Murthy and Challa (2).doc

7/29/2019 Murthy and Challa (2).doc

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An Analysis of Trends in First Page Priorities ofIndian Print Media Reporting-A Case Study of

four English language Newspapers

C.S.H.N.MURTHY, Professor in Journalism and Mass Communication,

School of Journalism and Mass Communication, A-8B, IMSCampus, Institute of Management Studies, Sector 62, Noida,

UP.201303.India. E-mail: [email protected] /[email protected]

CHALLA RAMAKRISHNA,Assistant Professor in Journalism and MassCommunication, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication,

Andhra University, Visakhapatnam. A.P. 530 003. India E-mail:[email protected]

About the author(s):

C.S.H.N.Murthy, earlier worked as an Assistant Professor in theDepartment of Adult and Media Education, Ministry of Education,

Government of Eritrea, Asmara, Eritrea for two years during 2003-

2005. His articles were published in international journals such asJournal of Adult and Continuing Education (UK-NIACE), Educational

Media International, (Taylor and Francis), Turkish Online Journal ofDistance Education (YOJDE-Turkey) and The Hoot, (www.thehoot.org

a South East Asian Media Web Portal). He presented a number ofpapers (peer reviewed) at numerous international conferences

organized by AACE (USA), and the latest one to cite most importantly

was the Pan Commonwealth Forum 5 (PCF5) Conference jointlyorganized by Commonwealth of Learning and University of London

(July13-17,2008). He also published a number of papers in Indianjournals such as VIDURA (www.pressinstitute.org) and Advertising

Express (ICFAI University Press), etc. He has so far published two

booksSecularism and Indian Press and Media Education in ThirdWorld.

CHALLA RAMAKRISHNA has presented numerous papers at theConferences held in Canada and France. The Andhra University Press,

Visakhapatnam, has published his Ph.D work in the forma of amonograph entitled The History of Freedom of Media. Earlier he

worked in media in various capacities such as Press correspondent andPublic Relations Officer of Andhra University for several years.

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mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.thehoot.org/http://www.pressinstitute.org/mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.thehoot.org/http://www.pressinstitute.org/


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An Analysis of Trends in First Page Priorities ofIndian Print Media Reporting-A case study of

four English language Newspapers

Abstract:

A critical analysis of the first page reporting priorities of the four

leading news papersThe Hindustan Times, The Indian Express, The

Times of India (all being published from New Delhi and Lucknow) andThe Hindu (Only from New Delhi and Southern States)reveals a

number of interesting shifts in the paradigms of news reporting andnews values. The analysis, which involves the first page news

coverage (including headlines, type of content, photos and

advertisements), offered an insight into the departures from thetraditional news values. The study has witnessed a growing trend for

first reporting and investigative reporting increased use of large photos(especially photos of the main players in each story), and the use of

long titles and large fonts for even short reports. These findings

suggest an increasing tabloidization and trivialization of news. Thisstudy applies the strong market and weak market orientation theories

of Randal Beam to the Indian media, and attempts to correlate

developments in Indias newsrooms with broader changes in Indian lifestyles and valueswithin a society experiencing increased incidencesof crime, corruption and litigation.

Key Words: Paradigm Shift, News Values, Globalization, Coverace,Strong market orientation, Weak market orientation, Political, Crime,

Investigative, Economic, Social and Legal

***

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An Analysis of Trends in First Page Priorities of

Indian Print Media Reporting-A case study offour English language Newspapers

Introduction

The Indian media is booming on all the frontsprint, electronic and

web journalism (Vanita Kohli, 20031). All this owes its credit to

globalization and economic reforms ushered into during 1991-96. Thethrust and impetus the economic reforms and globalization received,

both before 1991-96 and after, resulted in the reformatting of thenews papers, especially print media, which not only increased its

number of pages but also began to issue special supplements each day

in the name of different categories gender-wise (womens page),subject wise (Education, Employment or Opportunities,

Finance/investment, Health, Youth page Matrimonials, Classifides,etc.) in order to widen its readership and to cater to the vast

advertising requirements of business establishments, large softwareand hardware multinational and national corporations, motor and

vehicle industries, besides banks and infrastructure (telecom and

mobile) organizations that started just burgeoning2 (Chakravarti S,1996). Appadurai first time described it as mediascape3 (1990:22).

Further, to overcome the competition arising from the Magazinegenres such as India Today(1975) and Chitralekha (started in 1950,

went into colour by 1981), which by then already went into colourprint as a whole, the black and white mastheads of the majority

English national news papers (The Hindu, The Times of India, TheHindustan Times, etc) and the regional (Eenadu and Vaartha, Andhra

Jyoti etc in Telugu) news papers turned into color, followed by

coloured special Sunday editions and supplements4 (Jeffrey, Robin1998,2000). Thus an unprecedented competition had ensued among

the national and regional news papers to attract the readers both byway of slashing the prices (Samir Jains-Times of India formula of

fixing price for each days paper differently1) and increasing thenumber of pages in the form of special daily supplements. In theregional editions zone wise publications in half-demy size began with

colored mastheads and Eenadu alone had around 32 such zonaleditions attached to main newspapers. Soon this was followed by

other competitors Vaartha, Andhra Bhoomi , Andhra Jyoti, etc in

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Andhra Pradesh. Later this culture spread entire South India1,4 (VanitaKohli, 2003; Jeffrey Robin, 1998,2000).

