Ifra CEO: new media reporting first; press second

Posted by Elena Perotti on September 14, 2006 at 3:54 PM

While addressing the public of the 14th Ifra India annual conference, Ifra CEO Reiner Mittelbach said that the newspaper industry required new working methods to cater to audience needs. Media operators should provide multiple services. As an example Mittelbach suggested that the first medium to be used in order to alert the readership about an event should be the phone, followed by Internet coverage, and eventually analysis through print newspapers, that will take into account all the contributions to the story from citizen journalists.

Mr. Mittelbach added that the strategy he suggested was not easy to achieve, as it involved radical changes in organizational structures, which are now too often fragmented and therefore incapable of integrated content creation, much less of the needed continuous evaluation of target groups and content.

N. Murali, managing director at The Hindu, commented that the advice should be followed by the Indian media industry. He claims that the increasingly good results of Indian newspapers in terms of readership are mostly due to “throwaway cover prices", which are two times less than Bangladesh and three less than Pakistan.

According to Murali, even though the growth in newspaper sales is likely to continue for another few years, it would not overcome a slowdown of the economy, unless papers change their business model.

Source: The Hindu

Posted in :