Media Watch Is journalism a dying profession ?
March 25, 2023
  • Circulation
  • Advertise
  • Careers
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
Organiser
  • ‌
  • Bharat
  • World
  • G20
  • Editorial
  • Analysis
  • Opinion
  • Sports
  • More
    • Defence
    • RSS in News
    • Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav
    • My States
    • Vocal4Local
    • Business
    • Special Report
    • Culture
    • Sci & Tech
    • Entertainment
    • Education
    • Books
    • Interviews
    • Travel
    • Health
    • Obituary
SUBSCRIBE
No Result
View All Result
  • ‌
  • Bharat
  • World
  • G20
  • Editorial
  • Analysis
  • Opinion
  • Sports
  • More
    • Defence
    • RSS in News
    • Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav
    • My States
    • Vocal4Local
    • Business
    • Special Report
    • Culture
    • Sci & Tech
    • Entertainment
    • Education
    • Books
    • Interviews
    • Travel
    • Health
    • Obituary
No Result
View All Result
Organiser
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Bharat
  • World
  • G20
  • Editorial
  • Opinion
  • Analysis
  • Culture
  • Defence
  • RSS in News
  • My States
  • Vocal4Local
  • Subscribe
Home General

Media Watch Is journalism a dying profession ?

Archive Manager by WEB DESK
Apr 15, 2007, 12:00 am IST
in General
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterTelegramEmail

Writing in The Hindu (March 7), Jeff Jarvis, a professor of Journalism at the City University of New York raised what he called two important questions. He said: ?First, why teach journalism? Aren'tnewspapers and news doomed? Why ensnare young people in a dying profession? And second: How should you teach journalism today??

To the first question his answer was: ?Journalism is evolving?at long last?and actually growing and that'swhat makes this an exciting time to get into the news business.? As for the second question, his answer was that he was taking students through audio, video, slideshows, blogs, wikis, web pages, google maps, photos, interactive forums and data bases. Fair enough answers.

But there is some truth in what he said about newspapers becoming a dying profession. But that is mostly in the United States and in recent times in Britain as well. According to one responsible source, students in the United States no longer read news. Indeed, according to a report by an Indian journalist just returned from the States the situation is truly bad.

Writing in The Hindu again, Sevanti Ninan says: ?Walk into a relative'shome in Atlanta and you discover that they don'ttake newspapers any more on week days…. Go around in a graduate class in Philadelphia and ask how many read newspapers and two out of 15 hands go up.? And a friend reported to her that the number of graduate students at the Columbia School of Journalism reading newspapers were zero!

Sadly, US newspapers are winding up their bureaus abroad because they have ceased to be ?cost-effective?. For an American newspaper it costs about $ 250,000 to maintain a newspaper bureau abroad. In the 1980s, American TV networks each maintained about 15 foreign bureaus; presently, they have six or fewer. So American people are getting to know less and less about more and more countries, which is a dangerous development. An ignorant public can easily be manipulated by a vicious government, which has its own agenda.

Luckily, the situation is just the reverse in India. In India more and more newspapers are selling and The Times of India claims it has the largest circulation in the world! The Chandigarh-based The Tribube (March 15) has announced that ?responding to the demand of its readers for better coverage of the hill state?, it is launching its Himachal Pradesh edition. According to a report seen in website, from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, as recently as October 2005, some 23 publishers and CEOs from the German Magazine Publishers Association had toured India to explore potential joint ventures and alliances with Indian publishers. Even journals like Newsweek, Fortune, Time Out, Men'sHealth, etc., are setting up Indian operations. The Independent of Britain has tied up with Dainik Jagran, which is a leading Hindi paper. Fancy that! Then again it is not just the English media that is thriving. The Indian language papers too are doing well. The Times of India is reportedly planning to have a Kannada paper in Karnataka. The point is that as more and more Indians become literate, their desire to know is growing by leaps and bounds.

Most of the neo-literates can'tafford to have computers but they are sophisticated enough to realise that information on what is going on around them, in their own country and abroad, is important for their own future. Technology, on the one hand, is making information more easily acceptable to people. At the same time it is turning otherwise intelligent people into morons. We have come to a point where plenty of information is available but knowledge is on the decrease. The fashion is ? to break news?, not to explain news. Becoming aware of ?facts? has become more important then to analyse what those ?facts? portray. The public is being inundated with information, but not with knowledge. It is a very unhealthy development that must be resisted. Currently, the fashion is to bring up tabloids on the grounds that they are easy to carry around, unlike broadsheets and hence easier to read. Readers are lured to buy tabloids because they are dazzled by the page designs, the colour and glamour. One whole, page can be given to one news item without enlightening the reader as to the significance of the event reported. The reader hardly realises that he is being taken for a ride. It suits government because no one goes to analyse news and go to the roots of the matter.