Almost all such supplements and additions earmarked a lot space for

classifieds and heavy advertisements. These structural changes

followed by heavy technological modifications in the productionprocesses logically led to heavy circulation figures consequently

garnering heavy advertisements from big business houses andaugmenting the gross revenues of print media1,5, (Vanita Kohli,

2003;Ravindranathan P.K, 2004,2005). This marked the beginning of

the market driven or market oriented journalism in India, though itoriginally commenced in the US in 1980s but picked up momentum in

late 1990s and spread to the developing nations like India, China, etc.(Beam, A Randal, 2000)6,7.

Randal Beam defines market driven or market oriented journalism asan organization which selects target markets for its product, identifies

the wants and needs of potential customers in its target markets, andseeks to satisfy those wants and needs as efficiently as possible6,7. For

a news organization, a strong market orientation implies that thenewspaper, magazine, or television station will aggressively seek to

determine the kinds of information that readers or viewers say they

want or need and will provide it, says Randal Beam. Thussu8

(2000:34) too concurs with the same definitions of Randal Beam. The

mediascape of the South, writes Thussu (2000:34), has beentransformed in the 1990s under the impact of neo-liberal, market-

oriented economic policies that encourage privatization andderegulation8. Such policies include opening up the media industries toprofit-seeking transnational corporations who are more interested in

entertainment than public service, say Shakuntala Rao and NavjitSingh Johal9 (2007:6).

With post coldwar globalization, the US inspired news andentertainment programs made up of game, chat, and reality shows,

programming that Clausen10 (2004: 27) calls the transnational genreconventions have come to dominate the mediascape of the South,

including the content of the Indian media, write Shakuntala Rao andNavjit Singh Johal9 (2007:6). Today, the Indian media is passingthrough dramatic shift in favor of consumerism and the content of the

media is becoming more and more market driven, says Sharma11

(2002).

The share of the advertising in the total revenues of the Indian media

has been steadily increasing since the liberalization process

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began-from a supplementary 25-30% in the early 1990s to 45-55% in200411. (Sharma, 2002: 7-8). Until a few years ago, India had only

handful of market research agencies. But today they stood at morethan 20 by 2004 most of which are owned by multinationals.

(Shakuntala Rao and NS Johal, 2007: 6)9. However, it should be noted

that most of the print media advertising is gradually losing its groundto the electronic media especially Television1 (Vanita Kohli: 2003).

Randal Beam points out that a similar situation in the US has causedthe market driven journalism in print media6,7 (2000: 369). Randal

Beam in his extensive studies, quoting the works of Rebecca Ross

Albers6 and Ajay Kohli and Bernand J. Jaworski7 on the US print mediamarket-driven journalism, including content analysis, found that there

are two types of market driven journalisms: Strong marketorientation and Weak market orientation. Strong market orientation

media had lesser content of public sphere or public service and public

affairs than weak market orientation. However, Randal Beam (2000)observed that despite market driven journalism of the strong market

oriented media, the latter retained the accountability to the public andits adversarial role6.

The present study endeavors to examine the applicability of Randal

Beam6 (2000) observations to the Indian media in terms of content

differences, accountability and adversarial role. According to the latestsurvey report of the National Readership Survey (NRS), the Times

Group of Bennet Coleman is the largest circulated English dailynewspaper followed by The Hindu a publication that extends to North

India from the Southern Chennai (National Readership Survey,Retrieved March 18,2005 from http://www.ACnielesen.co.in/news.asp?newsID=109)..The Times group (TOI-BCCL) alone which is a 15 billion

rupees behemoth generates anywhere between 25-30 percent revenuein gross margins. The Hindustan Times (HT) generates a gross profit

around 800-900 millions every year. The print media occupies around

43% total advertising as against 46% of advertising carried out by TVand Cable channels. The Hindu and The Indian Express groups do

generate gross revenues between 3.5-4 billions a year1. (Vanita Kohli,2003)

The circulation figures and advertising revenue therefore tookprecedence over the editorial policies turning upside down the

conventional pyramid (with Editorial department top and Commercialinterests at bottom) with commercial considerations top and the

editorial departments at base12,9 (GN Ray: 2006, 2007; ShakuntalaRao and Wasserman, 2008). The dominance of advertising world over

Editorial functions touched its zenith when a soft cool drink Rasnaran

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http://www.acnielesen.co.in/news.asp?newsID=109http://www.acnielesen.co.in/news.asp?newsID=109http://www.acnielesen.co.in/news.asp?newsID=109http://www.acnielesen.co.in/news.asp?newsID=109


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an advertisement right in the middle of editorial space in The SaturdayTimes, a colour supplement of TOI, heralding a new era of commercial

and marketing interests overtaking the editorial priorities1 (VanitaKohli, 2003).

