Newswatch.in, a media watchdog organization, released new statistics on newspaper readership in India. Many more people read newspapers in vernacular languages than in English, according to the most recent Indian Readership Survey. Besides, the English dailies seem to be experiencing a moderate slump in readership while Hindi newspapers gained millions of readers last year.
But as Subir Ghosh of Newswatch in points out, readership and circulation are not the same things. Circulation is self-reported by newspapers and therefore unreliable, and readership figures can only be gained by surveys and complex statistical analyses. In the end figuring out who is reading what is a tricky business.
When economic turmoil pays the price for newspapers in America, India is still a robust market for newspapers. New York Times reported that The Tribune Company filed for bankruptcy protection in a federal court in Delaware, as the publisher of newspapers like The Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune struggled to cope with rising debt and falling ad revenue.
While looking through the Newswatch.in report, I thought the interesting aspect of Keralite reading style. During train journeys they read whatever newspaper they get. Commuters pass over the reading stuffs to each other, seat by seat. Live discussion catches fire based on major news items. One single newspaper may be read by more than ten people.
Circulation and readership are indeed different things. From a village teashop to local libraries, Keralite’s addiction to newspaper is still a miracle. Reading while train journey is the style of Kerala or Mumbai like many other Indian cities. Here I can’t see such a reading style. Here everything is different (No train services too!).
In this fast-moving life-style how many can spend time for newspaper reading? Or, sometimes never get a chance to get newspapers because of the job conditions.
Who are good readers back home becomes occasional reader’s here. Very few rush to libraries at their accommodation centers to read newspaper. (Not many get these facilities too). Not many expatriates subscribe newspaper themselves even if they go online for reading, depends on their time.
There are many other reasons too. But it is possible to establish public reading corners and discussion forums here also to popularize public reading. I simply like that kind of open reading and a discussion followed by that. That would give us many ideas. That would help us to know the pulse of the public. I experienced such a reading here in Doha. It was during my Doha holiday trip, some days before. When I got the newspaper, as usual I lost all kinds of patience. So the next step was to find a place to read.
That day I had a “long” one hour with me. I rushed to Qatar Islamic Cultural Centre (QICC) area, where my company bus was parked. I found a place at the vestibule of QICC under the pale pillar light. There were two or three waiting passengers like me. Bus would be getting ready for return trip at 10.00 that may end just near the midnight.
The heavy Western wind hit me with a war cry. I had to fix my paper in reduced sizes like tabloid and some times little smaller to save from go aloft. After a while a passerby, said ‘sorry’ for disturbing my reading in the open air. A spontaneous sorry came within myself, because I might have caused an obstruction to that man’s walking flow through that colonnade. As I looked on that gentle man with a uniform, he looked like a security staff.
He gave his courtesy to my open reading. I have developed the ‘bad’ habit of ‘lost-surroundings’ reading since many years. Few moments past, another passenger to our camp, an Indian engineer came there. I was looking through the leader page article on Obama’s transformation to the intellectual president. I offered him the other pages, but he didn’t want to make a stress to his eyes in the dim light. I was looking through the leader page article on Obama’s transformation to the intellectual president. But he had just a look on that centre piece cartoon and asked me “What is the final solution?”
I explained the timely cartoon (named “Final Solution”) as far as I could. The cartoon was presented beautifully. A serious global issue was pictured in local context with sharp and humorous sarcasm. In that cartoon, top management of a big company suggesting termination of tea boy for recovering from economic crisis!
A discussion was begun. From General Motors to Jet Airways and Techno Park in Thiruvanathapuram and some more, the final solution was termination of employees.
He asked me, “Many private giants were waiting for such a chance? The discussion developed to Obama’s strenuous challenges to solve financial crisis. What will be his stimulus actions to recover the falling stocks? All these actions would not be a catwalk as his speeches, he opined. Besides he will have to face racial challenges too. The ‘global’ discussion continued till I fastened my seat belt for a return trip to my ‘desert -nest. “What is the final solution?” his question echoed within me.
