News organizations in the US—and elsewhere— have poured huge investments into beefing up their online editions.
Media critics like Ken Auletta liken this to “planting a flag on the moon.” Many of the big names like New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post are experimenting on how to generate revenue from their online editions, from charging a few dollars for access to certain content to web advertising.
And it seems to be paying off for some.
After ten years, the Post has started to earn money from its online edition but others have not been as successful.
Still media executives are hoping that there will come a time when accessing online newspapers will become a daily routine that readers will pay for content.
Auletta himself is convinced that the future is on the Internet. There are indications, he said, that online advertising will continue to grow in the next ten years. If online newspapers could provide the kind of readers that advertisers want to reach, they could turn in tidy profits.
The San Diego Union-Tribune (circulation: 300,000 on weekdays and 400,00 on Sunday) seems to be doing just that. The newspaper’s SignOnSanDiego.com not only contain breaking news to compliment the paper, but is a portal in itself as it also provides extensive information on jobs, real estate, cars and boats, shopping, travel, health and fitness, sports, restaurants, museums, and even wireless news for Web-enabled cellular phones, personal digital assistants, and other portable devices. To access the day’s paper, one has to answer a little questionnaire, thus enabling the company to continuously capture demographic data about their readership.
“Right now, we are primarily a news organization,” explained Todd Merriman, senior editor for news of the San Diego-Union Tribune. “In the future, we are going to be a news media organization.”
Despite such developments, some media executives are still wondering if there’s really room for print media in the brave new world of instant information.
Auletta himself conceded that print media is, technology-wise, obsolete. Data now flows at the click of the mouse, while the newspaper has practically remained unchanged since the Gutenberg Revolution, delivering tangible papers to readers a day after.
But no one’s giving up the fight.
“Are we a dinosaur? Yes, we are,” Auletta said. “But hey, dinosaurs lived for millions of years!”
Stinging rebuke to journalism
The hidden camera is a powerful instrument but also a dangerous gadget for the unscrupulous
Chandan Mitra
It’s a matter of time before sting operations of TV outstrip saas-bahu serials in terms of TRP ratings. Quite possibly, Ekta Kapoor may soon set up a Sting Division of Balaji Telefilms, which will have starlets posing as intrepid journalists trapping politicians accepting bribes in each episode. The serial could well be titled Main bhi kabhi MP tha and show the real-life tale of woe of a succession of people’s representatives getting stung, losing their seats in Parliament and getting expelled from their party.
I don’t intend to be facetious. The scenario visualised above is not to suggest that some MPs have been unfairly targeted, or that they should be pardoned. In fact, stringent punishment ought to be meted out to those who were caught on camera displaying crude greed. The Ethics Committees of both Houses will, surely, indict them and I hope suspend them for at least one more session. Ideally, those who have accepted cash for raising questions or negotiated a cut for sanctioning projects from their MPLADS funds should be stripped of their membership of Parliament. But since such a course might run into legal complications, suspension for one session may be a more practical alternative.
But the issue is larger and involves the ethics of sting journalism. The TV shows that revealed our politicians in the raw, however, were not necessarily motivated the high ideal of cleansing the system contrary to the producers’ claims. They were primarily driven by the urge to make a quick buck or climb a few notches on TRP ratings. So, two wrongs don’t make a right.
The latest sting operations are ethically unjustified because they are staged; they do not depict actual happenings. While that does not justify MPs taking money or conspiring to do so, the depictions violate the cardinal principle of sting operations: Entrapment of people or luring them to commit a crime through monetary inducements is prohibited worldwide. But there being no such law against this in India, channels have started using sting as a easy option to boost viewership.
Sting operations must conform to statutory laws that prohibit the invasion of privacy by the media. The hidden camera is a powerful instrument in the hands of a genuine crusader for social reform but an equally dangerous gadget in the hands of a greedy journalist. Taking pictures or recording conversations with a person without his/her knowledge is an unacceptable breach of the ethics of journalism and social behaviour. A couple of years ago, dandiya festival organisers in Gujarat were forced to ban camera phones because voyeurs started taking snaps of women’s cleavages at these dances and MMS-ing them to their acquaintances.