Against the backdrop a new trend of editorial priorities has begun togain momentum transcending the conventional reporting and news

values in mainstream journalism. The present study therefore seeks toestablish how this transition has to come to stay and stabilize as an

offshoot of market oriented or market driven journalism, besides

exploring some of the consequences of such a deviation.

Methodology

The study is a simple descriptive and analytical one, though

quantitative estimates were carried out on the first page content tosupport the findings arrived at qualitatively, based on the previous

methodologies reported by Randal A Beam6 (2000) and Lars W.Nord

and Jesper Stromback13 (2006). It analyzesthe first page coverage ofnews items in terms of category of the content besides the number of

photos and advertisements, long headlines and large fonts, etc.occupying the first page using simple quantitative analysis as followed

by Lars W Nord and Jesper Stromback13.

Hypotheses

As Randal Beam observed that market driven journalism willdiscourage the news media from providing important information

about public affairs7 (Ajay K Kohli and Bernard J.Jawoski, 1990:1-18).

Information that is useful for the public sphere s seldom definedprecisely. Croteau and Hoynes7 broadly describe it as information

about current events, government, civic affairs, the public interest anddemocratic processes. On the other they (strong market oriented print

media) de-emphasize public service journalism, leaving society withoutthe information necessary to govern itself. One more assumption

about the market driven journalism of strong market oriented print

media is that they devote excessive resources to the publicationsappearance and to providing readers with devices that allow easy

processing of information6 (Randal Beam, 2000:373, Mc Manus, 1996).Nash6, for example argues that the editors are spending less time

considering content and much more on layout, graphics, typefaces,

pictures or photos and grabby headlines (1998:10,30). ShakuntalaRao and Navjit S Johal9 (2007) found that Indian print media was less

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concerned about the newsroom values but Shakuntala Rao9 (2008)argued that Indian broadcast media however retained the

accountability by demanding explanation from the government withregard to corruption, crime and legal issues an important observation

that supports Randal Beam6 that the strong market oriented media

players still retained the grit for the accountability and not pandered tothe audience interests totally. Thus, Randal Beam applied his

methodology to analyze two things: i. content differences amongstrong and weak newspapers, ii. Lay out differences in making up

pages. Our study also focused on these aspects of Indian newspapers.

This situation in India should therefore reflect two primary

assumptions:

H1. The Randal Beam theory of strong and weak market orientations

concerning the market driven journalism applies to the Indian mediaboth in the content differences and the lay out of the print pages as

well.

H2. The Indian print media too pursued the market driven journalismin keeping with the socio cultural changes that crept into Indian

society in the wake of globalization and privatization.

Sample of the Study

The study covers the first pages of four leading English news papersTimes of India (TOI), Hindustan Times (HT), The Indian Express (IE)

and The Hindu (TH) each comprising 30 issues. Whereas TOI, HTandIEwere Lucknow regional editions, The Hindu was Delhi based edition.

The choice is deliberate to draw appropriate comparisons with regardto coverage, photos and advertisements between one Delhi based

national level news paper-- The Hindu-- with the three regional

editionsTOI, HT and IE, though the latter three have Delhi basednational editions also. Further the study is restrictd to first page alone

as first page plays a very important role in the context of conveyingnews headlines of the day as quickly as the TV headlines convey to the

viewers. Further first page assumes tremendous significance in termsof attracting the readers at glance and as such its marketing impacthas terrible potential. In view of this the analysis of the sample is

limited to the first page itself.

Analysis and Discussion

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As mentioned earlier the analysis meanders through 3 broadindicators of market driven journalismcoverage, photos and

advertisements, which make up the front page of 4 news papersTimes of India, Hindustan Times, The Indian Express and The Hindu.

In respect of coverage, the analysis deals how different newspapers

treated the news under the caption common reporting versus diversereporting, prioritized reporting under different aspects such as public

affairs, economics, crime, legal, and social. The second aspect ofanalysis also dwells on different market driven strategies the print

media news rooms resort to as space filling strategies in lieu of the

news by making up the first page with long headlines for shorter newsitems, large fonts for shorter titles, besides using photos for all

important characters of news and allowing the precious first pagespace with Advertisements.

Coverage

In respect of coverage at macro-level The Times of India reported

nearly 273 news items (both major and minor news items put

together) as against 290 by The Hindustan Times, 267 by TheIndianExpress and 285 by The Hindu for the same period and dated issues

(See Table I).

Table I. Showing Distribution of Common News Itemsin the First Page Among Four News Dailies

S.No. Name of the News daily Major Minor1 Times of India 26

(9.5%)09

(3.29%)

2. The Hindustan Times 33(11. 4%)

04(1.37%)

3. The Indian Express 24(8.9%)

11(4.11%)

4. The Hindu 33(11.85%)

07(2.45%)

Further if the percentages of news items reported as against totalitems (including Photos and Adverts) were calculated for each of the

news papers (without taking mean into consideration) again the

Times of India reported less while The Hindu reported the highest.(Table IV b). The difference between Times of India and Indian

Express was due to less number of advertisements under minorcategory in Indian Express (Table II).

