News that will break elsewhere

In the early days of the Cold War, Russia used to be about 4,500 miles away from America, separated by a continent and an ocean. Then came missiles

In the early days of the Cold War, Russia used to be about 4,500 miles away from America, separated by a continent and an ocean. Then came missiles.

Russia was suddenly just 55 miles from Alaska, if you lobbed one over the North Pole. Geographical notions changed. Military thinking changed beyond recognition.

The world of news is changing more profoundly than that -- driven mainly by technology, new social engagements and legislation -- and 2011 is only going to accelerate that change. In the information age, we are already in the middle of transformations more sweeping than the Earth underwent when ice started melting towards the end of the Ice Age.

The traditional news "source" for reporters, for instance, is undergoing a revolutionary change. It is no longer just the public relations officer in the municipality, a disgruntled cop, a politician planting stories against rivals or those who went under the large, loose, obscure term, "activist".

Today, news breaks fastest on the Internet, especially micro-blogging sites like Twitter. Some of the biggest breaking stories in the last 18 months or so have broken online. Julian Assange dispatched his kamikaze of information from Wikileaks. Hollywood tabloid website TMZ scooped Michael Jackson's death and Tiger Wood's infidelities. People like Lalit Modi and Shashi Tharoor had to step down after their outbursts on Twitter. That's only a really tiny sample from thousands of stories that broke in cyberspace.

I must admit that Mid Day has repeatedly received tip-offs from Twitter; whether it is a lethal accident on sealink, or video updates from those trapped in the Bangalore Carlton Towers fire, or a spontaneous citizens' protest over film posters ruining street art and graffiti, or organisers holding a cultural festival without police permission, or a popular writer being roundly booed for being a prat.

Social networks like Twitter and Facebook have become so influential that in spite of TV channels and most newspapers being mum over the involvement of two senior journalists in the Niira Radia tapes, the news spread like ink on handkerchief through tweets and posts.

The second profound change in newsgathering in India has been Right To Information (RTI). The most shocking disclosures are coming from RTI papers. The Adarsh society scam is just one case in point. You find criminally truant bureaucrats, municipalities that haven't spent anything on development, politicians who grabbed land ufffd all under RTI.

And you do not have to be a journalist to get this information. The seeker can be an ordinary citizen. If you go another step forward, you can simply upload the information on your blog or website.

So, not only is the journalists' traditional "source" threatened, in the world order of news, the traditional journalist himself is at risk of becoming irrelevant. Anybody can unearth a scam faster than a journalist on her blog. Anybody can tweet about an airport emergency long before aviation reporters get a whiff. Some can even videotape places, incidents and conversations that few journalists hope to access.

Old media tricks of subversion and slanting of news will become obsolete fast. News is only going to get truly democratised in the coming months.

So, if news breaks first on non-traditional media, which is largely free, will we pay for newspapers and channels? If everybody can do most of the roles of a journalist, will journalists still have jobs?

I think people will continue to pay for news, but only news from credible sources and organisations. They will pay for content that is served well, tastes good, and is easy to consume. They will pay for media that un-clutters the increasing cluttered world for me; not the cup of tea of most amateur bloggers and raw newsgatherers.

The trick for organised media would be to come to terms with the fact that news will break elsewhere. Instead, organised media will have to focus on integrating news, presenting it well, providing analysis, building credibility to ask for a fee to do the job.

Julian Assange can upload cable after cable on his site. He may be discussed as an icon or iconoclast, but far more people will actually read about the content and implications of those cables in a Washington Post or a Guardian, where news is cooked well, served well, and you trust the host of the feast.

Abhijit Majumder is Executive Editor, Mid Day. Reach him at abhijit.majumder@mid-day.com