‘The Editor? Do We Need The Fellow?’

‘The Editor? Do We Need The Fellow?’

Three commentators about the many ways in which the print media in India has evolved over the past 12 years.

Special Issue: 4. What They Think Of Us

For 12 years, as it observed and covered a rapidly changing country, the Indian press itself changed at least as rapidly. Three commentators—B.G. Verghese, former editor of the Hindustan Times and Indian Express; Palagummi Sainath, editor, rural affairs, at The Hindu; and Robin Jeffrey, author of India’s Newspaper Revolution—talked to Raghu Karnad about the many ways in which the print media in India has evolved over the past 12 years. On the biggest trend in the last 12 years B.G. Verghese: A trend that has accelerated during this period has been the decline of editors.
“The labour correspondent and the farm sector economist are ideas that don’t exist any more in most papers. That means 70 per cent of the people of this country don’t make news.” P. Sainath	You still have editors who are proprietors of papers, but the status of independent editors—who aren’t owners or proprietors but independent journalists—has deteriorated. If the paper makes money without him, journalists and proprietors say, why do we need the fellow? Let’s just have him there as an ornament, a public relations figure. Editorial control has fallen, leading to shoddy journalism and heavy editorialising

in news columns. And there’s no editorial line—it changes like the weathercock, blown around from day to day.P. Sainath: The biggest trend is the growing disconnect between the mass media and the mass reality. A very tiny Indian press, for a hundred years, served a very large social purpose, and tried to speak for the masses. Today, paradoxically, a gigantic Indian press serves a very narrow social purpose, which continues to narrow everyday. Robin Jeffrey: The most conspicuous trend is the remarkable growth of the Hindi press and of the rise of some, and the decline of other, mini-empires in the media business. On the control exercised by advertisers BGV: Following reforms in 1991, when big money started coming in, managers began to feel that editors needed to help bring in the lolly.
The management’s control increased, and the relevance of the market was amplified. It really is a market for news—what makes news? That which the market wants. Produce what the market wants, it will reward you. That syndrome—the TRP of print—came in and we began to see bogus circulation wars. Newspapers have started dumping copies in airports, railway stations, everywhere. They’re no longer	“You’d be a pretty foolish politician today if you took the editors of the English dailies for more free dinners than their regional language counterparts.” Robin Jeffrey

looking for readers; they’re looking for eyeballs.PS: If 80 per cent of your revenues comes from advertising, and 20 per cent from sales—what that means is you’re going to give advertisers four times the importance you give readers. Their preferences and priorities take precedence. RJ: There never was a Golden Age of the Press. On the rise of the regional language press BGV: The rise of the regional language press is a very important and healthy factor. You no longer just have a Gurgaon page but a Gurgaon edition, a Rohtak edition and a Sirsa edition—not at all a bad thing. But too much localisation means you lose national and international perspective, and become parochial. Earlier it was all national and you didn’t know what was going on at the grassroots, and therefore were taken by surprise by ground realities. Now the pendulum may be swinging the other way. Again, this is the lure of the market. RJ: In my view, you would be a pretty foolish politician in India today if you took the editors of the English dailies for more free dinners than their regional language counterparts. I think the new emphasis on local news is, on the whole, a good thing: stories that once would have never been told, but should have been told, now get covered. With this come all the risks and pitfalls: blackmail, rumour, intimidation, and sensationalism. They’ve been around as long as journalism. On the neglect of the poor PS: You see it in the simplest and most direct way: the organisation of beats. source: http://outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20071015&fname=WInterview&sid=1 http://reddy2007.blogspot.com

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