The media and trends in journalism may have undergone a sea change in the past few decades in terms of its technological upgradation, expansion, reach among the readers and audience, but there is no gainsaying the fact there has also been a perceptible decline in journalism over the years more so because of its business model and pressure of market economy.
This is what distinguished media personalities from across the country felt during a seminar on `New age journalism and challenges’ organised here on Saturday jointly by the Editors Guild of India and the Indore Press Club.
Speaking on the challenges in the media and the differences between print and electronic media, Tripurari Sharan, Director General, Doordarshan, said there was perceptible difference between the print and electronic media.
Rajdeep Sardesai, Editor-in-chief, IBN CNN, said television journalism has witnessed a big change in the past 25 years. The TV media had created a mass awareness and had become a mirror to reflect happenings in the society. At the same time, he also expressed concern over crisis of content in TV journalism. In the mad race of gaining high TRP ratings, news channels were compromising with the contents and were making news programmes which were driven by market economy, he said, adding that the current business model of TV news channels whose 95 per cent of revenue come from advertisements were not able to spend its money in developing worthy news contents as they have to pay major chunk of their money to the cable operators who broadcast their news.
Senior journalist Ashutosh, Editor, IBN 7, said television journalism in the past few decades has undergone a metamorphosis. It had moved higher than the speed of wind. While it has changed feudalistic mindset, strengthened democracy in the country, Hindi journalism was facing a kind of `apartheid’ and has not been able to come out of the colonial mindset of the so-called intellectuals and elites of the societies and political class of the country who either refrain from coming on Hindi news channels or prefer to air their views on English news channels. If the journalism has to grow, the colonial mindset of the people has to be changed, he added.