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On the other hand the difference between the Hindustan Times and

The Hindu was largely due to higher number of advertisementsunder major category in The Hindu.

Table II. Frequency of Items on the first Page

S.No. Description TOI HT IE TH

1. News

i. Major 194 169 168 152ii. Minor 79 121 99 133

2. Photos

i. Major 31 40 27 33ii. Minor 121 126 114 35

3. Adverts

i. Major 14 00 14 22ii. Minor 97 08 59 14

TOI: Minor News: News Digest and Snap-Shots(Sunday);HT: Minor News: Short-

Takes;IE: Minor News: Quick Takes;TH: Minor News: Briefly ;Photos: Major: 2 Col

to 8 Column in width running upto 4 to 8 in height; Photos: Minor: 1 Col to 11/2Col in width running upto 1 to 2 in height ;Adverts: Major: 2 Col to 8 Column in

width running upto 4 to 8 in height; Adverts: Minor: Single Column sq.Centimeter

Table III. Mean of News Items appearing in eachpapers front page

Adding up of News Itemsappearing in the front page of

TOI, HT, IE and TH

Expected Number or Mean of

items that can appear in eachpapers front page

273+290+267+285

273+290+267+285 = 278.5

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Whereas the major Advertisements in The Hindu were more than the

Times of India, the advertisements under Minor category in theTimes of India were outnumbering all other newspapers. Tables II

and IV (a, b,c, and d) show that Times of India reported less and

The Hindustan Times reported highest.

The Indian Express had a moderate share of advertisements comparedto almost negligible share ofThe Hindustan Times (Table II). Tables IV

c and IV d clearly showed the percentages shared by the Photos and

Advertisements in the front page of each newspaper.

The Times of India had highest share of the first page for photos andadvertisements--among all other three newspapers. The Hindustan

Times had only a slightly higher percentage of share of photos over

TheTimes of India. This is largely due to lack of Major advertisementsin The Hindustan Times. Further the Major Advertisements were zero

with Minor advertisements being very less in The Hindustan Times . Asa result the The Hindustan Times paper had higher scope for more

coverage of news which it does by providing in detail in largerquantities running in long column centimeters. Though the space

available for coverage for both The Times of India and The Hindustan

Times was nearly same, The Times of India provides more number ofitems than news in detail in larger quantities for each item. Thus The

Times of India offers more space for more news items, more photosand more advertisements compared to The Hindustan Times, Indian

Express and The Hindu. On the other The Indian Express which hasless advertisements than The Times of India but has more than TheHindustan Times and The Hindu offers greater space for more number

of Major and Minor news items (267) as against The Times of India(273) coming close to it in the percentage of coverage. Finally The

Hindu has highest space meant for coverage due to its lower share of

Photos (17.48%) and the advertisements (9.25%).

Table IVa. Percentages of News Items ActuallyReported for in front page of each News Paper

S.N. Name of the News Paper PercentageCalculation

Percentage

1 Times of India 100x273/278.5 98%

2 Hindustan Times 100x290/278.5 104%

3 Indian Express 100x267/278.5 95.8%

4 The Hindu 100x285/278.5 102.3%

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b. Percentages of News Items out of Total items(including Photos and Adverts) in the front page of

each news paper

S.No Name of the News

paper

Adding up total items

in the front page

Percentage

of News

Items outof all

others

1. Times of India 273+152+111=436 62.61%

2. Hindustan Times 290+166+08=464 62.5%

3. Indian Express 267+141+73=481 55.5%

4. The Hindu 285+68_36=389 73.26%

The discussion in the foreground thus establishes the following facts

logically in order of development of analysis:

1. The lesser the Photos the greater the coverage (The Hindu Indian

Express>The Hindu).

c. Percentages of Photos out of Total items in the frontpage of each news paper

S.No. Name of the News

Paper

Number

ofPhotos

in eachpaper

Calculation Percentage

1 Times of India 152 100x152/436 34.86%

2 Hindustan Times 166 100x166/464 35.77%

3 Indian Express 141 100x141/481 29.31%

4 The Hindu 68 100x68/389 17.48%

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d. Percentages of Adverts out of Total items in thefront page of each news paper

S.No. Name of the

News paper

Number of

Adverts

Calculation Percentage

1 Times of India 111 100x111/436 25.45%

2 Hindustan Times 08 100x08/464 1.72%

3 Indian Express 73 100x73/481 15.17%

4 The Hindu 36 100x36/389 9.25%

The above inferences reflect a paradigm shift in the perception of the

editorial department as to what constitutes the first page priorities ofreporting especially in relation to deciding the news from common

reporting vs diverse reporting.