It has been argued that a distinction must be made between sex-laden MMS clips taken on the sly or even catching the likes of Shakti Kapoor and Aman Verma making advances to decoy starlets, and capturing politicians accepting bribes. Holier-than-thou Tehelka-types assert that their stings serve a public purpose whereas others amount to invasion of privacy. Unfortunately, no such distinction can actually be made.
As it transpires, at least one MP has indignantly asserted that he took the money only because it was offered for an NGO he runs and that he even gave a receipt for it. Without vouching for the veracity of his version, this is a perfectly credible scenario. In the growing desperation to make money or enhance TRPs, TV channels are quite capable of going the whole hog to frame politicians.
Sting has thus been reduced to a huge entertainment operation. People’s appetite for drama being insatiable they get easily addicted to newer forms of excitement. That’s why I believe saas-bahu is passé and sting has emerged as the biggest driver of India’s entertainment industry.
The time has come to devise appropriate regulatory mechanisms for conducting and airing such operations. A recent expose of sales tax officials accepting bribes is a justified use of the hidden camera since it shows actual transgression of laws. While not holding any brief for the condemnable MPs and small-time actors, it is necessary to underline that it is unfair to demand superhuman standards of morality from them.
Indian journalism has a fine record of investigation—Bofors and the fodder scams come immediately to mind. None of these exposes required resort to the hidden camera. So, I believe public interest journalism does not need to be conducted only through deceit, which is the basic principle of sting. Jocularly I remarked to some journalists the other day that soon we shall witness a sting to end all stings: It will be called Operation Haman and show all MPs in their bathrooms to prove the old adage, “Hamam mein hum sabhi nangey hain” (We are all naked in the bath). It might not be such a far-fetched thought!
The writer is Editor, The Pioneer and MP, Rajya Sabha.
Chandan Mitra
It’s a matter of time before sting operations of TV outstrip saas-bahu serials in terms of TRP ratings. Quite possibly, Ekta Kapoor may soon set up a Sting Division of Balaji Telefilms, which will have starlets posing as intrepid journalists trapping politicians accepting bribes in each episode. The serial could well be titled Main bhi kabhi MP tha and show the real-life tale of woe of a succession of people’s representatives getting stung, losing their seats in Parliament and getting expelled from their party.
I don’t intend to be facetious. The scenario visualised above is not to suggest that some MPs have been unfairly targeted, or that they should be pardoned. In fact, stringent punishment ought to be meted out to those who were caught on camera displaying crude greed. The Ethics Committees of both Houses will, surely, indict them and I hope suspend them for at least one more session. Ideally, those who have accepted cash for raising questions or negotiated a cut for sanctioning projects from their MPLADS funds should be stripped of their membership of Parliament. But since such a course might run into legal complications, suspension for one session may be a more practical alternative.
But the issue is larger and involves the ethics of sting journalism. The TV shows that revealed our politicians in the raw, however, were not necessarily motivated the high ideal of cleansing the system contrary to the producers’ claims. They were primarily driven by the urge to make a quick buck or climb a few notches on TRP ratings. So, two wrongs don’t make a right.
The latest sting operations are ethically unjustified because they are staged; they do not depict actual happenings. While that does not justify MPs taking money or conspiring to do so, the depictions violate the cardinal principle of sting operations: Entrapment of people or luring them to commit a crime through monetary inducements is prohibited worldwide. But there being no such law against this in India, channels have started using sting as a easy option to boost viewership.
Sting operations must conform to statutory laws that prohibit the invasion of privacy by the media. The hidden camera is a powerful instrument in the hands of a genuine crusader for social reform but an equally dangerous gadget in the hands of a greedy journalist. Taking pictures or recording conversations with a person without his/her knowledge is an unacceptable breach of the ethics of journalism and social behaviour. A couple of years ago, dandiya festival organisers in Gujarat were forced to ban camera phones because voyeurs started taking snaps of women’s cleavages at these dances and MMS-ing them to their acquaintances.
