The Editors Weblog is running a series of exclusive interviews about the future of journalism with top editors at leading newspapers around the world. Here is the latest installment with Pankaj Paul, Managing Editor of The Hindustan Times in India.

The list of upcoming interviews will be updated as they are published (click here to view all interviews in this series). Among the other titles that have been asked to participate in these interviews are:

- The New York Times - Jonathan Landman (US)
- Financial Times (UK)
- Guardian (UK)
- Washington Post - Jim Brady (US)
- Globe & Mail - Ed Greenspon (Canada)
- The Times (UK)
- The Economist (UK)
- Gazeta Wyborcza - Jaroslaw Kurski (Poland)
- Le Monde (France)
- Die Welt (Germany)
- The Hindustan Times - Pankaj Paul (India)
- Asahi Shimbun (Japan)
- JoongAng Ilbo (South Korea)
- The Age / Fairfax - Mike van Niekerk (Australia)
- The Nation - Pana Janviroj (Thailand)
- Punch (Nigeria)
- El Tiempo (Colombia)
- Clarin (Argentina)
- Gulf News - Abdul Hamid Ahmad (UAE)


Questions: "News, journalism, newspapers: same past, different futures?"


- How long do you think you will define your company as a newspaper company or a print company?

We are in the business of making newspapers, but that doesn't mean we're just doing print. If the traditional definition was that a newspaper company just makes print, that notion has gone away: we have a strong website and are developing a mobile edition. I think we are a news company. The print newspaper in industry in India is still very strong, but we are no longer a single-product, single-platform company.

- At this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, a panel of futurists claimed that print newspapers wouldn't exist by 2014. To what extent do you agree with this?

Not in India. I believe that in India there is still a huge market growing. In the US, the situation is very different for print newspapers, although I can't put a date on it. The situation will deteriorate will very fast, but nothing that dramatic can happen in the next seven years. Maybe in the next 15 to 20 years.

- In journalism's multi-centennial history, do you view the emergence of digital journalism as part of the continuity, or as a complete breakaway with previous forms of journalism?

It's an evolution. Digital journalism is neither a breakthrough nor a breakaway, it's a natural extension of the news gathering and news delivery process. We're simply using new technologies and platforms to do what we do. We gather content and deliver content.

- Do you believe in the increasingly active role of the user in the news process, and is it a threat or an opportunity for professional journalists?

It is a phenomenal opportunity for professional journalism. The more people you gather, the more people you engage, the more democratic the process becomes. There is no point in sitting in a building and pretending like we control the environment. We have return to 'old-fashioned' two-way communication. It does not dilute the mission. It does not change the mission. If anything it makes it stronger. There is absolutely no threat.

- Do you consider the Golden Age of investigative journalism is already past, or just beginning?

I think it just started. It never ended. This is one of the basic tenants of journalism. I don't think anything has happened to stop it. If that were to stop, journalism would stop. The Internet gives us more ways of doing investigative journalism through new formats including videos, slideshows, audio...


Stay tuned for the next interview in our 'future of journalism' series.