For nearly a decade, the dispatches from the Columbia Journalism Review ( CJR ) were seen as a harbinger of the new challenges confronting journalism. It documented the crisis in the Western news media industry, it investigated how Silicon Valley companies are upending journalism, it examined the limitation of algorithm-driven journalism, it talked about the failure of the pay wall, and about filter bubbles and echo chambers created by social media and its debilitating influence on journalism. One anticipates its arrival in the mailbox with a sense of trepidation.
However, its latest newsletter was a departure. It spoke about the best kind of newspaper war that is happening in the United States right now. It spoke about the competition of competence between the two major U.S. dailies — The New York Times and The Washington Post — in their series of investigative stories about the Donald Trump regime.
The CJR writer observed: “It wasn’t that long ago that both papers were in dire straights. Back in 2013, while The Times was struggling to attract digital subscribers and tweaking its pay wall, Jeff Bezos’s purchase of The Post was seen by some as ‘quixotic adventurism’. Four years later, both outlets have stabilised their financial footing, and news consumers are reaping the benefits.”
Scrutinising the White House
Scrutinising the White House
The close scrutiny of the White House affairs by the two newspaper majors was so intense that Margaret Sullivan, former Public Editor of NYT and the present media columnist for The Post , wrote: “The two papers have been answering each other’s major scoops like smitten teens volleying text messages.” And, to top it, last week also saw Kevin D. Williamson’s article in National Review , “The news ain’t fake,” that addressed the conservative audience who are distrustful of scoops from newspapers seen as left-leaning. He wrote: “We owe it to ourselves to take account of reality. And we owe it to the country, too. It is cheap, it is cowardly, and it is bad citizenship to simply shriek ‘fake news!’ every time reality forces a hard choice upon us. Living in a free, self-governing society means making a great many hard choices, and there is no one to make them but us.” These stories, in a sense, gives us tools to evaluate the role of Indian newspapers in holding those in power accountable.
Evaluating the NDA government
Evaluating the NDA government
This week will mark the completion of three years in power of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The opinion about the performance of the government and that of the media is evenly divided. Those who support the present government, with an enviable presence on digital platforms, say that newspapers were unnecessarily critical of some of the historic decisions of the government.
The other section feels that Indian newspapers have gone into a self-censorship mode and have failed to point out the gap between official rhetoric and the delivery of the official machinery. One criticism, by this section, against the media is that it is focussing more on the acts of omission and commission of the Opposition parties rather than that of the ruling dispensation.
Over the next two weeks, this column will look at how Indian newspapers in general, and The Hindu in particular, reported on the government over the past three years. The views of the reading public play a vital role in defining the character of a newspaper’s coverage. There is a symbiotic relationship between popular opinion and the focus of a newspaper.
The feedback loop works both ways, implicitly and explicitly. I solicit readers’ views on this crucial topic, which will form the backbone of my analysis. I have no hesitation in agreeing with Milan Kundera’s description of our perception of the present: “There would seem to be nothing more obvious, more tangible and palpable than the present moment. And yet it eludes us completely… Each instant represents a little universe, irrevocably forgotten in the next instant.” In this age of information glut — profound, profane, trivia and rumours — we need to take a pause and relook at what type of newspaper war is happening here?
Where does the newspaper’s contrarian and adversarial role end and where does it become a force multiplier for the ruling party? I will restrict my analysis only to newspapers because news television is mimicking gladiatorial sport and that requires a different set of skills and language to explain its content.
readerseditor@thehindu.co.in
