Friday, March 25, 2011

How Indian newspapers typically fail the Google triple test for objectivity

The very title may raise eyebrows. How can I even compare the world's No1 search engine, to the sensitive sector of news? Though Google News straddles the two worlds of search and news, this post highlights a different aspect. Presently, the Indian news sector(like most other nations) is regulated on quasi-commercial principles. This means that regulators can overrule commercial decisions(selling rates of advertising space, content, circulation) on the grounds of public interest. This makes it paramount for newspapers to keep the customer in mind, or else risk extra regulation, as happened recently when SEBI ordered, But are they doing this?In India, newspapers sell for anywhere between 10%-20% of printing cost, so advertising revenues are key. This may lead one to argue that shifting towards advertisers interest is inevitable? But is it really so? Let us analyze the Google promise(Google does not charge search engine users and earns all revenues from advertisers). They promise the following:-

  1. We will do our best to provide the most relevant and useful search results possible, independent of financial incentives. Our search results will be objective and we will not accept payment for their inclusion or ranking.
  2. We will do our best to provide the most relevant and useful advertising. Ads should not be an annoying interruption. If any element on a search result page is influenced by payment to us, we will make this fact clear to our users.
  3. We will never stop working to improve our user experience, our search technology, and other areas of information organization. 
Against this, how do Indian newspapers(both English and others) perform?
  1. Content censorship does happen depending on the target company. A sign of this is that the main investigative campaigns have originated outside newspapers like from Tehelka, OPEN magazine, RTI applications etc. To their credit, newspapers have carried the items prominently post facto, but this may merely be due to competitive pressures
  2. Advertorials/Special Editorial features etc(HT Media's business daily Mint being a notable exception) carried in the same font/prominence often violates this principle
  3. Indian papers score well on this front. The TOI group for instance has launched focused newspapers like Crest, Spirituality centered paper etc while HT Media has launched Brunch/Me as separate magazines, each for their particular niche. But has this come with dumbing down news? Only time can tell. 

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