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Sambhar Mafia - Cooked To Kill!

Sunday, October 16, 2005

The future of print media

The Hindu has a report on the recently concluded Media Perspectives symposium in Chennai:-

Sanjay Pinto, senior special correspondent, NDTV, said the issue of ethics in the use of hidden cameras in sting journalism had to be seen in the light of whether the exercise was for the public good.

Blog journalism was emerging as an alternative to the editorial content of newspapers, Ashok Malik, Senior Editor, The Indian Express, said. However, the issue of broad regulations and censorship/monitoring needed to be examined.

Earlier, N. Murali, Joint Managing Director, The Hindu, said though India had emerged as one of the fastest growing media markets, the growth pattern was ``on the back of flimsy economics.'' Predatory price wars and excessive dependence on advertising revenue had disturbed the economic stability (of newspapers) and journalistic independence. ``What is happening in the market place defies all logic and [we need to return to] sound business principles. Unless newspapers are priced right, the frenetic growth may not be sustainable,'' he added. The Indian media was headed the American way, with news being increasingly doctored to suit advertisers, Kamlendra Kanwar, Resident Editor, The New Indian Express, said. There was a steady erosion of journalistic freedom and trivialisation of content, necessitating safeguards.

The Internet had emerged as the medium of the future and though it needed enormous technological investment, it later bought in incremental revenue, George Zacharias, President and Chief Operating Officer, Sify, said. Though the web had emerged as everybody's medium, the challenge was in leveraging it to give real benefits to real people.

2 Comments:

  • "Blog journalism was emerging as an alternative to the editorial content of newspapers . . . "

    That sounds exciting. It definitely has a long way to go still, however.

    Questions of authenticity of information reported in blogs will always linger on. But blogs score points in being objective in what they say. Blogs are not accountable to bosses who always work the pros and cons out of material before publishing them. Blogs enjoy freedom from being politicised. And as the recent episode on 'Right to Opinion' proved, blogs can push ideas into mainstream journals.

    Despite these, rather than attempting to substitute journals, blog writers must get more prudent in evaluating issues before jumping on to band wagons. Needless to say, blogs are successful only because they are points of view of individuals and they are objective. Still, every person (who is serious enough to have his/her voice heard) must develop the attitude to think and think hard before jumping to conclusions; that would go a long way in enhancing the credibility of this unique and powerful medium of expression.

    By Blogger Krish, at 3:53 PM  

  • @Krish,
    Thanks for your valuable comments. As u rightly pointed out, blogs needs to build lot of credibility to claim that they are an alternative to MSM.

    In the West, we are seeing a trend where leading blogs like Instapundit and Boing Boing are attracting traffic which are almost similar to the traffic of NYT, Washington Post. Having too much power might also be a problem as blogs can spread rumours and half truths much faster than traditional media.

    By Blogger Kaps, at 10:49 PM  

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