It has been argued that a distinction must be made between sex-laden MMS clips taken on the sly or even catching the likes of Shakti Kapoor and Aman Verma making advances to decoy starlets, and capturing politicians accepting bribes. Holier-than-thou Tehelka-types assert that their stings serve a public purpose whereas others amount to invasion of privacy. Unfortunately, no such distinction can actually be made.
As it transpires, at least one MP has indignantly asserted that he took the money only because it was offered for an NGO he runs and that he even gave a receipt for it. Without vouching for the veracity of his version, this is a perfectly credible scenario. In the growing desperation to make money or enhance TRPs, TV channels are quite capable of going the whole hog to frame politicians.
Sting has thus been reduced to a huge entertainment operation. People’s appetite for drama being insatiable they get easily addicted to newer forms of excitement. That’s why I believe saas-bahu is passé and sting has emerged as the biggest driver of India’s entertainment industry.
The time has come to devise appropriate regulatory mechanisms for conducting and airing such operations. A recent expose of sales tax officials accepting bribes is a justified use of the hidden camera since it shows actual transgression of laws. While not holding any brief for the condemnable MPs and small-time actors, it is necessary to underline that it is unfair to demand superhuman standards of morality from them.
Indian journalism has a fine record of investigation—Bofors and the fodder scams come immediately to mind. None of these exposes required resort to the hidden camera. So, I believe public interest journalism does not need to be conducted only through deceit, which is the basic principle of sting. Jocularly I remarked to some journalists the other day that soon we shall witness a sting to end all stings: It will be called Operation Haman and show all MPs in their bathrooms to prove the old adage, “Hamam mein hum sabhi nangey hain” (We are all naked in the bath). It might not be such a far-fetched thought!
The writer is Editor, The Pioneer and MP, Rajya Sabha.
Manic Media
The recent cash-for-query sting operation has sparked heated debate on the methods news organisations are using to grab headlines and ‘consumers’ in an overheated and wild media market. What’s going on?
Snooping to conquer
Apart from the days of the Emergency, Indian media history has, perhaps, not witnessed a moment such as this, when the press fraternity has risen to the occasion, both in defence and in alarm, to allegations of legal adventurism, and interrogated its ethical parameters. The Cobrapost-Aaj Tak sting is not, however, the only reason. It is only the latest in a series of sting operations in a country where the abundance of corruption is matched only by the non-functionality of the institutions that were created to prevent them.
On the one hand is the need to keep such a country on its toes. On the other, is the ethics of it all. In the previous cases, the verdict was against those indicted in the sting operations. This time around, the questions were loud and clear: “What was the point? How much lower do we need to stoop to dig out muck?”
There’s got to be more to this than the holier than thou need to expose corruption. In a mature democracy that many believe we are, is it imperative that the media subverts the other pillars of democracy — the judiciary, legislature and the executive? And whence comes this spurt in media vanguardism, anyway?
The usual suspects would be ratings, and the vulgar race for eye-balls. There are 12 national news channels in India airing what supposedly passes for news. Such proliferation can be blamed either on a hunger for news (among a couch-stuck multitude) or a hunger for revenue. Both these appetites are catered to with a spectacular coverage of unspectacular events. But loud histrionics — which accompanies all manner of (heart) breaking news, from plunging necklines to crumbling civilisations — is forever being driven to ever louder levels by news channels caught in a downward spiral of one-upmanship.
At the end of the day, it is the sting operation which gives that edge, that smell of exclusivity that is sure to dwarf the rival broadcaster. The audience, on the other hand, finds it irresistible when the immediacy of news and the adventure of a reality show are sandwiched into a single programme.
Tehelka.com’s high-profile defence expose started the trend. But television channels picked up where they left off. Recent stings like the casting couch and ‘Operation Duryodhan’ clearly prove that while media companies are struggling with all the competition, they are also converging in certain ways.
