The digital news medium is still struggling to arrive at an adequate financial model. The problem with the electronic media is that the cost of distribution is more than the cost of content. Hence, there is an obvious compromise on the cost of content as the quantity of advertisement available is almost stagnant or having marginal growth, said Minister of Information and Broadcasting Arun Jaitley.
He was addressing a seminar organised by the Indian Institute of Mass Communication on ‘Establishment of a Communication University’. The situation prompts news channels to compete with each other for viewership, resulting in hypes and shrill debates. In this process, the other side of the story is overlooked.
He further said that while most organisations will have its own priorities, some others may compromise giving rise to the problem of paid news which is particularly prevalent during elections. Jaitley said the need of the hour is to get students trained in various forms of reporting in different languages. He, however, added that the best training for a journalist always comes when he is on his feet. According to him, when a journalist is on his feet, he either stays grounded completely just keeping to his kind of reporting or he gets spurred by the fact that some people are overtaking him and, ergo, he has to outdo them.