Hindustan Times
Death of the front page
A funny thing has happened to newspapers over the last year and though we’ve all noticed it, few of us have bothered to discuss this development.
Which is odd, because you would have thought that somebody would have written an obituary by now.An obituary of page one.
Almost from the time I started out in journalism, I was told that page one was the key to any newspaper. It was the one page where you were more or less obliged to carry the main news of the day, or, in other words, the same news as everybody else.
The challenge, therefore, was to write and present the news in a manner that was different from all other papers. If you handled the top story of the day significantly differently from the way the competition did, then you were declaring that yours was the better paper.
Most newspapers developed a formula for page one: lead story on top; funny, quirky anchor at the bottom; etc. And all of us vied to think of interesting graphics which would tell our stories better than the competition’s.
My reason for focusing so much on page one in my days as a newspaper editor was because I believed it set the tone for the newspaper. Others had different reasons. We inherited our obsession with page one from Britain where newspapers tend to be sold on the newsstands not delivered at home. So, just because somebody read your paper on Monday it did not follow that he would do the same on Tuesday unless you gave him a page one that really hooked him. While we are less dependent on newsstand sales in India, many of us still used the British justification.
Then, in the 21st century as newspaper managements were largely taken over by semi-literate men who didn’t really enjoy reading newspapers at all, a new justification was offered. We were told that in this busy era, nobody had the time to read newspapers. They only looked at page one. So, we were encouraged to put as many stories as we could on the front page till it looked less like page one of a newspaper and more like a bulletin board.
When you consider how newspaper managers and marketing departments kept telling us that page one was the only thing that people read in our papers, I am surprised that more journos did not make the point that, if this was indeed the case, then page one should be sacrosanct.
Because even as sales departments and marketing departments were lecturing us on the importance of page one, they were also busy selling bizarre ad position on that same page. Every editor has his own horror stories of dealing with space sellers who tell him that they have sold a zig-zag space all across page one to a toothpaste company or that they have hawked two-thirds of page one to the manufacturers of a new car.
As these were the same people who told us that page one was the only thing anybody read, they had no business selling off real estate on page one.
Most editors I know fought huge battles against intrusive advertising. In my day, the space-sellers would go in to see Arun Roy Chowdhari, who was editor of the Delhi edition of the HT and show him some entirely bizarre ad that they wanted carried on top of page one. Arun would refuse. The space sellers would tell him that it was an ‘innovation’ they had borrowed from the Times of India. Arun would throw them out of his office. They would retreat, muttering about the ‘negative attitude’ of editorial.
At the HT, we were luckier than most because though the pressure of advertising was enormous, Shobhana Bhartia’s heart was in editorial. But I sensed that it was only a matter of time before page one became an ad page.
The economic crisis proved me right. Most successful media houses expanded wildly during the good times. Then, as the economy tanked, they found that they no longer had revenues to prop up their loss-making ventures. So, they went back to their successful products, the geese that laid the golden eggs, and tried to extract more revenues from them.
Page one was the first casualty. By then, editors had learnt to contend with so many budget cuts and had to fight calls for the sacking of employees, that they were no longer in a position to resist the space-sellers. We were told that the paper was so far behind its revenue targets that there was no option but to keep selling page one to advertisers. This was true of most major Indian newspapers.
These days, you’re lucky to get a clean page one. On many days, the paper comes with what the ad trade calls a ‘jacket’: a bogus page one that comprises an ad. Most irritating of all are the days when the ad is on a half sheet of paper so you can’t even hold the newspaper properly. Apparently, advertisers are foolish enough to believe that if readers curse them when they find that they can’t hold up their papers, this will lead to an improvement in their sales.
And yet, as appalled as most of us journos are by the demands of the ad department, at some strange level we are less concerned than we used to be. Deep down inside we know that page one is not as important as it used to be. In this multi-media era, most of our readers already know the main news of the day by the time they get to our papers. There is very little on page one that will surprise them.
Instead, they judge papers by other things: by the quality of the reporting on the inside pages; the editorial page; the feature supplements; etc. I doubt if the marketers were ever right when they told us that the only thing people read was page one. And I’m pretty sure that page one counts for less and less these days.
So, say goodbye to the front page. It was pushed into obsolescence by the expansion of other media. And it was murdered by the recession.
(24 votes, average: 4.46 out of 5)
Loading ...Posted by Vir Sanghvi on Tuesday, November 3, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Filed under Media · Tagged Arun Roy Chowdhari, economic crisis, editor, HT, interesting graphics, journalism, lead story, newspapers, page one
Also, the obesity of newspapers. The tendency of the bits and pieces to spill all over the house. It’s a quick march towards the raddi pile. Ads are really an inlolerable invasion of one’s time, not to speak of senses. Google seems to be the best place for news.
Yes, it’s the middle page that one tends to head for, usually much to disappointment.,
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Deb Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Someone tells me the first thing he does, when he picks up the newspaper at his doorstep in the morning, is to give it a vigorous shake - mostly to get rid of the pests in the form of advertising leaflets inserted by the newsvendors (it’s a whole revenue stream - try looking in at one of their ‘distribution centers’ at 4 am in the morning), but now I know also to get rid of the ’special supplements’ of all shapes and sizes!