Common reporting vs diverse reporting:

Table I showed the number of items commonly reported in the first

pages of the four newspapers. Whereas Times of India and Indian

Express had nearly equal percentage-- among major news Itemsincommon reporting of the same news items, The Hindustan Times and

The Hindu had equal percentage of common reporting of news items.Similar relationships, as stated above, were found in the case with

the minor items. In terms of greater diversity in coverage the

following equation aptly explains the order--- The Indian Express>Times of India> The Hindustan Times > The Hindu. In other words,

The Hindu, despite absorbing all the modern trends, still retains someits past value based reporting as far as first page priories are

concerned.

The data presented above showed clearly that both The Times of

India and The Indian Express had more space for diverse reportingcompared to The Hindustan Times and The Hindu. Whereas The Times

of India offered the diversity by providing news from a range ofsubjects including speculative and gossip stories, The Indian Express

had endeavoured to balance its coverage by offering the news fromother states of the country, besides stories on science, health andresearch.

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Table V. Percentages of News Items ReportedCategorywise

Name of the News

Paper

Politi-

cal

(%)

Crimes

(%)

Investig

ative

(%)

Econo

mic

(%)

Social

(%)

Legal

(%)

Times of India 33.69 21.97 0 2.56 22.7 19

Hindustan Times 35.17 22.06 2.75 4.82 12.75 25.86

Indian Express 40 21.07 3.7 7.8 12.3 14.23

The Hindu 48.42 25.61 0.7 6.3 4.56 14.38

Priorities of Reporting

In our analysis we found that the market orientations of Indian news

papers have allowed the news rooms to process the news or coverage

in the following order of priority.

Political> Crime>Legal>Social>Economic>Investigative

a. Political Reporting or reporting of Public Affairs

As a policy, almost all the newspapers have adopted political reportingas primary mandate of first page coverage. However the political

coverage over years assumed more and more new dimensions with

the increasing politicization of more and more spheres along with the

increasing globalization and privatization. For instance the recentIndian Premiere League (IPL League) cricket matches and ICLformation began to fall in public affairs domain.

Whereas The Hindu had highest coverage of Political News, The IndianExpress stood next with followed by The Hindustan Times and The

Times of India . Most of these stories belonged to issues related toregional, national and international issues inclusive of policy matters.

When it came to Quota Bills (affirmative action), The Indian Expresshad highest coverage followed by The Hindu. However in respect of

communal issues and cultural and sports, it was The Times of India

which had reported maximum items followed by The Indian Express,The Hindustan Times and The Hindu. In fact The Indian Express had

run special stories in the name of Missing Muslimvis a visRajendraSachar Committees Report during this period and as such its own

reporting coverage in this regard would automatically be high while

other papers did not take as much interest as The Indian Express had

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shown except covering the statements of the Ministers including thePrime Minister on this issue.

b. Crime Reporting

The first page reporting today is embedded with unprecedented crimereporting, most of which is again dominated by the political crime and

violence. Whereas The Hindu had reported the highest , the remainingfollowed the order :The Indian Express > The Hindustan Times>The

Times of India. On the other hand, non-political crime coverage was

very high in The Times of India followed by The Hindu , The HindustanTimes and Indian Express. Thus Crime Reporting constituted next

most important favoured reporting, next to political reporting, in thefirst page priorities. Most of the crime reported in the front page

pertains to the crimes (such as rape or murder) committed against

the women of elite society egs. Niana Sahani vs Satish Sarma,Priyadarshini mattoo vs Santosh, Jessical Lal vs Manu Sharma, Nitish

Katara vs Vikas Yadav. The crimes such as flesh trade involvingpolitical mafia or ring leaders, illegal relationships between some

prominent women and political leaders (such as AmarendramaiTripathi, a former Minister in the Cabinet of Mulayam Sing Yadav,

Chief Minister of Uttara Pradesh and Madhumati, a noted poetess in

Hindi), etc. have run into serial reporting or regular reporting.

At one stage the media set itself to the task of conducting trial on itsown--deciding who is whoa matter which should have been rightly

decided by the independent but nagging Judiciary in India. Thoughthis kind Media activism proved fruitful in cases like Niana Sahani orJessical Lal in reversing the judgements of the lower court by the High

courts in bringing the culprits to book, the general feeling is that themedia was again selective in cases of crime, which promote its

circulation, alleged Sevanti Ninan a regular columnist to The Hindu.

Even, the coverage of crime acquired cinematic portrayal or

representation. The photographs of ghastly incident, sketches showinghow the crime was committed, the media speculations, the public

opinionall offered the story the status of a fiction or a crimethriller that would be of greater interest to the readers which again isa market oriented journalism.