Also, if deception is synonymous with stings, journalists have no claim to moral high ground.
The ‘foxification’ of journalism, a term derived from Rupert Murdoch’s pet Fox, which taught The Sun and Daily Mirror a thing or two about populism, was always a concern. But never did all The President’s Men fall so miserably in indignity, as perhaps this week. At least not in India. - Sayandeb Chowdhury
Law and behold
There are no specific laws in India that deal with sting operations or the purchase and use of hidden recording equipment. However, there are laws which need to be taken into consideration while examining the legality of sting operations.
No one can impose on another’s privacy without following the due course of law. For instance, if someone wants to tap the phone of any individual, he or she would require proper authorisation from the concerned authorities.
Section 72(3) of the Information Technology Act reads:
Whoever intentionally captures or broadcasts an image of a private area of an individual without his consent, and knowingly does so under circumstances violating the privacy of that individual, shall be liable to pay compensation not exceeding Rs25 lakh to the person so affected.
Evidence permissible in court depends on the manner in which it has been procured. If a person has been taped while taking a bribe, it is permissible as evidence. However, if the person has been induced into taking a bribe which has then been recorded, this will not be permissible.
DNA Saturday, December 17, 2005 21:43 IST
Snooping to conquer
Apart from the days of the Emergency, Indian media history has, perhaps, not witnessed a moment such as this, when the press fraternity has risen to the occasion, both in defence and in alarm, to allegations of legal adventurism, and interrogated its ethical parameters. The Cobrapost-Aaj Tak sting is not, however, the only reason. It is only the latest in a series of sting operations in a country where the abundance of corruption is matched only by the non-functionality of the institutions that were created to prevent them.
On the one hand is the need to keep such a country on its toes. On the other, is the ethics of it all. In the previous cases, the verdict was against those indicted in the sting operations. This time around, the questions were loud and clear: “What was the point? How much lower do we need to stoop to dig out muck?”
There’s got to be more to this than the holier than thou need to expose corruption. In a mature democracy that many believe we are, is it imperative that the media subverts the other pillars of democracy — the judiciary, legislature and the executive? And whence comes this spurt in media vanguardism, anyway?
The usual suspects would be ratings, and the vulgar race for eye-balls. There are 12 national news channels in India airing what supposedly passes for news. Such proliferation can be blamed either on a hunger for news (among a couch-stuck multitude) or a hunger for revenue. Both these appetites are catered to with a spectacular coverage of unspectacular events. But loud histrionics — which accompanies all manner of (heart) breaking news, from plunging necklines to crumbling civilisations — is forever being driven to ever louder levels by news channels caught in a downward spiral of one-upmanship.
At the end of the day, it is the sting operation which gives that edge, that smell of exclusivity that is sure to dwarf the rival broadcaster. The audience, on the other hand, finds it irresistible when the immediacy of news and the adventure of a reality show are sandwiched into a single programme.
Tehelka.com’s high-profile defence expose started the trend. But television channels picked up where they left off. Recent stings like the casting couch and ‘Operation Duryodhan’ clearly prove that while media companies are struggling with all the competition, they are also converging in certain ways.
Also, if deception is synonymous with stings, journalists have no claim to moral high ground.
The ‘foxification’ of journalism, a term derived from Rupert Murdoch’s pet Fox, which taught The Sun and Daily Mirror a thing or two about populism, was always a concern. But never did all The President’s Men fall so miserably in indignity, as perhaps this week. At least not in India. - Sayandeb Chowdhury
Law and behold
There are no specific laws in India that deal with sting operations or the purchase and use of hidden recording equipment. However, there are laws which need to be taken into consideration while examining the legality of sting operations.
No one can impose on another’s privacy without following the due course of law. For instance, if someone wants to tap the phone of any individual, he or she would require proper authorisation from the concerned authorities.
