By Kristian Williams
It has been nearly 20 years since comics could safely be dismissed as kids’ stuff. In 1986, three books changed the way Americans saw the medium. Two of them- Alan Moore’s Watchmen and Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns- brought a sense of gloomy realism to the superhero genre. The third, Art piegelman’s Maus, used cartoon conventions to tell of his father’s experience in the Holocaust, depicting Jews as mice and Nazis as cats. Magazines were suddenly full of stories about comics “growing up” and the term “graphic novel” entered the literary lexicon.
Somehow “graphic journalism” didn’t make the headlines. But since the renaissance of the mid-'80s, more and more writers and artists have been producing serious nonfiction comics about current events, from war crimes to hip hop. In the mid-1990s, Joe Sacco’s two books on Palestine were hailed as groundbreaking works and made Sacco the best known of the new graphic journalists. Now comics, or graphic, journalism is turning up in daily newspapers, where its inherent subjectivity contrasts sharply with the newsroom’s dispassionate prose- another round in the debate over what journalism should be in the 21st century.
At October 10, 2004, issue of The Edmonton Journal, for example, David Staples and Jill Stanton used the comics format to tell the story of Dave Eamer, a Canadian truck driver who lost the use of his legs in a highway accident and went on to become North America’s first paraplegic long-distance trucker. The Oregonian has adopted a regular comics column, called “CulturePulp”, in which M.E. Russell depicts, among other things, his experiences running a marathon, hunting wild mushrooms, and watching a risqué lounge act. Perhaps not to be outdone by the competition,
Willamette Week, a weekly paper in Portland, adopted the comics format for record reviews and interviews with bands. Those newspapers are following the lead of magazines like The New Yorker, which had Spiegelman cover the 2004 GOP national convention, and Details, which featured Sacco’s coverage of the Bosnian war crimes trial in 1998, Peter Kuper’s depiction of the 1997 Burning Man festival, and Kim Dietch’s account of the execution of Ronald Fitzgerald.
The move toward respectability began in earnest in the 1970s, when The Comics Journal- the genre’s leading trade magazine- began agitating for serious study of the art form. The underground comics of the previous decade had helped demolish some of the barriers to more adult work, and the emergence of “direct market” comics shops opened a niche for small presses, many of which were doing this kind of work. The creators increasingly experimented with new artistic styles and narrative strategies, and comics journalists have adapted these, searching for innovative ways to present the news.
Comics journalism entails a startling variety of approaches and styles. Something of that aesthetic range is represented by the two main pieces in the 1989 book Brought to Light. In one half of the volume, Joyce Brabner and Thomas Yeates tell of the 1984 bombing at a press conference in La Penca, Nicaragua, which killed 8 people and injured 28 others. The presentation is straightforward, using plain language and realistic illustrations, and drawing on the accounts of witnesses and the evidence presented in the Christic Institute’s lawsuit alleging CIA involvement in the bombing.
Flip the book over, and you find a story with similar themes told in a very different manner. The celebrated comics innovators Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz present a fable-like retelling of CIA history, narrated by a lonely, alcoholic eagle wearing an ugly checkered sports coat. Sometimes painterly, sometimes cartoonish, in places using techniques of collage, the piece outlines a record of atrocities culminating in the Iran-contra affair. The tone wavers between the confessional and the bombastic, and the imagery employs heavy symbolism, with human chess pieces, sprinting swastikas, and swimming pools full of blood.
But the facts are there, and the nightmarish surrealism seems to fit the subject matter. Indeed, the reader is forced to question the propriety of the standard journalistic conceits- the calm recitation of facts, the carefully hedged legations, the measured tone. A drunken eagle swimming in blood may actually come closer to the point.
Brabner explained the strategy for Brought to Light: “There were two ways that people were relating to the story” of the CIA’s role in Nicaragua. “One was that people get wrapped up- too wrapped up- in the conspiracy stuff. The other was moral outrage, based on a historical analysis. And I thought, ‘We don’t have to sacrifice; we can do a topsy-turvy book.’
