Dilemma of a journalist

BY NEERAJ MAHAJAN| IN Media Business | 19/07/2012

With remarkable changes in the media business, editors have turned managers and journalists paper tigers.

Positive balance-sheet, not professionalism, is the main focus, writes NEERAJ MAHAJAN.

“All newspapers are run to make profits. Full stop. I don't run anything for respectability. The moment I do, I hope someone will come and fire me and get me out of the place,” Rupert Murdoch told his biographer William Shawcross.

This brings us to the foremost question: What is the primary objective of a newspaper — to inform the populace, or to make money?

The objective of news operations for many new organisations, today, is to make money or get something in return. It could be paid news, advertising; nomination as an MP; or any other favour in return. In the process of making the business of news profitable, news itself has become a commodity to be bartered and traded in the most crass and blatant manner. And the values, ethics, and sentiments associated with news have changed.

“Forget anything else that people may tell you… one of the first and foremost objectives of a newspaper is to survive… The point to be noted is when dead men tell no tales how a newspaper that can’t survive, give you news?” counters a publisher of a daily newspaper who did not wish to be quoted.

A case in point is that with the elections to the municipal corporation and the post of mayor to be held in Ghaziabad, even small newspapers, which otherwise do not get much of advertising, are printing thousands of extra copies. Since this is the time when every contestant wants publicity, some newspapers have institutionalized the system of paid news, and the candidates are being charged for the news published in terms of column centimeters. Even those who cannot afford to pay big money each day, are being offered deals such as a small news item and a photograph in the newspaper if they agree to purchase say 1000 copies. Surely this is not journalism.

Missionary zeal

All this is quite different from the past when there was sanctity for news. Salaries in journalism were much lower than in many other jobs. There were people still who wanted to make a few extra bucks but they preferred to do extra work – moon-shining as a freelance than to compromise on ethics and values. There was an aura attached to news. Newspapers were not like any other business. And journalism still had a missionary zeal.

Till around the mid 80s, things were better than they are today. The stereotype image of a journalist was that of a khadi - kurta clad person wearing a cloth jhola and kohlapuri chappals. There was a lot of idealism. Though the values had started diminishing, only a small percentage of journalists were affected. Majority of them still wanted to change society.

Till this time, reporters, publishers and editors had distinct identities. Publishers were the owners but they focused on expanding the business, and the journalist had to mainly deal with the editor. An unwritten brief that everyone understood was: Do whatever you like, but leave the publisher and his business alone…Those days you could even write against politicians or goons. But today, it’s a perplexing situation when either the politicians are buying out publications and news channels or editors/publishers are turning to politics. When politicians are the publisher-editors, the real dilemma before any journalist is how to distinguish between a friend and a foe. The lines of demarcation have merged. Obviously, you can’t bite the hand that feeds you… can you?

The early 90s saw an interesting trend. New newspapers such as the Indian Post and The Independent were started and some of the older ones like the Sunday Observer and the Sunday Mail folded up. Publishers such as Ashwin Bhai Shah of Sunday Observer and Pramod Kapoor of Sunday Mail were fairly successful in their traditional businesses but did not seem to be getting anywhere near the break-even point in their news operations. This phase also saw a series of takeovers. The new managements and the owners had a different perception as to how a newspaper should be run. And then things began to change.

Who is responsible for this?

While things were changing within the newspaper industry, there were a few changes outside which also contributed to the change. One of them, for instance, was the increasing number of arm-chair politicians besides the new concept of board room politics in almost all political parties. Instead of having a mass-level support, politicians were now a product of manipulations and bargains. They had to depend on the mass media to mobilize public support to win elections and to publicize their programs. Politics for them became an extension of media management, and the journalist was simply a conveyor belt for carrying their statements and press releases. Journalism thus became an instrument for promoting and patronizing political parties and politicians. This trend has been accentuated by the increasing ownership of media by politicians and businessmen. This gave rise to some interesting trends.

1: Journalists become paper tigers.

Have you wondered why journalists are called paper tigers? Simple. Outside the office, in front the whole world, they roar like tigers, claiming all the powers to do everything. But the moment they return to the office, they are like harmless cats. Whether they like it or not, the “boss”, who pays them, does prevail.

2: Journalists become a non-productive liability.

Earlier, a person who produced good and prolific copy was called a good journalist and was considered the pride of the organisation, but today people are judged on the basis of their contribution to the organisation’s balance-sheet. Hence, a journalist who just files good stories has become a non-entity as his worth cannot be estimated in economic terms. In contrast, the marketing or circulation executives, who bring in business to the organisation are treated better. The situation is particularly depressing in the language press where journalists have become glorified PROs or liaison officers for their management.

3: Editor becomes a glorified manager

There was a time when editors used to control the contents of a newspaper. Today, in some papers, editors have been marginalized and they have very little or no say in what goes into the newspaper. It is the advertising manager who decides what space should be left for news after all the advertisements and commercially important write-ups, desired by the advertisers and corporate clients, have been placed. There is also a big difference in the editor’s notion of a good paper and a circulation manager’s notion of a good seller.

4: Journalists in the limelight.

In the past, journalists mostly remained behind the scene. They were not supposed to hog the limelight. Today, Journalists have become celebrities, and the meaning of news has changed.

5: This is not journalism, but media business.

Today news is packaged more like a product. The trend is information “at any cost”. The style of coverage of news, too, has undergone a big change. Sensationalism has overtaken ethics and morality.

What is News?

Among other things, the priorities of journalists and news values have also changed. The news media today is passing through a period of flux. This is something that cannot be dismissed lightly in India which has more than 70,000 newspapers and over 500 satellite channels, including some 80 news channels, and is the biggest newspaper market in the world with over 100 million copies sold each day.

Definition of news
Old school	New school
News is what’s important, not the medium.	News is what suits the people in newsroom.
News is anything topical.	News is anything you can cover live.
News is something that interests most of the readers.	News is published information that invites advertising.
News is what people want to know.	News is what gets us money or TRP.

Above all, at least in some media houses, it is not the editor who decides on what is news for the day. On the contrary, he who controls the media decides what makes news. And what gets printed is the news.