Iraq was damned for stocking weapons of mass destruction. No one was ever told that what the US wants is a pliable government in Baghadad that gives easy access to Iraq'soil and gas resources to American companies. Nobody bothers to find out who supplied Iraq with poison gas and other such weapons to attack Iran for nine long years. Currently Iran is being targeted for allegedly manufacturing nuclear weapons. The truth is different. The United States and other western powers in the developed world want to have total access to Iranianian oil and gas, considering that both may get depleted elsewhere in the next two to three decades leading to a steep fall in living standards. The West, notably the United States, wants to control Iranian oil and gas stocks. Nowhere is this discussed. Iran is condemned as a war-mongering state, forgetting that for more than nine years the western powers were instigating Iraq to demolish Iran. Iran failed and is now paying for that failure.

The electronic media does not deal with these matters and even when it does, the retaining power of news in the average listener is low. He sees, he listens and he forgets. It is the print media on the table that helps memory to last. The tragedy is that even the print media in India is more engaged in making money than in educating the people of the land. The point is made that while it is very well to say that the task of the media is to inform, and educate the public, entertaining the reader is also essential. However right now the tragedy is that only entertainment is increasingly being given top priority to promote sales. The excuse behind this explanation is that nearly half the population of India today is under 25 and that youth wants to be entertained, not educated. A sad reflection on our times, but one that has to be faced and corrective measures suggested. And that is the lack of educationists, politicians and social reformers, and hopefully, media elders. We don'thave to ape the West. We should have our own agenda.

ShareTweetSendShareSend
Previous News

A guide to success

Next News

India's Scientific Heritage-III The reasons for oblivion

Related News

India’s recipe to global food security – Millet Mission

India’s recipe to global food security – Millet Mission

Apt goes the saying, ‘a leader on bail’ – Rahul Gandhi has seven such cases

‘Modi surname case’ was not the only case where Rahul Gandhi was charged with defamation, here is a list of cases where he is facing defamation

Senior RSS worker on hunger strike over Brahmapuram waste plant issue

Senior RSS worker on hunger strike over Brahmapuram waste plant issue

Khalistan Saga: A Pandora box of crocodile tears and misinformation war

Khalistan Saga: A Pandora box of crocodile tears and misinformation war

Rahul Gandhi and the ‘National Disinterest’

Rahul Gandhi and the ‘National Disinterest’

Chhattisgarh: 5 Maoists arrested before Union Home Minister’s visit to Bastar

Father Chris Norman & a religious preacher booked under ‘The Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act’ for illegally converting Hindus to Christianity

Comments

The comments posted here/below/in the given space are not on behalf of Organiser. The person posting the comment will be in sole ownership of its responsibility. According to the central government's IT rules, obscene or offensive statement made against a person, religion, community or nation is a punishable offense, and legal action would be taken against people who indulge in such activities.

Latest News

India’s recipe to global food security – Millet Mission

India’s recipe to global food security – Millet Mission

Apt goes the saying, ‘a leader on bail’ – Rahul Gandhi has seven such cases

‘Modi surname case’ was not the only case where Rahul Gandhi was charged with defamation, here is a list of cases where he is facing defamation

Senior RSS worker on hunger strike over Brahmapuram waste plant issue

Senior RSS worker on hunger strike over Brahmapuram waste plant issue

Khalistan Saga: A Pandora box of crocodile tears and misinformation war

Khalistan Saga: A Pandora box of crocodile tears and misinformation war

Rahul Gandhi and the ‘National Disinterest’

Rahul Gandhi and the ‘National Disinterest’

Chhattisgarh: 5 Maoists arrested before Union Home Minister’s visit to Bastar

Father Chris Norman & a religious preacher booked under ‘The Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act’ for illegally converting Hindus to Christianity

China attempts to block Uyghur activist at UNHRC, allowed to speak after US, Eritrea’s support

China attempts to block Uyghur activist at UNHRC, allowed to speak after US, Eritrea’s support

Apt goes the saying, ‘a leader on bail’ – Rahul Gandhi has seven such cases

Apt goes the saying, ‘a leader on bail’ – Rahul Gandhi has seven such cases

“Pathetic and casteist mindset”, BJP’s national president JP Nadda slams Rahul Gandhi over his remarks on Modi surname

“Pathetic and casteist mindset”, BJP’s national president JP Nadda slams Rahul Gandhi over his remarks on Modi surname

With his disqualification as Lok Sabha MP, Rahul Gandhi joins the illustrious club of his grandmom Late Indira Gandhi

With his disqualification as Lok Sabha MP, Rahul Gandhi joins the illustrious club of his grandmom Late Indira Gandhi

  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Cookie Policy
  • Refund and Cancellation
  • Delivery and Shipping

© Bharat Prakashan (Delhi) Limited.
Tech-enabled by Ananthapuri Technologies

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Bharat
  • World
  • Editorial
  • Analysis
  • Opinion
  • Defence
  • Culture
  • Sports
  • Business
  • RSS in News
  • My States
  • Vocal4Local
  • Special Report
  • Sci & Tech
  • Entertainment
  • Education
  • Books
  • Interviews
  • Travel
  • Health
  • Obituary
  • Subscribe
  • Advertise
  • Circulation
  • Careers
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Refund and Cancellation

© Bharat Prakashan (Delhi) Limited.
Tech-enabled by Ananthapuri Technologies