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Cyber Journalism
History Online as a publishing medium/advertising tool Hemani Kashikar http://mediasceneindia.blogspot.com/2009/11/online-

journalism-in-india-exploratory.html
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History

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Indian print journalism began with an English weekly brought out by an Irishman in year 1780. After 1857,
Run by British owners Run by Indian Freedom Fighters

Some Milestones

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Nehrus death in 1964 Emergency 1975-77 (attempts to gag the press) 1991 Pro globalisation and liberalisation policies Mid 90s internet As on 31st March 2006, there were 62,483 registered newspapers on record as against 60,413 at the end of March 2005. The total circulation of newspapers increased from 15,67,19,209 copies in 2004-05 to 18,07,38,611 copies in 2005-06. The term 'newspaper' in this case includes dailies, weeklies and publications of other periodicities.
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As per the annual statements received during 2005-06, the number of dailies being published in the country was 2130. Their claimed circulation figure was 8,88,63,048 copies, 12.93% higher than that the previous year. Hindi had 942 dailies claiming a circulation of 7,66,98,490 copies, while 201 English dailies claimed 3,41,06,816 copies.
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Online newspapers do not get priority as yet. At best, advertisers are willing to consider web editions of some leading newspapers to insert the advertisements as add-on to the main print editions. This means that web editions do not earn substantial ad revenue to make them selfsufficient, leave alone profit-makers.
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Indian newspapers started using computers for word processing and page layout since 1987. Only 48 dailies had their web sites by 1998 there were 116 Indian dailies with web editions in year 2006.

Internet era
India joined cyber world in 1995 By 2007, India had an estimated base of 42 million Internet users

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Beginning of Web Journalism in India

In the year 1995 when The Hindu launched its web edition

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Online journalism world

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The first newspaper to go online was The Columbus Dispatch on July 1, 1980. News started being produced for the World Wide Web in late 1993. According to an article by Mark Glaser, in September of that year, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois released a beta version of the web browser Mosaic. Within a month, the University of Florida's journalism school launched what they thought was the first journalism web site. At the same time, O'Reilly executed the Global Network Navigator as the first e-zine to map the Web, and the White House launched a web site. By 1994 we had the first banner ads

Analysis

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Ad Revenue: Most newspapers do not get advertisements for the net editions, with only a few exceptions like The Times of India (ToI) group of newspapers, The Hindu, The Hindustan Times (HT), The Indian Express (IE), Sakal and Jagaran. The number of advertisements ranged from 1 (in case of Pudhari) to 30 (in case of The Hindustan Times). In case of most others it was in the range of five to ten. The situation was the same in 1998 when most of the 48 newspapers did not earn much advertisement revenue for the web editions. Economic Viability: This was the reason, then and now, that web editions of most newspapers could not break-even financially. As many as 15 of the 25 newspapers said their web editions were not economically viable. Five others did not offer any response to the question in this respect. Representatives of only Maharashtra Times, Pudhari, The Hindu, The Indian Express and The Tribune, that participated in the present study, reported that their sites have broken even. There would be some more, perhaps like the members of the Times of India group that have been making profits or have broken even. It could be however concluded that web editions of most newspapers have not been making profits out of the online activity. Online Staff: It was perhaps for the same reason that the publishers have not made large investment in manpower for the web sites. The web site is managed by a very limited staff. In most newspapers, the staff pattern is same: a chief sub-editor assisted by one or two sub-editors. In some cases, only the sub-editor working in the print edition has the responsibility to upload the contents after his night shift job is over. Newspapers like The Times of India have an independent structure headed by Content Editor or Web Editor who is assisted by a team consisting of news editor, chief sub and sub-editor. These are, however, exception rather than a rule.
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Contents of sites: Most publishers are content with the arrangement in which the computer systems department staff look after their web sites. The result is that web editions of most newspapers do not contain contents other than what is made available from the editorial team of the print edition. No effort is made to create contents exclusively for the web editions. In absence of a thought process that should go to into creation of contents for the web edition, there is no reverse flow from web to print. The web team simply shovels text and graphics, including photographs, from the print and complete the days work. Audio-video contents: There are again exceptions like that of The Times of India, The Hindustan Times, The Indian Express and Sakal, that try to exploit the features of Internet. Such editions have audio and video clips that go along with the text or stand alone as interesting add-ons. No Reporters: Indian newspapers have not appointed reporters exclusively for web editions. When it is done, perhaps these reporters would provide special coverage for the audience of the web editions. No staff for Advertising: Most publishers have not appointed staff to procure advertising either. The staff in the advertising department of the parent print edition is expected to work for the web also. There seems to be no special effort to canvas for ads for the web editions. In most cases therefore ads in the web editions range between 0-10. Reasons for lack of advertisement: Web editions do not get advertisements because advertisers do not get response or feedback from the readers. This is because the readers are not in a position to place orders directly by clicking on the links or pages for advertisement. This is in turn because the Indian readers are not comfortable with online transactions, as credit cards are not yet commonly used. This situation is expected to improve with the growth of e-commerce, e-business and e-banking etc. Already, people are becoming familiar with ticketing for the railways and airways. Callous Publishers: Even publishers of several better known newspapers seem to be callous or casual about important and permanent contents relating to About Us that could be of interest to readers and potential advertisers. A few of them do provide Advertisement Tariffs, but most of them do not have this feature that could help potential advertisers and ad agencies.
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Production Process