Section 72(3) of the Information Technology Act reads:
Whoever intentionally captures or broadcasts an image of a private area of an individual without his consent, and knowingly does so under circumstances violating the privacy of that individual, shall be liable to pay compensation not exceeding Rs25 lakh to the person so affected.
Evidence permissible in court depends on the manner in which it has been procured. If a person has been taped while taking a bribe, it is permissible as evidence. However, if the person has been induced into taking a bribe which has then been recorded, this will not be permissible.
DNA Saturday, December 17, 2005 21:43 IST
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Free Press
- By Seema Mustafa
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, with his deep love and appreciation for the United States, should also take a leaf out of its book on media management. And should direct the men around him to do the same. For while US President George W. Bush has made distortions and lies the hallmark of his administration, there is a certain penchant for transparency and respect for dissent etched into the American system. The US officials, given a choice, prefer to share information than hide it and criticism is not dismissed but taken on board, and literally handled with care.
So while on the one side there are the images of the embedded journalists, on the other there are those who have not hesitated to question the Bush administration in words more scathing, perhaps, than used by many of us here in writing on the war on Iraq for instance. And what is encouraging is the ability of US officialdom to listen to the criticism within, to respond to it, and to work to counter it not by issuing threats but as scribes point out, with counter arguments, special briefings and a certain transparency that might not convince but certainly helps inform. Of course, externally Bush could be weaving plans to bomb television outfits like Al Jazeera, but internally he is bound by a certain code of discipline arising from the well entrenched right to information that does not allow him to target journalists, or treat them with disrespect.
It is quite the opposite in India. Prime Minister Singh and his men-in-arms might be bending backwards to accommodate US interests here, but clearly criticism still rattles South Block windowpanes. The response is twofold. First, invariably it is of anger finding expression in threats. The other day senior editors invited for a dinner hosted by a Cabinet minister for international guests were amazed when in the presence of visiting ministers, ambassadors and others, this gentleman launched into a loud tirade against Indian journalists. The anger was palpable and had the suave diplomats around him shaking their heads in wonder, as the minister used words not usually heard at such functions to describe scribes.
Rapists, murderers, he literally shouted and his journalist guests bit their tongues as a nasty retort would have created a major embarrassment for the government of India. So much for Indian democracy, remarked a guest. He is worried about retaining his portfolio, the journalists explained. Then of course, there are the SMS messages from the PMO expressing pleasure, or displeasure as the case may be, about news reports. And then there are the spokespersons of ministries, getting so carried away in their temporary seats of power, that they actually threaten not to allow a certain journalist or a newspaper for a select briefing if their rules are not followed to the last comma.
If this does not work, the second approach is of exclusion. And it is this approach that makes a mockery of tolerance, and the government’s supposed commitment to right to information. For doors are closed and the effort of officialdom is to deny the journalist information by keeping him or her out of special briefings, and closer interactions with the corridors of power. Of course, most of what is shared in these briefings is so minimalist in nature, that the journalist does not miss anything in real terms. But what is being questioned here, is the approach and the mindset that is now getting institutionalised and carries through governments, be it the BJP-led NDA or the Congress-led UPA. The taxpayers’ money is regarded as personal bounty, by the little politicians who make it to the top, and is used not to serve the country, but to hide the facts, to play with information, and to target journalists and newspapers who do not toe the prescribed line.
Journalism is a great profession. Unfortunately, many of us who have drifted into this have lost sight of this fact. It is a powerful profession provided the power is used — as in any other profession — with responsibility. To say that this does not always happen, is true. But to allege that this never happens, is blatant disinformation spread by those who have a lot to hide, and are scared of a media that reports the truth without, to use a near forgotten cliché, fear or favour. Journalism is not sensationalism. And in India, the media exercises a certain code that prevents it from writing on the private lives of politicians. If this were not the case, then believe me, the link between Andaleeb Sehgal and Jagat Singh as well as other scions of political royalty would have been irreversibly established by the newspapers a long time ago; and reports about political intervention by friends and families of ministers in the crucial matter of transfers and postings would have changed the complexion of Union Cabinets.