Such code-switching, the ability to alternate between the realistic and the symbolic, is a major strength of comics journalism. It is also one reason why editors are likely to shy away from it- or, as with the recent newspaper strips, to relegate comics journalism to cultural coverage and human-interest stories. When it comes to the front page, newspapers favor plain language, in part to protect the readers from the seductions of rhetoric of art. And comics are irreducibly artistic.
But such reasoning also cuts the other way. The hard-nosed, facts-are-facts tone of “journalistic language” is also seductive. Plain-speaking is itself a kind of rhetoric, which wins trust precisely by seeming to leave rhetoric aside.
Art Spiegelman argues, “The phony objectivity that comes with a camera is a convention and a lie in the same way as writing in the third person rather than the first person. To write a comics journalism report you’re already making an acknowledgment of biases and an urgency that communicates another level of information.”
Spiegelman’s latest book, In the Shadow of No Towers, plays with the dissonance between subjectivity and objectivity and uses it to draw the reader into the events described. The book, which includes strips Spiegelman created for publications like Die Ziet, The Forward, Internazionale and the London Review of Books, tells of Spiegelman’s experience seeing the World Trade Center towers fall on Sept. 11, 2001, and graphically depicts the atmosphere of paranoia and despair that followed the attacks. Appearing in cartoon form on the page, Spiegelman says: “I insist the sky is falling; they roll their eyes and tell me it’s only my Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder ... That’s when time stands still at the moment of trauma.” As he speaks, the panel turns. It gives the impression of frozen time. And, turned fully sideways (twice), the frame itself forms the image of the twin towers. This image literally closes in on Spiegelman; it eclipses his speech. At the end of the strip, the reader is left fully outside the frame, but inside the narrative. We see what the narrator sees. Not bad for a motionless series of two-dimensional drawings.
Of course, the effect relies on a disruption of the ordinary mechanics of the medium. Comics do freeze time with the still image; but by placing these images in sequence, they also provide a sense of motion, of change. Comics are not merely a collection of images, but a collection of images placed in deliberate- though not necessarily chronological order. Unlike much of photo journalism, the images are not intended to stand alone, each seeming to capture the whole story in a single moment. And unlike video and film, with comics the entire series is available to view simultaneously.
This is not to suggest that there aren’t similarities with these other media: When photographs appear in a deliberate sequence, they share many of the narrative characteristics of drawn comics, as do video and film when they slow their presentation down and perceptibly reveal their underlying structure- a series of still images.
On the other hand, comics can also incorporate a complex sequence of events, an entire history, into a single composition. The cover of Seth Tobocman’s 1999 War in the Neighborhood, for example, shows a standoff between the police and protesters outside a squat on New York’s Lower East Side. The image wraps around to the back cover, which features a cut-away of the building. Each room shows a different scene from the squat’s history- repair work, a party, a meeting, a fight, a couple holding their newborn baby. Past and present are spliced together on the page. You can see at a glance what the protesters are seeking to defend.
While working in a very different style, Ted Rall also uses visuals to convey the experiential aspects of his stories. His 2002 book, To Afghanistan and Back, features a dozen war-zone dispatches and a forty-nine-page “graphic travelogue” of his trip. While the essays tell us more about Afghan culture and politics, as well as the progress of the war, the cartoon gives a much clearer sense of what it felt like to be there, what Rall himself actually experienced the fear, the frustration, the sense of the absurd. He writes at one point, “I was in the most dangerous country on the planet, during a war, at the front. And I was bored.” His cartoon doppelganger stares blankly into space.
Of course, comic-book journalists face many of the same difficulties as those working in more conventional media- questions of bias, unreliable sources, language barriers and ethical dilemmas. But their strategies for resolving them are quite different from those of standard newspaper reporting or broadcast journalism.
In Palestine: In the Gaza Strip, Joe Sacco remembers a conversation with two Israeli women. One asks, “Shouldn’t you be seeing our side of the story, too?” He reflects: “And what can I say? ... standing there with two girls from Tel Aviv, it occurs to me that I have seen the Israelis, but through Palestinian eyes- that Israelis were mainly soldiers and settlers to me now, too.”
