News papers are like any commodity. Customers pay for the utilitarian value. Who is to judge the utilitarian value of a paper? Some may think that the value of a paper is directly proporational to the credibility of the news it publishes. By that yardstick many of ours papers should be worthless.

But if a large majority of the readers do not bother about the credibility then publishers need not worry about the truth. They can operate as they wish printing stories without any verification. Even when they find their stroies were subsequently found to be based on non truth, they need not apologize.

In short it is the customers on whom depends the quality of the papers. Are Mysoreans concerned about the truth? This is the basic question that we need to ask of us.

The question, as I see it, is not whether Mysoreans care about the news they get, but whether they have any other option, a credible alternative. This is an issue the resourceful and the public-spirited should address. Mysore has been a one-paper town (English, evening) for too long. The Mysore Mail is a distant second, and an apology for a news-sheet. Monopoly breeds complacence.

Incidentally, some of us have been brought up into thinking that newspaper is not a commodity. Maybe it can be sold as you sell tooth-paste, but you can't get people who buy such newspaper to read it. People buy it for varied reasons - to look up real-estate ads.; what's on in town; and to see who has been featured in a puff piece or photograph. 

 

Discussion on the subject encouraged me to post one more article on my blog.

http://press-distrust-india.blogspot.com.fourthestateasfiefdom

You may post your comments.

Your likening of editors to autorickshaw drivers is interesting. My worry is automen might feel insulted by the comparison. 

I can't wait to announce this. I am sure some of my co-bloggers would jump for joy to know this. Their children will live in much better times.

How?

 

At the rate newspapers are losing circulation, the last reader is
expected to croak in 2040. In April to be exact.

Philip Meyer, author of The Vanishing Newspaper: Saving Journalism in
the Information Age made that grim prognostication on Wednesday,
during a live webcast about our impending extinction.

Read more of this interesting stuff by Antonia Zerbista: http://thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?

You may please try

http://mediamentor.blogspot.com

Some half way down the page you will find the article. 

I went on a tirade, on my blog, against the official who made the remark in the item titled "Mysore Airport to become International". I held the officer responsible for making irresponsible statements about the Airport proposed to become an International one, when we don't even have a domestic one. For the benefit of those who don't know about Mysore Airport I have written earlier blog pieces about the same. it remains a dirt strip, dirt tarmac and parking area, no real passenger terminal and so on.

In my next blog item titled 'What a croc!" i continued the tirade but also turned my attention to blaming the media report to have perhaps made a mistake. I had also dashed off a letter to SOM on the issue and they were good enough to publish the same without editing or shortening the content. In a comment on my own blog, I thanked the SOM for publishing the letter in toto.

I have a grouse against the official, though, assuming that she was alerted about this piece of news published in the newspaper. In this blog piece, I also put in a comment and I quote: "Why has she kept quiet and why has she not asked for retraction of the story from the newspaper?"

It was rather strange that the official has so far not asked for a retraction from the paper (perhaps out of guilt of having actually made a mistake). What is good, is that there has been a debate about this matter on this forum, something that SOM and others are aware of and.

If the reporter RR comes up with the written document that vindicates his stand and source, SOM stands vinidicated. In any case, for having published my letter in full and throwing the gauntlet to the official to come up with an explanation (although no one has heard back from the official presumably), SOM has done it's part.

I think our debate has been generally critical about the media, reference to my blog article had been made in it as well but this discussion need not be hijacked only by my issue or blog piece. As for apologies, I wrote nothing in my blog that warrants one because, I have gone against the official mostly and then the media for not asking the right questions. I still hold the media and SOM accountable for the fact that RR or others should have raised the relevant question to the official asking how such outlandish claims were being made about Mysore Airport. If readers have read my letter to SOM and a lot of them have indeed done that, these very basic questions should have been asked by the reporters there, whether SOM reporters or others. Why did they (any media present) let the official get away? I have also asked similar questions in my blog. Those remain unanswered.

In my opinion, firstly, the official must apologise to Mysoreans for raising their hopes unecessarily (if she made the statement) and an apology to Mysoreans by various reporters at the venue who either did not pick up the sound bites of the official  and did not print anything contrary to the SOM headline piece as a way of countering that report (if SOM had been wrong as assumed by some).