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#CMCDEBATES
November 11, 2016
All in black and white? Binoo Nair from print media, and veteran in electronic media, Runa Ashish debate over the legacy of newspapers in this digital world.
Topic: Are newspapers dying due to growing popularity of digital platforms?
For the topic – Runa Ashish
Senior Special Correspondent and Anchor, Nation News Channel
- Availability on News at your fingertip –Thanks to digital world mobile is available to all. Finding any kind of information is just an app away. Just press the button and find the info of your choice.
- Information is Handy- It’s easy to carry a newspaper but it’s even easier to carry a cell-phone where internet option provides all info.
- Faster – Anytime open the website and see the update. No need to wait till next day.
- More impact – Digital platform gives the option to see the visuals also which is not at all an option for newspaper.
- Eco-friendly- Every year many trees are being cut just for the newsprints (papers used for printing any newspaper) thankfully that’s not there with Digital platform.
- Youthful – Digital media is generally covered by youth and directed
- by a comparatively senior journalist who gives more youthful treatment to the news / info unlike newspaper.
- Feedback – clicks on the articles decides the feedback. One does not depend on the Letter to editor or any survey for honest feedback.
- Loyalty towards a media house- In this tough competition the best and the fastest will win the race. Readers are more interested in content and the speed than loyalty towards any newspaper. For information they just do not read one newspaper. They have many options to go in-depth and read as many as articles provided by search engine.
Against the topic – Binoo Nair
Assistant Editor at DNA
- Reading newspapers is an old habit and as the cliche goes, old habits die hard
- The current newspaper industry took shape over 200 years and so will withstand the digital onslaught due to the sheer weight of experience.
- Digital medium puts emphasis on brevity, which sometimes might not be good enough for the reader.
- Newspapers still follow the beat system (a reporter covering a specific stream for a long period) which gives them a superior understanding of a stream that digital content-writers.
- Solving the crossword, sudoku and the like just doesn’t feel the same without pen and paper.
- It would take at least another decade before digital reporting covers the urban-rural divide. It is currently a very urban, mostly niche product.
- It would take several years before the country’s internet speeds are good enough for people to read digital content uninterrupted.
- Newspapers will follow novels, the reading of which never goes out of fashion.