He invites one of his new friends to the Arab market, to show her the Palestine he has seen. Instead, he discovers that walking beside an Israeli, surrounded by Palestinians, her fear is contagious. The Palestinians, who have been so kind to him, whom he has lived among for weeks, suddenly appear strange and hostile. Sacco feels himself near to panic. It is an enlightening moment. However briefly, he does see the conflict from the other side, and he realizes that the Israeli experience is not just about seizing land and conducting raids, but also about the quiet tension- the trepidation of a young woman walking through the market. Such ambivalence fits well with the complexities of the Palestinian territories.
Sacco recognizes that his perspective has been limited, perhaps even compromised, by his immersion into Palestinian life. More traditional correspondents covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might have the same insight, but are largely unable to deal with it in their stories. Sacco, meanwhile, does not deny the reality of what he has seen, or try to balance it by staying with settlers or embedding with the Israeli Defense Forces. Nor does he apologize for his views, even with their blind spots and contradictions. Instead, he shows us what he has learned- including those elements that frustrate any easy conclusions. “What I’ve seen before my eyes,” Sacco tells me, “isn’t often balanced.”
In comics journalism, more so perhaps than in any other medium, the reporter’s role is consistently emphasized. He is often present, not merely as a voice or a talking head, but as a moral viewpoint and as a participant in the events described. “You become part of a story if you’re a journalist,” Sacco says. “I mean, you can try to write yourself out of it, but you become involved. I think it’s more honest to show that your involvement affects people.”
As the reporter comes into focus, we see that he is not a neutral conduit for news and information, but a person like ourselves- a fallible human being, vulnerable to bias and ignorance and error. By acknowledging his own humanity, the writer can encourage the reader to think critically about what he or she reads.
Comics are well suited to that role because of the inherent narrative properties of the medium. They are not merely illustrated stories, or pictures matched with commentary. Instead, the narrative relies on both the words and the pictures; meaning is produced by the interaction of image and text. Yet each element remains to some degree independent of the other. For this reason, and because several sets of text-image blocks can appear side by side on the same page, comics are well suited to represent the fragmentation of experience during crisis, or the incommensurable views of opposing sides in the midst of conflict, or the kaleidoscopic chaos of a desert carnival like Burning Man.
Moreover, by mixing written words and images, comics have the inherent ability to juxtapose a literal retelling and artistic symbolism, or conversely, symbolic language and representational imagery. includes a short bit titled “Weapons of Mass Displacement,” in which Spiegelman (again appearing in cartoon form) sums up our national neurosis: “Remember how we demolished Iraq instead of Al-Qaeda.” As he speaks, his head changes places with a lampshade, and then his hand, and then his foot. He and his cat switch positions and roles. All the while, the visual displacement heightens the sense of absurdity.
The independence of the words and the pictures allows for an overlay of subjective and objective storytelling. Tensions between the written word and the image can be used to highlight uncertainties, ambiguities, and ironies that other media might inadvertently play down or deliberately ignore.
All of this suggests, simply, that comics open possibilities for journalists that are less available in other media. And perhaps more importantly, they add to the options available to readers, who have lately demonstrated a hunger for voice and meaning in news coverage. Witness the proliferation of blogs and the continued popularity of Ezines. Like E zines and blogs, comics drop the pretense of detachment and emphasize perspective. Furthermore, comics are visually engaging and famously easy to understand. They are, as Sacco says, “inviting. It looks like an easy read.” After all, as everyone knows, even kids read comic books.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Now sex is being outsourced!
By Girish Mishra
America has a multi-billion pornographic moviemaking industry. It turns out on an average around 4,000 films every year, which yield revenue of $13 billion. Thousands of people are engaged in it from its production to distribution. With the advent of the Internet, its range of distribution has become worldwide and is ever expanding. Not only adults, but adolescents too watch them without any effective restrictions. In America, "Almost all of the national cable providers offer a pornography channel, millions of sex videos are sold each year and 50% of hotel guests watch pornography on pay-per-view channels."
This industry, however, is facing a grave threat to its very survival. The main reason for the crisis is the growing incidence of HIV/AIDS. Within less than fortnight 3 porn movie performers have tested positive for the virus that causes the fatal disease AIDS. This has created panic so much so that major producers of porn films have downed their shutters for 60 days. Meantime, industry will think of ways and means to revive its fortune.
