A Study of Paradigm Shift in News Operation Management with Special Reference to Technological Interventions in India

Abstract

Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, while introducing his first generation smartphone on January 9, 2007 in San Francisco had claimed: This will change everything (Leader, 2015). Now after 10 years, smartphone exemplifies the early 21st century defining technology. It is not, because the smartphone is today the fastest selling gadget and about half the adult population owns a smartphone , it has absolutely changed the way news is gathered, processed and disseminated in the newsrooms (NRs) of the newspapers, TV news channels, radio stations or web portals and also how it is consumed. Since everyone from young to old seems crazy for a smartphone, majority media houses too race to tap them by offering the content of their choice on smartphone only. This miraculous change in technology has entirely shifted the focus of media houses from print or broadcast to the web. The Hindustan Times (HT) closed down its four editions and three bureaus in January 2017 and the Times Group sold its Gujarati newspaper on March 30, 2017 just to focus on web editions. Not only the HT and The Times of India (ToI), The Indian Express (IE) too has decided to focus only on web. This shows how the print is fast losing ground to the web in urban areas. There was a time when it took days, weeks, months or even years to reach the news from one place to the other through messengers and pigeons, but now it takes only a second for any news to reach from one part of the world to the other. The prerogative of breaking the news has been snatched away by common man from the media houses. Majority media planners are worried whether the prediction by US scholar Philip Meyer that newspapers in the US will vanish by 2043 will prove to be correct in Indian context too. Not only print, the satellite based TV news channels also are losing to the web. The media houses whether print or TV that timely gain a solid web base will thrive. The choices of readers are also changing. A total of 72% news consumers in the study desire personalised content and 84% l