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No change: Production process of web editions in most newspapers has not changed substantially during the last decade. No Editing: The web staff gets contents from the editorial department of the parent print edition through the Local Area Network. Similarly, if there is any ad to be inserted, it is passed on as a soft copy through the LAN. The web staff only looks for errors that might have gone unnoticed at the parent editorial desk and corrects them. In other words, there is no editing to correct grammatical or factual errors or improving the text. The contents are then included in the slots such as National, International, Local, Business, Sports and so on. The contents are uploaded onto the Internet through servers. This takes place almost at the same time when printing for the parent editions begin after one a.m. Once that is up, it is available for access to readers anywhere. No updates: In most cases, there are no updates of the web sites for the next 24 hours although technologically updates are possible every minute. Most publishers reported that they run scrolls to announce a single sentence news story of great importance (of breaking the story or Flash level). But that is rare, if not never. Such contents are passed on to the web section when such stories are available directly from news agencies. This is the case in most web editions. Major newspapers like The ToI, HT and IE insist, however, that their web sites are continuously updated round the clock. Skeleton staff: The web sections are manned by a skeleton staff. They work in shifts of six to eight hours in various newspapers. Smaller newspapers seem to have shifts starting during the afternoons and ending when the web sites are uploaded early in the morning at around two a.m. Volume of contents: Volume of contents of web edition varies from newspaper to newspaper depending on whether it is small, medium or big. A small newspaper may carry a minimum of 30 news stories, six articles and three photographs. A big newspapers web edition may contain 3000 news stories, 50 articles and 250 photographs.

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Shovelling from print edition: Almost 80 to 90 per cent contents of the parent print editions are shovelled in most cases. However, some newspapers claimed that they use more than 100 per cent contents. This meant that they exploit the advantage of Internet technology which does not have constraints of space. Stories that can not be accommodated in the print edition because of lack space are used in the web editions. But these seem to be exception rather than a rule as can be seen from the data presented in this chapter earlier. Readers based in the West: Based on the feedback received through e-mail, readers of the web editions are mostly young, male, from Information Technology, Non-resident-Indians based in USA, Canada and Europe. This was also observed in the first study a decade ago. New readers: During the present study, however, Tamil and English newspapers from South India reported that their web editions have a substantial readership from West Asia and Sri Lanka. A readership survey carried out by the present team has indicated that growing number of the readers is from within India also. Editors receive e-mail responses from readers who generally react to the news stories or pass on suggestions. Such responses range from a few to over 100 per day. Software prepared: A major change in the production process over the past decade is however that most publishers have prepared software that has made the production process and particularly uploading of the contents very easy even for a novice sub-editor. With simple commands, the contents are uploaded within no time.

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Readership

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Spread of Readership: The readers are spread over to more than 62 countries, besides India. In India, readers are located even in small towns and not just in metros. States in India: The readership is more in states like Maharashtra, Karnataka, Delhi, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, compared to other states in the country. These are also the states where Information and Communication Technology have made rapid strides, as against the rest of the states. Increase in Women Readers: The proportion of female Internet newspaper readers is considerably smaller than male readers of both English and Marathi Internet newspapers. (13% female readers for English newspapers and 15% Marathi newspapers). However it has almost doubled in eight years. In 1998, the readership comprised 7% female readers. Age-group: Majority readership is in the age group of 21-40 years. Education: Most readers are highly educated (Master or Ph.D. degree-holders) in case of both English and Marathi newspapers. (60% and 54% respectively). Profession: Professionals from the fields of IT, Education and Media constitute almost half (48%) the readership of English newspapers on the Internet. In case of Marathi newspapers also these three fields account for 53% of total readership.
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