It is not that journalists do not know the truth. They do not always write it. Restraint restrains their pen, which is more than fine, if it is do with a certain ethics and the rule of law. It is unforgivable if this comes from authoritarian proprietors, self-styled editors and worse still, from the government. The situation is becoming so lopsided that while the first form of restraint is generally exercised by the responsible media, the second restraint is crippling the journalists’ power to inform, and to act as a valuable watchdog. It is really a vicious circle, and the scribes unable always to look beyond the day are failing to detect it, with the result that every little politician and his subservient official now stand up and attack the media at will while we stand and watch and listen and hope that they do not mean the "us" but just the "them."
The question here is: who are they to attack the media? What is their credibility or for that matter their locus standi? Little politicians, ministers today, and on the streets tomorrow with their integrity compromised, and their hands dirty with black money are certainly not qualified to question the journalist. Little officials, following the politicians’ dictates, shifting from one policy to another without a brain cell being exercised, looking for that big posting, certainly do not have the authority to question the media. These columns have carried several articles criticising the media, but when those in power misuse their offices to disinform and brief selectively, then the time has definitely come for journalists to close ranks and shout a determined: Stop! Those drawing their salaries from the taxpayer must be made to share information, freely and fairly and not use their private wars with scribes and newspapers to suppress facts, or make information available only to a select few and not all.
For instance, the Prime Minister, at best a representative of the people (although in the present case he is only a representative of Congress president Sonia Gandhi), cannot be allowed to determine who will travel with him and who will not on an official visit. If the rule is that the Prime Minister can take mediapersons when he travels abroad, then the opportunity has to be given to all registered and recognised newspapers in turn. Or else the rule should be abolished. He is not going in his private plane, he is not being accompanied by just his family and friends, he is going as the head of the government of India on government money and he does not have the authority to turn Air India One into a flight carrying favourite scribes. In doing so he is denying information on a long term basis to the others, and in democratic India he definitely does not have the right to do so.
Journalism is a grand profession. A proud, and highly respectable profession. A word of advice to journalists from a battle-scarred veteran: remember this, and do not allow yourself to be browbeaten by those who have little respect for the facts, and none for the truth.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, with his deep love and appreciation for the United States, should also take a leaf out of its book on media management. And should direct the men around him to do the same. For while US President George W. Bush has made distortions and lies the hallmark of his administration, there is a certain penchant for transparency and respect for dissent etched into the American system. The US officials, given a choice, prefer to share information than hide it and criticism is not dismissed but taken on board, and literally handled with care.
So while on the one side there are the images of the embedded journalists, on the other there are those who have not hesitated to question the Bush administration in words more scathing, perhaps, than used by many of us here in writing on the war on Iraq for instance. And what is encouraging is the ability of US officialdom to listen to the criticism within, to respond to it, and to work to counter it not by issuing threats but as scribes point out, with counter arguments, special briefings and a certain transparency that might not convince but certainly helps inform. Of course, externally Bush could be weaving plans to bomb television outfits like Al Jazeera, but internally he is bound by a certain code of discipline arising from the well entrenched right to information that does not allow him to target journalists, or treat them with disrespect.
It is quite the opposite in India. Prime Minister Singh and his men-in-arms might be bending backwards to accommodate US interests here, but clearly criticism still rattles South Block windowpanes. The response is twofold. First, invariably it is of anger finding expression in threats. The other day senior editors invited for a dinner hosted by a Cabinet minister for international guests were amazed when in the presence of visiting ministers, ambassadors and others, this gentleman launched into a loud tirade against Indian journalists. The anger was palpable and had the suave diplomats around him shaking their heads in wonder, as the minister used words not usually heard at such functions to describe scribes.