The changing lifestyles the globalization brought in its wake and the

declining traditional values in different walks of life contributed toincreasing crime against the women and children due to break down of

family centered relations giving way to illegal and unwanted

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relationships. The repetitive publication of photos of the accused orconvicted or witnesses everytime, when a hearing was scheduled in a

court of law was suggestive of market-oriented strategy rather thanvalue based reporting. The glorification of victims as well as the

perpetrators both touched their zenith following coverage of crime in

the front page.

c. Investigative

The study revealed that except The Indian Express and The Hindustan

Times no other paper under the study has shown deep commitmentto the Investigative journalism. But to the extent both the papers,

The Indian Express and The Hindustan Times, had done investigativereporting, a constant and nagging refrain that which was first

reported in these columns reflected the papers interests lay

elsewhere, preferably marketing. It does not mean that The Times ofIndia does not do investigative journalism. It does but occasionally

compared to The Indian Express and The HindustanTimes. What soever may be the subject of investigative journalism; the refrain first

reported in the follow up stories shows the investigative journalismmore as a craze than as a social commitment done for a cause and

purpose. Viewed from this point, investigative journalism became a

forte of the paper be it The Indian Express or The Hindustan Times.Soon, it appears that it might become a trend of all the news papers

including those like Times of India and The Hindu which werepresently maintaining a low key.

This stands in deep contrast with the spirit of investigative journalismdone a couple of decades back by N.Ram and Chitra Subrahmanyam

(The Hindu), Arun Shourie, and Coomi Kapoor (Indian Express), etc.

d. Economic

It is one important area of reporting in the post globalization and

economic reforms. Yet it finds lowest priority among the others of thefirst page priorities. In terms of coverage also, The Indian Express

had given the highest coverage compared to lowest ofThe Times ofIndia. In fact the price rice, spiraling inflation, the plight of farmersdue to lack of support price and marketing from the Government side

and increasing stories of farmers suicides should have taken moreprecedence over other categories and sub-categories. But, in reality

contrary happens with no explanation emerging from the mediasources.

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e. Social

The Times of India has given more importance to the storiesemanating from the social themes backdrop. Whereas The Hindustan

Times and The Indian Express had done some reporting on the social

themes, The Hindu had done the least. The Times of India hadreported more on Infrastructure and development followed by

Welfare. Where as Times of Indias coverage of social issuesencompassed a bewildering variety social themes including Abhishek

Bacchan (Son of popular film star Amitab Bacchan) and Aishwarya

Rays (former Miss Universe) proposed marriage, Abhishek getting theUttara Pradesh State Film Award, the Indian Express had somewhat a

different approach and offered a number of articles or reports onwildlife to space science. Most of the social themes tend to be the

gossip stories and speculative journalism.

f. Legal

Next to crime, it is the legal stories, which occupied highest

importance in the first page reporting. Especially the verdicts of thelower courts, tribunals, disciplinary proceedings of various forums

including court martial inquiry of Military, High Court and Supreme

Court rulings or judgements, and proceedings of the ElectionCommission covered this major sector. The Hindustan Times

followed by The Times of India had given highest coverage for thelegal stories compared to The Indian Express and The Hindu. Most of

the legal stories again revolve round the crimes of the politicians andbureaucrats which again drive one to the popular perception that themedia tend to report mostly about the women and politicians a fact

which tends to associate itself with market oriented journalism thanvalue based journalism. Aside from handling criminal cases, the High

Courts and the Supreme Court of India had to deal with a good

number of cases where the Government wanted to amend theConstitution in such a way that such an action on the part of the

Government escaped judicial scrutiny. The quota bills especially cameunder the severe scrutiny of the Supreme Court as it felt that such an

action amounted to changing the very basic structure of the IndianConstitution. As such one finds judicial activism as a positivedevelopment to check the one-upmanship of the Executive.

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Page lay out--characteristics of market drivenjournalism

In the process of analysis, it is found that the Indian print media

reflected the same characteristics- simple headlines to long headlinesand large size fonts, too many photos and advertisements - that were

ideally found in the papers, which took to the path of market drivenjournalism. (Randal Beam, 2000). The framing of headlines implied

more than academic and literary considerations for the reader. In fact

a headline of a front page of a newspaper is supposed to be akin tothat of the screen of the news headlines of the Television. It is

therefore an opportunity to offer the readers a quick look at theimportant stories of the day in a shortest possible time (Nash, 1998).

Pitched against such a situation, it is natural to go for shorter newstitles with more lucid and simple English. Whereas The Times of India,

The Hindustan Times and The Hindu followed the trend in tune withthe above logic, the titles ofThe Indian Express are found to be too

lengthy with a lot of text place upon the headline and below the

headline.

In fact the other newspapers like The Times of India, The HindustanTimes and The Hindu, though adopt only one tier or two tier short

headlines, use large fonts even for smaller news reports running into

single columns or double columns instead of multiple columns. Furthergiving longer, two to three tier titles for even shorter single columns

appeared to be a space filling strategy.

Space filling strategy of the front page is an important factor in thefront page lay out on each day especially in the context of overcoming

the crisis of news. Apart from manipulating titles long multi-tier titles

to large sized fontsthe use of photos, sketches and caricatures(associated with crime reporting mostly) is another strategy to fill up

the space. Though the photos have aesthetic appeal to the eyes of thereaders in the colour print, especially when the popular adage says

that a photo speaks thousand words than an article, the purpose ofdisplaying the photos of criminals and the accused in the similarmeasure does not show the strategy in the proper perspective (ef.

