What drives regional news?
The big newspapers are Indian, as much as they are ethnic or regional in character. Their choice of news reflects the upward mobility of middle class India.
A HOOT tenth anniversary special
This report is based on a recently concluded survey of what newspapers covered over a two month period in late 2010. Our study took ten newspapers in five states: Hindustan Times (Delhi), Dainik Jagran (Delhi), Telegraph, Ananda Bazar Patrika, Deccan Chronicle, Dinathanti, the Hindu (Chennai), the Times of India (Ahmedabad), and Gujarat Samachar. Each of these is the highest circulated English or regional language paper in its state. (See file attached.)
There is less surprise than confirmation in the survey the Hoot did over the last seven months, on what makes news in the leading newspapers of different states. The study confirms that our idea of news is politics driven, urban middle-class oriented, and event rather than process driven. It shows that major Indian newspapers ignore agriculture and focuses on economy and business news, pay three times more attention to higher education than school education, and at all times balance national and regional news in the news menu.
The big newspapers are Indian, as much as they are ethnic or regional in character. Their choice of news reflects the upward mobility of the middle class India. There is little attempt at keeping a focus on the rural parts of the country or the agricultural sector, and equally little focus on coverage of human development issues. Yet environment is beginning to be a concern, receiving more attention than agriculture, or health or gender issues.
The statistics emerging from a fairly wide quantitative and qualitative study done are broadly indicative of the biases that we think the news media has. Overall, politics and economic news dominate the print media. Political news constituted 15.7 percent of the total news items coded for the quantitative survey. (A total of 20,797 news items were coded, in five states.)
The second highest category of news overall, falls in the category of economy and business, at 13.6 per cent of the total. When the English newspapers are taken together they all prioritize business and economy news over politics. Among regional language newspapers it was the reverse with the exception of Gujarat Samachar. This paper had 21.1 per cent of its total coverage devoted to business, 16.9 per cent to politics.)
Within politics, party news and personality related news dominate. Again no surprises there. We knew agriculture related coverage in our newspapers was low. Did we know it was as low as 0.9 per cent?
Big national events receive a lot of attention in leading newspapers in the state capitals. The period of the survey ran from mid September to mid November, and covered the Ayodhya judgement, the Commonwealth Games, the turmoil in Kashmir and the Obama visit. No generalisations apply to all. The Ayodhya coverage saw a discernable Hindu assertiveness in the Dainik Jagran and in Gujarat Samachar. Equally, it saw the Ananda Bazar Patrika, the Telegraph, the Hindustan Times in Delhi, the Times of India in Ahmedabad and Eenadu and Deccan Chronicle in Andhra Pradesh balance their coverage and pitch for communal harmony in their visual coverage. The Hindu and Dinathanti in the South both gave ample coverage from many points of view, and sought to present angles promoting peace.
The Gujarat Samachar like other leading Gujarati newspapers in Ahmedabad stood out for devoting almost its entire front page on October 1 to the judgement news, with an above the masthead legend. But the news made eight column page one headlines for only three consecutive days. On October 3, the Sensex movement at 376 points was its eight column headline, while what the judges said in the Ayodhya the verdict was a box item. As the statistics for this Ahmedabad paper show, business moves it more than politics. Its stock market coverage within the main paper was more than three times higher than any other newspaper in the country!
The micro picture for the regional newspapers is illuminating. Scrutinise the rural coverage in the West Bengal and you will discover how much of it is about political rivalry and political violence in at the village level. Not surprisingly, the highest percentage of conflict news is also in West Bengal.
On the other hand, compare the Obama coverage in the Ananda Bazar Patrika and the Telegraph and the latter is more bent on seeking a Bengali angle to the visit! Patrika was less parochial, and also had more coverage of the US mid term elections than the Telegraph.
It is not possible to stereotype the regional language papers. Eenadu had more economy and business coverage than the Deccan Chronicle. Its volume of news was the highest, among all papers, and it had the most political coverage, as well as the most agriculture, science and governance-related news than the other newspapers.
The nature of news is highly miscellaneous. Governance related news is about events, as is education news. Less about the quality of institutions or teaching. Reporting on infrastructure and curriculum account for 3.4 and 3.6 per cent respectively of the total education coverage.
The news related to gender is miscellaneous too. And much of health coverage in terms of space is about a medley of items on research, or about the occurrence of dengue at that point. Health infrastructure related stories account for eight per cent of the health related news.
These are the highlights of the survey findings:
Ø Overall, politics dominates the news, followed by business.
Ø English newspapers in India however, carry more business than political news.
Ø Thirty nine per cent of all political news was party related.
Ø Crime and violence account for the third highest category of news, followed by news relating to governance and legal matters.
Ø Agriculture related news accounts for only 0.9 percent of the news
Ø Environment related stories account for 3.0 per cent of all coverage.
Ø Education constituted 4 per cent of all news. School education received less than one third of the coverage given to higher education during the period of the study.
Ø The focus of the news carried was of a general nature in 62.3 per cent of the stories, urban or city oriented in focus in 30.4 per cent of the cases, and only 3.1 per cent of all news had a rural focus.
Ø The Bengali papers had the highest focus on rural news, with 11.5 per cent of Ananda Bazar Patrika’s news classified as rural, and 6.9 per cent of the news in the Telegraph. Much of the rural focus news in West Bengal is political violence related news originating from the rural areas
Ø The news tends to be highly miscellaneous in nature.
Ø In terms of origin of news carried national news got a slight edge in all the papers taken together perhaps because major events happened during this period.
Ø National news was 27.8 per cent, news originating at the state level 22.3 per cent, and local or city news 25.2 per cent.
Ø Fourteen percent of the total news was attributed to news agencies, with PTI accounting for more than 50 per cent.
Ø Eeenadu of Andhra Pradesh had the most range of coverage. It had the most political coverage, as well as the most agriculture, science and governance-related news. It had more economy and business coverage than the Deccan Chronicle, and far more than other regional language papers except Gujarat Samachar. It also had the lowest incidence of crime and violence news among all the newspapers. Its international coverage is low, at 2.1 per cent compared to the Delhi paper Dainik Jagran which had 7.3 per cent of its total news devoted to international coverage.
See attached file for the complete report.
See the following for qualitative reports:
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