What do people want from newspapers?
I was reading an old article, where I found that the percent of the adult reading newspapers fall to 55 from 70 in last three decades. Various agencies have been continuously trying to figure out the reason. Most of the times it appears that people want better services, more local news, reader-friendly presentations involving graphics and narrative-style articles and advertising.
“Intensely local, people-centered news ranks at the top of the list of content items with the greatest potential to increase overall readership, ” says an American university, which is conducting the research. Better coverage of national and international events and more investigative journalism are not necessarily what readers want. And newspapers feel pressured to give people more of what they want.
Now the question is what I want from these newspapers. Seriously, I have never given a thought to this. After quickly reading the headlines on the first page, my habit is to start reading the news from last page, which generally covers M S Dhoni and Sania Mirza, sometimes Schumacher also. After going through the sport pages, I quickly flip through the pages and stop at the second page where all the movie timings are listed for television or for the theaters. The whole process also involves some reading about the proposed f**king reservation policy.
Yesterday I spent seven minutes on the newspaper. I admired the beauty with brains, which was there on the first page (She looked like a doctor protesting against the proposed reservation policy). I read why Zidane is considered to be such a high value sportsman for his country, what are the implications of Dhoni being at the top of ODI ranking, what are the future plans of Sania Mirza and Sikha Oberoi, what Sachin thinks about the number of ODI’s played annually and also what is the future of Schumacer with Ferari.
But its not like I am totally dumb about all the issues. I listen to the discussions regarding the business issues, social issues, and current socio-political issues also. I want to read other news in the paper, but somehow I can’t. Therefore I am asking you all, what are the points you think which should be taken care by newspapers.
There is no doubt that a democracy like us need the newspapers to make the people aware of every activity going all around them and also to give them a platform to express their views regarding all those issues/ activities. It’s also the collective responsibility of all the educated citizens to learn about all the happenings, and then to contribute, criticize and I think that the newspaper is a very ideal platform for that.
What do you think?
