“There is a very, very large and painful structural adjustment coming up for the businesses of news in India, which is caught between the urgency of now and the denial of impending change,” said Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, Director, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ), here on Wednesday.

Speaking at a panel discussion after launching Reuters Institute’s ‘India digital news report’, Nielsen said “attempt to overcome the instinct of denial should not wear us to a kind of depression.”

Fall in ad revenue

Referring to a cite note from the report, Nielsen said, “In just five years between 2012 and 2016, advertising revenue of Chinese newspapers fell by 75 per cent without an economic crisis and it is not impossible to imagine something of that scale happening in this country.” Highlighting some of the key findings of the report, Nielsen said that India has become a ‘mobile-first’ market faster than any other country, with 68 per cent of respondents identifying smartphones as their main device for online news while 31 per cent use only mobile devices to access online news.

“Distributed discovery of news through search engines and various kinds of social media is also popular in India than in any other country,” Nielsen added.

Readers’ survey

The report based on data from a survey of 1,013 English-speaking, online news users in India also found that 55 per cent of respondents are concerned about expressing political views in social media fearing that they could get into trouble with authorities while a majority of the focus group are also concerned about ‘fake news’ and disinformation. During the panel discussion, Krishna Prasad, former Editor-in-Chief of Outlook, said the report scratches only the surface of English media but what is worrying is the dismal state of language and online news media.

Expressing concerns that long form and investigative journalism cannot survive in the age of mobile-first journalism, Prasad asked, “Can our democracy be served only by frothy, frivolous, tiny and snappy news?” N Ram, Chairman of The Hindu Publishing Group, said, in the era of ‘fake news’, news organisations should do more advocacy on the disciplines of verification, fact-checking, and contextualising that are followed in professional journalism to help news consumers understand the trust-worthiness of professional journalism. “I think active policy of advocacy of the values of professional journalism would make some difference,” Ram added. Noting that investigative journalism can thrive in the age of social media, Ram said, “The performance of all our digital platforms were off the chart when I wrote five exclusives on Rafale but the question is how do you sustain the momentum.”

Revenue models

The panel discussion also deliberated on key topics such as future revenue model for news industry, possibility of turning off social media ahead of the elections and scope and challenges of government intervention in preventing fake news and misinformation.

On future revenue models, Nielsen told BusinessLine that there is no definitive answer to this question but publishers have to explore options like raising donations or adopt a subscription model as it is evident that digital advertising revenue may not be of great help to them.

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