Issue 7 Vol I, January 15, 2006

features

Long Live the Newspaper

Newspapers in the developed world have to evolve a new economic model to sustain and halt the gradual erosion of their financial underpinnings. They have to change the methods of delivery, deadlines and the medium itself.  The balance between words, moving pictures and audio has to change.  This assessment was presented by Editor of The Guardian Alan Rusbridger at a public lecture organised by The Hindu in New Delhi.  Our Assistant Editor, Jyotika J. Thukral was there to catch with the latest on the impact of technology that has created not only television, but a powerful internet as rivals of the print media.

The skills we have as journalists — the ability to gather, to verify, to sort, to investigate, to challenge, to aggregate — will always be in demand in any society. What we do will always be important ... no changes in technology can change that – Alan Rusbridger, Editor of The Guardian said at a lecture addressing the key issue of “Do newspapers have a future?” Through his lecture, Rusbridger tried his best to put any such doubts to rest. At the same time he underscored the fact that newspapers will have to try harder to make the youth comprehend the value of serious journalism.

When radio came people said why read newspapers. Then when television came in again people thought that was the end of newspapers. But we are still here. There is something about reading the fine print on paper

That apart, in order to survive in the age of technology, the need for newspapers to find a new economic model, given the erosion of their financial underpinnings cannot be ruled out either. “Apart from the business model, the methods of delivery, deadlines and the medium itself — the balance between words, moving pictures, audio and so on — all that was going to change,” he argued.

Drawing an analogy between newspapers and second-hand bookshops, Rusbridger pointed out that it was much easier to trace and buy books through the Internet. It proves one will have to embrace the internet in order to sustain just like the second-hand bookseller did. Something similar is happening to newspapers in most parts of the developed world as many people are reading online and most of the information comes free of cost.  

“More and more people reading online led to a drop in newspaper circulations and revenues,” he told a packed audience at the Nehru Memorial Library.

This in turn had the advertisers complaining on account of shrinking circulation. For the relation between advertising and journalism has existed since the 18th century and it was with the growth of advertising that press achieved its independence.

“So, like the second-hand bookseller, we have to think about changing our business model,” he stressed at a public lecture organized by national daily The Hindu.

Referring to a successful website created by Craig Newmark, Rusbridger talked about how the Internet had an edge over the newspapers. A San Francisco-based web enthusiast, who started a kind of an electronic notice board in the early 1990s, had now expanded it to a forum to sell and buy things — with the vast majority of advertisements being free, to both buyer and seller.

And the success of Newmark’s business model can be gauged from the fact that he is operating in 190 cities, attracting three billion page impressions a month from 10 million unique users and carrying six million advertisements at one time. And Craig’s list with no editorial content had even extended its operations to New Delhi and Chennai.

Mr. Rusbridger felt that readers were no longer content to be passive receivers of news. For the Internet has given these readers the ability to challenge and respond instantaneously. Further many of them were more interested in being part of a forum or discussion than being mere recipients of other people’s opinions. “And the Internet also allowed them to see their point of view mirrored. Thus from passive readers, a set of new consumers emerged who have their own opinion,” said Rusbridger. Where does this lead the newspapers?

News was all around — on radio, television, text alerts and free newspapers. That was fine for more and more people. How much more do they honestly need to read to be informed enough?   this is where newspapers come into the picture.

In such a situation, two options were available to editors: one to give people what they wanted, if they do not want difficult stuff, we will not give them difficult stuff. A second option would be to make the news more exciting, striking, pumped up. Looking at mass circulation titles in Britain, one could sense a failure of nerve, he said. “If people are turning off serious news, then we will not give them serious news. On many days they have effectively stopped presenting themselves as a newspaper at all,” he said referring to the Sun tabloid as a case in point. Where news was not the priority instead it was the marketing aspect which was the selling point, offering freebies et al to attract consumers. He referred to another interesting analogy where a super model like Kate Moss gets more prominence as compared to the key issue of global warming.

And, he stressed, it was not only the tabloids but British quality newspapers — previously called broadsheets — were currently locked in a circulation battle that involved spending huge sums of money in giving away freebies while cutting or freezing editorial budgets.

As competition for attention grew, newspapers will have to try harder to persuade young people of the value of serious journalism, whether delivered on screen, on plastic paper, which is the next big thing, or on old-fashioned dead trees, he felt.

The fact that people still want reliable information is not going to change, he said. Thus the role of a journalist to provide trustworthy information will always be in demand. And nothing can change that.

While The Guardian's Readers' Editor Ian Mayes speaking on “The news ombudsman — a visible presence, an independent voice” argued that, “You appoint an ombudsman because you want your news organisation to be an honest self-correcting institution with a dedication to getting it right and no interest in getting it wrong.”

Mayes, whose independence is guaranteed by the owner of The Guardian, the Scott Trust and the terms of reference published on the newspaper's website, compared his role to that of a referee in a football game, one that can get rough at times. Pointing out that the ombudsman's role was self-regulatory; he said the position offered a real chance for a responsible news organisation to build a new, more open and responsive relationship with its readership or audience.

His argument was:” What  undermines the  trust among readers, listeners or viewers is not the admission of error — even when the error is of an extremely serious nature — but the discovery or revelation or forced admission of a significant error that has gone uncorrected.”.

Last year The Guardian published more than 1,600 corrections while some of the larger newspapers in the United States carried over 2,000 in a year. He further added that, “The way to break free from the culture of denial — a denial of the realities of news production — is to acquire the habit of correcting as you go.”

The Hindu is perhaps the first newspaper in India to appoint a Readers' Editor. K. Narayanan, a quintessential professional for more than half a century and man of commitment and integrity will be "the independent, full-time internal ombudsman." Narayanan has been with The Hindu since 1956.

The Hindu’s Editor-in-Chief N. Ram said: "The key objectives of this appointment are to institutionalise the practice of self-regulation, accountability and transparency; to create a new visible framework to improve the accuracy, verification, and standards in the newspaper; and to strengthen bonds between the newspaper and its millions of print platform and online readers." The terms of reference include "to collect, consider, investigate, respond to, and where appropriate come to a conclusion about readers' comments, concerns, and complaints in a prompt and timely manner, from a position of independence within the paper." The Readers' Editor will "create new channels of communication with and greater responsiveness to readers, whether by email, telephone, the internet, surface mail, or through the columns of the paper."  Ram promised.