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I just hate it
- when they put those full page lousy ads on the first page.
- when the dirty lousy politicians put their own corrupt amug mugs on the inner pages glorifying their own non existing acheivements
- when some half baked fraud company adverts its IPO and hides all the details in the small print
- when lux saboon or rin or surf or some tea comes up with its umpteen ‘new and improved’ version and hawks it on the front page
- when either amitabh or shah rukh comes up to sell anything
- when entire pages are used up by these companies for their balance sheets
- when the latest bogus survey on Indians bedroom habits takes precendence on any other more important and relevant issue (TOI is the guilty party most of the time on this one)
- when the lousy sales marketing MBAs get more say than VIR on what goes in a newspaper
ps: and why did HT had to juvenile its title to hindustantimes.com
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karishma Reply:
November 7th, 2009 at 8:05 am
thing is, speaking as a student of both journalism & marketing, the print industry needs money to survive. the state of affairs of print media is sad, and the reason they’re putting a new and improved lux on the cover page for an umpteenth time is so that people like you can read the hard copy of the paper every single day.
without these ads, endorsements by SRK/ AB, the print media would be dead.
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Sales and Marketing does pretty much kill most other depts does it not-in my husbands workplace-they go around promising the moon and its satellites and then leave it to the management to deal with angry clients.
As to why we buy a paper-I guess we pcik up what we are used to, or if something looks unusually itneresting in antoehr paper-or the quality of the supplements. In opur case-if we know that yoyu have written an edit-then we ensure we read it on the net or pick it up
Infact we beganh to get TOI Crest after you endorsed it as readable-but the TOI Sales team is a disaster- 12 phone calls, 8 e mails and I still don’t get Crest as they promised. You’d think they want to sell the paper, right.
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The page one of a modern newspaper is redundant. No matter what you do, you can never catch up with the rapidly evolving mechanics of online media. And considering the financial state that most newspapers, apart from the TOI, it’s best to look at maximising revenues wherever it is possible. That after all pays for the top dog salaries of both journalists (read editors) at high positions as well. About Page 1 being sacrosanct, I think that is pretty much ****, only fools trust newspaper headlines anymore.
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Deb Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
About the last line, on the contrary, I’d trust (respected) newspaper headlines more than the ‘breaking news’ on Indian TV news channels.
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I started reading English News Paper when I was studying in 7th standard in Hight school, and father used to say who are the good writers in papers.Then at a point of time I myself realised whose writing was good and with flavour and continued reading for sheer joy and knowledge. Time slowly metamorphosed into a kind of writing where it became drab and tasted like lawyers notice without bothering the taste of language. Despite the Tv journalism, reading a news is analytical and perceptive .TV anchors and journalists shout and presenters blabber and without coherance we are thrust with the news where the particular channel is benefitted. Interviews are not leisurely and penetrative like the news papers; in tv , some questions are pushed down the throat without sensitivity and sensibility.
You and and sit with a tie and coat, start asking all kinds of nonsense without giving due respect to the one who is interviewed and behave as if you have read the entire lot of the subject concerned which is talked upon. If something useful coming out of the person giving the interview , always say we are running short of time and conclude the interview abrubtly in the middle and running for the advertisement slot.
If you speak fast irrespective of the lots of ifs and buts and butchering fo the language , go for the English tv channels.
So , sir, Papers are good to be read and assimilated and have a stand of our own about any happening, not the tv media.
commercialisation happens everywhere and news papers are not an exception
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Deb Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Exactly my sentiments, on newspapers vs. TV.
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Yeah, this is what is happening to magazines. Right side facing is now occupied by advertisements ever since they were glorified and sold by advertisers.
Now, I dont read right side of the magazine. I just fold the magazine and look left…..
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On days when I get one of those jackets, I remove and dump it promptly into the pile of print for immediate disposal along with the matrimonial and classified pages! Another bugbear is the so called “infotainment” channels on TV where important national and world events are mixed with images of song sequences from Bollywoods’ latest thriller. The news anchors become the news given their tone and amount of histrionics in delivery.
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Deb Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
But you can’t always dump the jackets, esp. those half-page verticals, since the other side (last page) contains (uaually) sports stories. Most irritating.
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Curse it and love it ! Like that first cigarette of yesteryear or the first cuppa it’s got to be there ! That neatly folded pile of junk which unfolds with a friendly crackle! You start of the day on a relaxed note with worries that seem to be other people’s –you feel with it, part of bigger things.A newspaper is a living thing like a puppy wagging it’s tail ! The contents are secondary . I really miss it when it’s not there!
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Ah Newspaper! Who says it’s for reading alone? It can serve as a table cloth, a plate, a bedsheet! As a handkerchief , a napkin! Best thing to clean a smudgy mirror with. Paper boats and aeroplanes. Companion on the pot. Life would be hard without it.