Bharati Yadav Photo--in the case of her boy friend Nitish Katarasmurder by her own brother Vikas Yadav-- appearing as witness

reported in Indian Express, The Hindu, Times of India and The

Hindustan Times).

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The analysis clearly found that there is no judicious use of photos. It

is also found that some photos are unusually long in size with nopurpose forthcoming. In some cases of reporting photo of the lead

character appear with every story though not required. Showing the

photos of criminals everyday in fact give a celebrity status to thecriminals than showing them as criminals. In certain instances, some

photos are just published without any story accompanying it either inthe front page or in the inside pages. Sometimes the photos do not

even have by-lines. These are common features of all newspapers

under the study.

The study therefore recommends a lot of strategic reviewing of photoinsertion in the front page though market considerations dictate use

of more colour photos.

Similarly, the major advertisements in the first page of all the

newspapers occupied the right hand corner of the page at the anchorspace. Mostly educational institutions and banks were the prominent

advertisers in the first page. It is purely a departure from what Indianprint media were a decade ago. It was a rare situation two decades

back to see an advertisement in the front page itself, let alone anchor

space. This has become a trend in the current advertising in Indianprint media in keeping with the increasing business the educational

institutions and banks bubbling with privatization. The Advertising inthe front page was also part of space filling strategy. In a way the

papers themselves look forward to selling space in the front-pageright hand corner (anchor space) at high tariff rates to overcome thecrisis of news and to cover up lack of diversity coverage in the front

page.

The preceding interpretation upholds the Hypotheses H1 and H2 and

proves that the Indian media had completed the process ofmetamorphosis into the market driven journalism. Whereas Randal

Beam6 studied the content and lay out differences between the strongand weak market oriented news papers on the basis of prerecorded

circulation figures, our study focused on the content and layoutdifferences among four leading English news papers as they wereobtaining and transforming themselves into the market driven

journalism. Our study therefore did not categorize these fournewspapers into strong and weak market oriented categories before

the study itself. Thus, in our study, out of the four newspapers, TheTimes of India appeared to be more market driven and has strong

market orientation. The Hindu appeared to be less market driven with

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weak market orientation. The Hindustan Times and The IndianExpress are in the transition phase and would acquire the strong

market orientation sooner or later.

Table VI. Mean Standard Deviation and Coefficient of

Variation of the Items of the Coverage

Name of the NewsPaper

Mean

X

StandardDeviation

Coefficientof Variation

Variance

The Times of India 45.60 26.33 57.74 693.26

The Hindustan Times 48.33 32.50 67.24 1056.25

The Indian Express 44.50 31.63 71.00 1000.45

The Hindu 47.50 46.57 98.04 2168.76

Table VII. Determining the Correlation Coefficientbetween the Four News Dailies for items of News

Coverage

Correlation Between x2 Y2 xy Coefficient ofCorrelation

r

TOI (x) and HT (y) 4160.20 6336.93 6376.65 +1.24*-0.1480=+1.09

HT (x) and IE (y) 6336.93 6005.50 6190.18 +1.004

TOI (x) and IE(y) 4160.20 6005.50 4656.30 +0.931TH (x) and TOI 13013.25 4160.20 6930.10 +0.941

TH(x) and IE(y) 13013.25 6005.50 8702.50 +0.984

TH (x) and HT(y) 13013.25 6336.93 8874.15 +0.977

corrected using Probable Error for Coefficient of Correlation

r=0.6745x1-- r2 / N

The observed F is 0.0137 < 4.94 for the 3, 20 factor level of v1/ v2 of

the table F. Therefore the difference in the sample is less significantand is good sample in terms of coding and categories formation also.

Since the coefficient of correlation and ANOVA showed the samples

under the study bearing positive correlation and the difference amongthe samples being less significant, the above prioritization of the broad

categories of content could be fairly considered as a trend, showing a

marked departure from the past that came to establish as a marketdriven journalism among the print media.

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Table VIII. Analysis of Variance of the frequencies ofNews Items in Coverage among four dailies

Source ofVariation

SS Degreesof

freedom

d.f.

Mean

Squares

MS

F-Ratio 1% levelof signifi-

cance

BetweenSample

Within

Sample

61.08

29515.88

(k-1)=

4-1=3

(n-k)

24-4=20

20.36

1478.48

20.36/

1478.48

= 0.0137

F (3,20)=4.94

Total 29576.96 23

Conclusions:

The study of the first page priorities of the four leading EnglishNewspapers reveals that the Indian print media too had acquired the

contours of market driven journalism originally emanated in the US asa result of globalization and privatization. Where as the Times of India

with its strong market orientation reflected all the important

characteristics of market driven journalism, The Hindustan Times, TheIndian Express and The Hindu remained in transition phase. However,

as pointed out by Randal Beam and Shakuntala Rao (2008) most ofthese papers still retained their accountability and ability to demand

from the Government explanations for increasing corruption, crime,

failing governance, etc.

