Jun 26, 2006 08:35 PM
3347 Views
Online Journalism — A Basic Text by Tapas Ray; Foundation Books; Price: Rs.250; 266 pp. With over _____ billion people surfing on the world wide web at any point of time it is only a matter of time that news reporting and journalism also goes online. Widely acknowledged as the future of the news media worldwide, online journalism is the most interactive news medium, that its USP (unique selling proposition). According to one school of thought with cheaper internet access prices, the decline of newspapers and television news media is inevitable. The youth, especially in technologically advanced countries, are increasingly ditching traditional news media and logging onto the world wide web to surf online news portals because they want more than news. They want interactivity, to respond immediately. Traditional media are unable to offer this feature. For the new digital generation unwieldy newspapers wiht numerous supplements are passe. Instead, they expect news to be informative and a two-way dialogue. This is why a growing umber of print and television news companies are introducing interactive websites. According to a survey report of the Paris-based World Association of Newspapers (WAN) during 1995-2003, the annual circulation of print newspapers fell by 5 percent in America, 3 percent in Europe and 2 percent in Japan. According to projections of WAN, if this decline continues, by the year 2040 daily newspapers will cease to exist in the print form. WAN also estimates that during next two-three years online operations of news corporations worldwide will be more important than print. In India the scenario is slightly different. Though the internet as a news medium is relatively new and untested, almost all major newspapers have started providing downloadable versions of e-paper. This is because the common view in the country is that journalism on the net is same as the print, differing only in the presentation on the computer screen instead of paper. In short online journalism is nascent — if not unkonwn — in India. Against this backdrop of the growing popularity of the internet as a new news medium Tapas Ray’s Online Journalism — A Basic Text, which introduces internet to journalists and advises them on how to use it to better their work is a timely and welcome. The 12-chapter compendium introduces the reader to mind-boggling possibilities of net journalism. Starting with an introduction, the history of internet which took shape from ARPAnet in 1961-62 in the Massachussetts Institute of Technology and Pentagon, this textbook morphs into a how-to-manual covering web authoring and publishing, revenue generatoin within the law, ethics and a peek into the future as media coverage and broadband access is universalised. “Since online journalism is at a relatively early state of development in this country in spite of the internet’s rapid spread, it still has an opportunity. Whether it will utilise this opportunity or not, only time will tell. In this book I discuss, among other things, what news organisations are doing in practice as against the things that can be accomplished with the internet, since this medium has unique characteristics that take it beyond the print and broadcast media in certain ways,” writes Ray, an electronics engineering alumnus of IIT Kharagpur who pressed on to acquire a Masters and doctorate degree in communication at Ohio University. Ray is currently the director of Umeschandra College, Kolkata and also visiting faculty at the Jadavpur University. For print journalists aspiring to go online the most interesting chapters of this book are ‘Annotative Reporting and Open-source Journalism’, and ‘Computer Assisted Journalism or Reeporting (CAJ/ CAR)’. In these chapters Ray details ways and means to use the net as an effective medium of communication for the mass media. “CAJ or CAJ can be broken up into four Rs — reporting, research, reference and rendezvous. Each of these tasks can be accomplished without the use of a computer. But using a computer can speed up, simplify, and/ or expand the range of work,” advises the author. Ray also provides valuable tips on how to use internet search engines such as https://google.co.in to find information that fits specific needs. Likewise the chapter titled ‘Preparing Online Packages’ will prove useful for journalists wish to plan, code, write programmes and design their own webpages with the objective of broadening their readership base. The chapter titled ‘Revenue, Ethics and Law’ is a must read for all those who are currently managing and those who wish to promote online news sites. Ray discusses in detail the various subscription revenue models such as the Albuqurque Journal, Business 2.0, Winnipeg, and the Times of London models. In terms of generating advertising revenue Ray predicts that by the year 2007, 4.4 percent of all global advertising revenue will be generated from online space sales. The author also provides an overview of advertising and marketing techniques being successfully used to generate all importnat revenue. Every chapter in the book is illustrated with an appropriate case study, tables, graphs and notations. The Glossary of internet terminologies at the end of the book is highly informative. Summing up, Online Journalism is recommended reading for media entrepreneurs, traditional media publishers anxious to get onto the internet as also to journalists aspiring to careers in web publishing enterprises which are recording a 22 percent rate of annual growth.