Rapists, murderers, he literally shouted and his journalist guests bit their tongues as a nasty retort would have created a major embarrassment for the government of India. So much for Indian democracy, remarked a guest. He is worried about retaining his portfolio, the journalists explained. Then of course, there are the SMS messages from the PMO expressing pleasure, or displeasure as the case may be, about news reports. And then there are the spokespersons of ministries, getting so carried away in their temporary seats of power, that they actually threaten not to allow a certain journalist or a newspaper for a select briefing if their rules are not followed to the last comma.
If this does not work, the second approach is of exclusion. And it is this approach that makes a mockery of tolerance, and the government’s supposed commitment to right to information. For doors are closed and the effort of officialdom is to deny the journalist information by keeping him or her out of special briefings, and closer interactions with the corridors of power. Of course, most of what is shared in these briefings is so minimalist in nature, that the journalist does not miss anything in real terms. But what is being questioned here, is the approach and the mindset that is now getting institutionalised and carries through governments, be it the BJP-led NDA or the Congress-led UPA. The taxpayers’ money is regarded as personal bounty, by the little politicians who make it to the top, and is used not to serve the country, but to hide the facts, to play with information, and to target journalists and newspapers who do not toe the prescribed line.
Journalism is a great profession. Unfortunately, many of us who have drifted into this have lost sight of this fact. It is a powerful profession provided the power is used — as in any other profession — with responsibility. To say that this does not always happen, is true. But to allege that this never happens, is blatant disinformation spread by those who have a lot to hide, and are scared of a media that reports the truth without, to use a near forgotten cliché, fear or favour. Journalism is not sensationalism. And in India, the media exercises a certain code that prevents it from writing on the private lives of politicians. If this were not the case, then believe me, the link between Andaleeb Sehgal and Jagat Singh as well as other scions of political royalty would have been irreversibly established by the newspapers a long time ago; and reports about political intervention by friends and families of ministers in the crucial matter of transfers and postings would have changed the complexion of Union Cabinets.
It is not that journalists do not know the truth. They do not always write it. Restraint restrains their pen, which is more than fine, if it is do with a certain ethics and the rule of law. It is unforgivable if this comes from authoritarian proprietors, self-styled editors and worse still, from the government. The situation is becoming so lopsided that while the first form of restraint is generally exercised by the responsible media, the second restraint is crippling the journalists’ power to inform, and to act as a valuable watchdog. It is really a vicious circle, and the scribes unable always to look beyond the day are failing to detect it, with the result that every little politician and his subservient official now stand up and attack the media at will while we stand and watch and listen and hope that they do not mean the "us" but just the "them."
The question here is: who are they to attack the media? What is their credibility or for that matter their locus standi? Little politicians, ministers today, and on the streets tomorrow with their integrity compromised, and their hands dirty with black money are certainly not qualified to question the journalist. Little officials, following the politicians’ dictates, shifting from one policy to another without a brain cell being exercised, looking for that big posting, certainly do not have the authority to question the media. These columns have carried several articles criticising the media, but when those in power misuse their offices to disinform and brief selectively, then the time has definitely come for journalists to close ranks and shout a determined: Stop! Those drawing their salaries from the taxpayer must be made to share information, freely and fairly and not use their private wars with scribes and newspapers to suppress facts, or make information available only to a select few and not all.
For instance, the Prime Minister, at best a representative of the people (although in the present case he is only a representative of Congress president Sonia Gandhi), cannot be allowed to determine who will travel with him and who will not on an official visit. If the rule is that the Prime Minister can take mediapersons when he travels abroad, then the opportunity has to be given to all registered and recognised newspapers in turn. Or else the rule should be abolished. He is not going in his private plane, he is not being accompanied by just his family and friends, he is going as the head of the government of India on government money and he does not have the authority to turn Air India One into a flight carrying favourite scribes. In doing so he is denying information on a long term basis to the others, and in democratic India he definitely does not have the right to do so.
Journalism is a grand profession. A proud, and highly respectable profession. A word of advice to journalists from a battle-scarred veteran: remember this, and do not allow yourself to be browbeaten by those who have little respect for the facts, and none for the truth.
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