End Notes:

1. Vanita Kohli, The Indian Media Business (Response Books, Sage

Publications New Delhi, 2003). 13-20.

2. Chakravarty S, Press and Media: The Global Dimensions. (Sage

Publications. Delhi, 1996).

3. Appadurdai, A, Disjuncture and difference in the global culturaleconomy. Public Culture. (2.2, 2005) 1-23.

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4. Jeffrey, Robin, Indian Language Newspapersa series essays

published in Economic and Political Weekly (1998 January-March).Special Reference to Telugu: Ingredients of Growth and Failure.

Jeffrey, Robin, Indias News Paper Revolution-Capitalism, Politics and

the Indian Language Press: 1977-1999. Oxford University Press. 2000)

5. Ravindranath P.K, Press Laws and Ethics in Journalism. (Authors

Press, New Delhi. 2004). Ravindranath P. K. Regional Journalism inIndia. (Authors Press, New Delhi 2005)

6. Beam, Randal A, What it means to be a market orientednewspaper (News Paper Research Journal. 1998, summer, Vol 19. 3)

2-20. Beam, Randal, A Content Differences Between DailyNewspapers with Strong and Weak Market Orientations (Journalism

and Mass Communication Quarterly. 2003, summer, 80.2) 368-390.Beam, Randal A, Size of Corporate Parent Drives Market Orientation

(News Paper Research Journal, Spring 2002 Journal 23, no. 2/3

(spring/summer 2002) 46-63. Randal A Beam, How Newsrooms UseReadership Research, (News Paper Research Journal 16, Spring

1995). 28-38. John Mc Manus, Market-Driven Journalism: Let theCitizens Beware? (Sage. Thousand Oaks. California. 1994). 1-16, 57-

84. Knowlton Nash, Trivia Pursuit: How Showbiz Values Are

Corrupting the News (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart,1998)10,30.

7. Ajay K. Kohli and Bernard J. Jaworski, Market Orientation: TheConstruct, Research Propositions, and Managerial Implications

(Journal of Marketing 54, April 1990) 1-18. Philip Kotler, Marketing

Management 12th ed (Pearson/ Prentice-Hall,.N.J.2006) 16. DavidCroteau and William Hyones, The Business of News: Corporate Media

and the Public Interest. (Pine Forge Press, Thousand Oaks, California2001)6-8. Rebecca Ross Albers, Whose News is it, Anyway?

Presstime (17, December 1995) 3380-40. Barbara Cohen and Susan

Engel, Who Stays Closest to the Customer Will Win, (Editor &Publisher 124, 14 September 1991). 4R, 6R, 24 R. Mark Fitzgerald, All

Things to All People (Editor & Publisher 128, 7 January 1995) 11-14.

M. L. Stein, Re-establishing Relevance for Readers, (Editor &Publisher 127, 5 March 1994)16-17. M.L.Stein, Research for theNews Room (Editor & Publisher 124, 27 April 19910. 15-18.

Underwood, Doug, When MBAs Rule the Newsroom. (Columbia

University Press. New York, 1995). Doug Underwood and KeithStamm, Balancing Business With Journalism: News Room Policies at

12 West Coast News Papers, (Journalism Quarterly 69, Summer

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1992) 301-317. William B Ketter, Market-driven Editorial ContentHow Viable?(Editor & Publisher 127, 15 October 1994): 13,40.

8. Thussu, D K. Privatizing the airwaves; The Impact of Globalization

on Broadcasting in India. (Media Culture and Society, 2000:21).125-

131.

9. Shakuntala Rao, Navjit Singh Johal, Ethics and News Making in theChanging Indian Mediascape ( Journal of Mass Media Ethics. 21.4)

286-303. Wasserman H and Shakuntala Rao, Globalization,

glocalization and journalism ethics (Journalism 2008:9(2)). 163-181.Shakuntala Rao, Accountability, democracy, and globalization: a

study of broadcast journalism in India (Asian Journal ofCommunication 2008;18 (3)). 193-206. Shakuntala Rao and Lee, S,

Globalizing Media Ethics? An assessment of Universal ethics among

international political Journalists. Journal of Mass Media Ethics (20.2&3 ) 99-120.

10.Clausen L, Localizing the Global: domestication processes in

international news production. (Media, Culture and Society. 2004:26.1) 25-44.

11. Sharma J K, Ethics of Journalism in Transition (Authors Press, NewDelhi, 2002).

12. Ray GN, Tabloidization of the Media: Page three syndrome(Press

Council of India web-- www.presscouncil.nic.in August 25, 2006).Ray GN Trivialization of Content in Media (Press Council of India webwww.presscouncil.nic.in Feb 10,2006). Subir Ghosh The Tabloid

Culture in India(Vidura April-June, 2007) 22-23.

13. Lars W Nord, Jesper Stromback, Reporting more, informing less:

A Comparison of the Swedish Media Coverage of September 11 andthe wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. (Journalism 2006; 7) 850-110.

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