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shyamal Reply:
November 14th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
ha ha haaa…nice one..yes let us not bother death of the front page..it is a page afterall..and TOI is best toilet paper yaar…
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>> These days, you’re lucky to get a clean page one. On many days, the paper comes with what the ad trade calls a ‘jacket’: a bogus page one that comprises an ad. Most irritating of all are the days when the ad is on a half sheet of paper so you can’t even hold the newspaper properly. Apparently, advertisers are foolish enough to believe that if readers curse them when they find that they can’t hold up their papers, this will lead to an improvement in their sales.
Bingo! At last, somebody has put it out, bettery someone like Vir. I’ve always been partial towards (good) newspapers, as compared to TV news, for reasons well explained by Mr. Uthamanarayanan above. But due to the irritating behaviour of newspaper marketers (who seem to take readers to be either morons or zombies), I’m (very) slowly being put off newspapers. In any case, crunching the time in the morning is an issue, and most of the content can be accessed on the web anyways - also useful when we’ve to keep important cuttings (images). Many days, I find myself gravitating more to the middle pages, as someone said above.
These trends would not only harm the particular rag (as the practices are indulged in by practically all of them), but the newspaper industry as a whole.
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Good article. I really hate those half page jacket ad formats!! or whatever they’re called. I have no problems if an ad covers the entire front page or even if there are strange innovations on the front page. I spend more time reading local news and editorial. Everyone knows what the main stories of the day are from watching television and internet sources. So let the sales guys have the front page for crazy innovations, but give us more insightful editorial and in depth local news. Thats the direction print media must take to compete effectively with new media like internet and mobile.
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Vir,
you have managed to hit the nail on the head. I was educated in an English medium school. We were told to read the newspaper everyday; especially the EDIT page in the center.
Reading papers daily inculcated a thirst for knowledge and I started reading books on different issues like the partition or Kashmir as well.
The first page was the very first place where I looked when I picked up the paper. But, as aptly put by you, its no longer sacrosant. Those quarter page ads just before Diwali really tested my patience.
But then, even the Edit Pageunderwent significant transformation. HT now has “thepundit” whose sarcasm really is irritating at times. I wish HT would revert the Edit page back to its old self (3 editorials in order on the left with special columns by guests in the center). Now there are only two editorials on the left (not too interesting, sad to say)
But that’s marketing for you. Changing the size and shape of the paper to raise the value of real estate.
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I used to be a fiend for the newspaper in the morning until four days ago when we had to go to our daughter’s place. The agent said that he will stop delivery in multiples of a week. So we stopped it for two weeks. We came back much earlier than anticipated and have been home for two days without the newspaper. And I don’t miss it!
So I think the newspapers have to do something to remain relevant.
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check out today’s edition of Times of India. I wouldn’t even call it a sell out. Its total rape
http://mywriterkeeda.wordpress.com
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As rightly said the first page has lost its flavour. But the edit page is what is still interesting.
Right from our school days we have been taught to read newspapers regularly so as to improve our language along side gaining knowledge about the world around us.
But these days it is very difficult to reach an article which is truly knowledgeable. And by the time we surpass the innumerable ads and brand promotions, we are left with little interest in the article we set out to read. The leaflets, booklets and so called jackets are very annoying. What is finally left of the 30-32 page newspaper.?
Even then I prefer reading a newspaper than hearing those newsreaders shouting at the top of their voices in the fight for ‘we are first to give this breaking news’ kind of channels these days.
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Every day i wake up and check out the newspaper for the happenings of the previous day.
But when i come across all those **** advertisements an all I get pissed off. And why not early in the morning you look for some good quality stuff to read and find all that, it is natural to turn your mood off.
But I must say Hindustan Times till date suits my taste and the quality of news, articles, surveys are good.
Keep it up!!!!
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I partially agree with the title…however, it is time to mourn not just the death of the front page, but the death of objective reporting in Indian newspapers in general. Advertisements or not, TOI Lead India campaigns notwithstanding, we really have reduced our newspapers largely to British style tabloids in the hope of capturing the maximum eyeballs through sensational headlines which are also sometimes largely influenced by partisan interests. The coffin of objective reporting was dug when I read several newspaper frontpages highlighting antics of Sanjay Dutt rather than the story of a young Army major in Kashmir who lost his life defending his beloved country but did not merit even a 2 line mention in the voluminous 24-48 page sections of our responsible national newspapers. I have recently got transferred to Jakarta and I am amazed to discover that despite the fledging nature of media freedom here, newspapers like Jakarta Post are courageously waging an all out war against corruption on a national scale and highlighting several global issues like climate change, etc. which objectively merit world attention. Being a proud nationalist, I do hope our newspaper columnists and editors truly start appreciating the power bestowed on them to fashion public opinion and instead of expounding how Sachin tendulkar is a God of all mankind, make judicious use of their pen to bring about much required changes in our polity.
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Sir,
Very well written article and relevant in present time. Please do write article what you think about future of print media in india. Whether this would be shifted entirely to internet, or still printed copies would find space. In America trends for print media are not very encouraging.
Regards
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