Headlines from the Heartland' chronicles cow belt change

New Delhi, May 20 (UNI) In just 15 years the cow belt has gone from having the lowest literacy to becoming home to newspapers with the highest readership in the country.

The story of changes behind this sea-change in India's Hindi heartland brought about by rising literacy, communications and growing politicisation has now been revealed.

Reinventing the Hindi public spheres, Media Analyst and Newspaper Columnist Sevanti Ninan delves into the issue with her book 'Headlines from the Heartland' which was released by NASSCOM President Kiran Karnik here at India Habitat Centre on Saturday evening.

''The book is a result of my encounter with unorthodox journalism that flourish today in India,''said the author at the book release function.

''Studying the way developmental issues are dealt with in newspapers, I ended up with the media revolution that was unfolding all across the Hindi the belt of the country. I came across three things--increased literacy, communications and purchasing power as well as growing politicisation--which has some have never surfaced in the national consiousness,'' the author added.

A comprehensive account of the changes wrought by the newspaper revolution in India's Hindi speaking states, the book chronicles the rise and expansion of newspapers such as Dainik Jagran, Dainik Bhaskar, Hindustan and Rajasthan Patrika, explores the political economy of journalism in the Hindi heartland, the advent of foreign direct investment and stock market listing in the Hindi press, the influence of the third generation in the Hindi newspaper owning families, and the price wars.

''The person behind this book has done a great job. We have before us not only an output or an outcome but a kind of analysis that has a lot of primary data collection,'' said Mr Karnik.

''It reflects a lot of looking in depth and putting in perspective something that we have been seeing happening and changing in a just a last decade or so, a phenomenal change in terms of what the media is turning to do,'' he added.

''To me one of the telling things is the change between 1995 to 2005 where the Hindi dailies have taken three of the top five spots.

That is the transformation that has begun with literacy growth,'' he said.

''What is also interesting is the amount of localisation that is happening in the Hindi media as it stands today you are getting dailies which are spanning in very large parts of the country and yet there is very strong localisation,'' he added.

The book release was followed by a deliberation by a panel discussion on the subject. The panelists included former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh, young Congress MP Sachin Pilot and Editor-in-chief of 'Prabhat Khabar' Harvansh.

Speaking on the issue of infusion of a large scale business in Journalism Mr Harvansh said, ''Post 1991, the media became an industry so it is bound to face drawbacks. I do not think that the capital infusion can be stopped. ''However, it can be solved if the Hindi papers enrich their resources. There is need for improvement in the quality of jounalism and at the same time upgradation of the Hindi education system is a must,'' he added.

On the politicos-journalism nexus, Mr Singh said, ''Stringers are not film producers who make films to cater to the needs of the society. One becomes a journalist by his/her own choice so they should write what they feel is right. I do not deny the possibility of a nexus between politics and journalism but what is lost is lost. Now our efforts should be to save whatever we can,'' he added.

Mr Pilot, who was representing the new genre of politicians in the panel, highlighted the 'trivialisation of media'.

''A news channel can go on telecasting a marriage ceremony for three days only to increase their TRPs,'' he said. ''But looking at the larger perspective, the media is not entirely responsible for this. Be it print media or electronic, they give what the viewers and the readers ask for,'' he added.

''So it is not only the degeneration of Journalism, it is the degeneration of the society as a whole...There is a need of cumulative effort by all sections of the society to revive true journalism,'' the young MP opined.

UNI