Influencers of opinion
Who writes for the opinion pages of newspapers? On what? What sort of character do different newspapers strive to give their opinion pages?
If the opinion pages of newspapers explain trends in current events, and provide more information and argumentative depth than television discussions do, it is useful to map the contours of this commentariat. Are there “same faces” here too, as there are each night on television studios? Whom do newspapers draw upon to explain the news? Which subjects are more likely to feature in edit page comment?
This is a quantitative six-week scan of four newspapers, Monday to Saturday, June 1-July 11, 2015. The four newspapers taken were The Times of India, Hindustan Times, The Hindu and The Indian Express.
The Indian Express, the newspaper that recently packaged itself as being ‘for the Indian Intelligent’ offers the highest tally of opinion page commentary among four newspapers surveyed for six weeks. Bolstered by having the most contributions from universities and think tanks (slightly ahead of the Hindu) as also the largest number of contributors located abroad, mostly on campuses and at think tanks.
Grand total of opinion page articles
|
Newspaper |
Total on Editorial pages |
Total Op-eds |
TOTAL |
|
The Hindu |
36 |
69 |
105 |
|
HT |
79 |
79 |
|
|
TOI |
57 |
57 |
|
|
Indian Express |
72 |
81 |
153 |
The newspapers surveyed fall neatly into two categories. Those that offer two pages of comment every day, and those that restrict their comment pages to one a day. Those in the former category—The Indian Express and The Hindu—also stand out because of less reliance on journalists for these pages. They feature more writers who could be classified as academics, economists and experts.
Number of writers from academia and think tanks
|
Week |
Hindu |
Hindustan Times |
Times Of India |
Indian Express |
|
1 |
7 |
0 |
2 |
9 |
|
2 |
13 |
1 |
0 |
7 |
|
3 |
6 |
3 |
1 |
12 |
|
4 |
6 |
1 |
1 |
10 |
|
5 |
6 |
2 |
2 |
9 |
|
6 |
8 |
1 |
0 |
4 |
|
Total |
46 |
8 |
6 |
51 |
The single opinion page newspapers—The Hindustan Times and the Times of India—have journalists as the single largest professional category among their contributors. They prefer to offer opinion pages with less resort to intellectualism,less political content, more light or satirical pieces,and more TV anchors as commentators.(They also have the higher circulation among the newspapers surveyed.)
So if at one end of the spectrum you had Pratap Bhanu Mehta in the Indian Express, and at the other end, you had Chetan Bhagat in the Times of India.
Professional Writing on opinion Pages
|
Hindu |
Hindustan Times |
Times of India |
Indian Express |
|
|
Academics |
46 |
8 |
7 |
51 |
|
Journalist |
31 |
38 |
32 |
40 |
|
Politician |
8 |
10 |
6 |
14 |
|
Economist |
4 |
2 |
6 |
23 |
|
Expert |
3 |
2 |
1 |
5 |
|
Lawyer |
4 |
2 |
11 |
|
|
Diplomat |
7 |
9 |
1 |
5 |
|
Activist |
7 |
5 |
1 |
|
|
Writer |
3 |
|||
|
Medical Professional |
1 |
3 |
||
|
Environmentalist |
3 |
|||
|
Judge |
1 |
1 |
||
|
CEO |
3 |
1 |
||
|
Scientist |
1 |
|||
|
Executive |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
Banker |
1 |
Among the writers across newspapers there were twenty academics based on US campuses.
Commentators from abroad
|
Week |
Hindu |
Hindustan Times |
Times of India |
Indian Express |
|
1 |
5 |
2 |
3 |
5 |
|
2 |
4 |
1 |
1 |
5 |
|
3 |
1 |
6 |
1 |
6 |
|
4 |
3 |
3 |
2 |
4 |
|
5 |
2 |
0 |
1 |
9 |
|
6 |
3 |
1 |
1 |
4 |
|
Total |
18 |
13 |
9 |
33 |
At 46 over six weeks, the Indian Express had five times as many articles on politics/political history/political economy as the Times of India, five times as many on Economy/Finance/ Business as the TOI, and 3.5 times as many on International Relations/Foreign Affairs.
The categories in which articles in the Times of India were more numerous than in other papers were satire, sports and nutrition/food/health, largely because of the Maggi noodles controversy at that point as well as the Madhya Pradesh eggs-in –school-meals controversy.
The Hindustan Times had more than twice as many articles on the environment during this period than any of the others. On air quality, biodiversity, climate change, mass transit, managing waste, and so on.
The Hindu likewise carried substantially more pieces on law and justice than any of the other papers, as also on the topics of defence and urban development. It also had far more commentary on society and gender than any of the other newspapers.
No. of articles, subjectwise
|
Category |
Indian Express |
The Hindu |
Hindustan Times |
Times of India |
|
Politics/political history/political economy |
46 |
12 |
16 |
9 |
|
International Relations/Foreign Affairs |
35 |
21 |
12 |
10 |
|
Economy/Finance/ Business |
20 |
6 |
8 |
4 |
|
Art & culture |
2 |
3 |
2 |
2 |
|
Society/Gender |
7 |
14 |
9 |
3 |
|
Media |
3 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
Environment |
4 |
3 |
10 |
3 |
|
Governance/Government policies |
9 |
7 |
6 |
3 |
|
Defense |
1 |
7 |
0 |
0 |
|
Law and Justice |
5 |
9 |
4 |
3 |
|
Terrorism/Insurgency |
4 |
3 |
5 |
1 |
|
Agriculture |
2 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
|
Obituary |
4 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
|
Urban Development |
2 |
7 |
1 |
3 |
|
Science and Research |
0 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
|
Cyberspace/Internet |
0 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
|
Education |
3 |
5 |
1 |
3 |
|
Satire |
0 |
0 |
0 |
4 |
|
Sports |
3 |
1 |
1 |
4 |
|
Nutrition /Health/ Food |
3 |
1 |
3 |
5 |
Regular weekly columns affect the quantitative profile. The Indian Express has several: one each from Pakistan and Nepal, one on political history, another by academic Pratap Bhanu Mehta on a range of subjects.
Political history received considerable exposure during this period because of the 25th anniversary of the Emergency, and because the Indian Express has a weekly column on the subject.
In qualitative terms two trends stand out. One, the fact that in this six week period the commentary on current politics approached the single topic obsession of TV. The Indian Express had four edit or op ed page articles on Lalitgate in one week, three on the Bihar alliance in another week, and three on the Najib Jung-ArvindKejriwal conflict in a third week.
Yet, except for the Hindu which took note of the first anniversary of Telangana with two articles on the opinion pages on Telangana and two the next day on Andhra Pradesh, politics in the Southern states did not get a look in.
The second trend is that 50 per cent of the foreign coverage in all the papers taken together is about the neighbourhood, China included. Partly because of the prime minister’s visit to Bangladesh and the cross border operation in Myanmar. But also because the Indian Express has regular columns from Nepal and Pakistan.
Breakup of international coverage
|
|
Week 1 |
Week 2 |
Week 3 |
Week 4 |
Week 5 |
Week 6 |
total |
|
On Neighbourhood |
8 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
34 |
|
On India’s foreign policy |
0 |
3 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
4 |
|
On rest of the world |
2 |
4 |
3 |
6 |
13 |
8 |
35 |
International headlines determined the rest: in this six week period the Greek referendum, the US presidential elections and the Iran nuclear deal merited comment.
Note: the number of authors is greater than the number of articles because some articles have two or more authors.
The raw data on which this mapping is based is available here.