Sharon Mitchell, the founder as well as executive director of Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation says "This is not over." Her organization screens movie performers for sexually transmitted diseases. Though she refused to identify the woman found on April 29 to be afflicted with HIV, Mitchell did confirm that this star had sex with 5 male performers who have since been barred from acting till necessary tests are carried on them and they are found to be free from any HIV. By the end of April as many as 53 stars were quarantined, compelling dozens of producers halting their activities. It needs to be noted that Mitchell herself was an actress in the porn films and knows the ins and outs of the industry. Seeing the appalling conditions prevailing there, she has set up her organization with a clinic after earning her master's degree in public health.
The porn film industry based in the San Fernando valley, on the outskirts of Los Angeles city has been trying hard to ward off the danger of closure by making regular tests and certification compulsory. The Los Angeles County Department of Health is not convinced that these steps are sufficient. On April 19, 2004 it ruled that male actors must wear condoms just as building workers put on hard hats to protect themselves. In the case of the former, it is all the more necessary because they put not only their lives but also of those with whom they come into contact in danger. This regulation is being resisted by producers who "argue that the actors are independent contractors, and thus not covered by the regulations. What they really mean is that films with condoms sell less well than films without, hence only two of some 200 production houses in southern California are "condom only", and less than one-fifth of the industry's 1,200 performers regularly use condoms." Mitchell confirms: "Filmmakers believe that viewers prefer the "reality" of unprotected sex. But the reality of unprotected sex is risk of HIV infection."
To get over these problems and reduce costs, there is a serious thinking on the part of the industry to outsource it. Already a number of Hollywood producers are making their non-porn films outside America. Newspapers report that talks are going on between them and the Bollywood people to cooperate so that American films may be made in India. This will benefit both the Hollywood producers and India. The former will reduce their costs and increase their profits while the Indians will get work and the government tax revenue. If this is so, the porn movie making can also well be outsourced to India. Both moral and other objections can be overcome and people can be persuaded to see reason! Has it not happened in the case of opening the doors to foreign print media? If Brazil has allowed American porn moviemakers to outsource their activities to it, how can India stand on the moral postures inherited from bygone eras? Look at Vatsyan's Kama Sutra and the temples of Khajuraho besides vivid depictions Ratikriya in our Sanskrit literature and then decide whether there is anything morally objectionable in filming such scenes and earning revenue as well as providing jobs to our young men and women. Just like export processing zones that do not allow country's labor as well as other laws to operate because we earn money and get jobs for our people, we can also create special zones where porn moviemakers from America can carry on their activities without any hindrance from either the laws and judicial institutions of the country and so called morality police. The American moviemakers will get performers at much lower wages and the infrastructure at reduced rates. They will get talented performers and highly skilled workers to help produce the films. Both sides will benefit and mutual cooperation between the two countries will deepen.
There are, however, two big snags. Proposal may not take off because what havoc outsourcing porn moviemaking has caused to Brazil is no longer secret. Though the Indian press has, by and large, ignored it, the Western press is full of details. Let us refer to just one report. The Miami Herald (April 29, 2004) informs from Sao Paulo: "Flush with dollars, American porn film directors swoop into Brazil for its exotic and uninhibited women, dazzling tropical backdrops and cheap production costs phenomenon that has turned South America's largest country into a prime destination for adult film outsourcing. But the infection of an American porn star with HIV last month after shooting unprotected sex scenes with more than a dozen Brazilian women is sending shock waves through the industry's California heartland and prompting Brazilian performers to criticize their American counterparts.
It goes on to add: "At Sao Paulo's eighth annual Erotica Fair last week, Brazilian porn actors said American directors often bring in their own male talent but usually hire Brazilian actresses who often moonlight as prostitutes and are also willing to have sex without condoms. "The Brazilians make about $175 for sex scenes with condoms, but can double their pay working actors not wearing them."
Second, globally, India is second only to South Africa so far as the incidence of HIV/AIDS is concerned. As many as six laks people are afflicted with AIDS and 45 laks 80 thousand carry the virus that causes the disease. The Economist (April 17, 2004), quoting the CIA, editorially states that as many as 90 laks Indians will get infected by HIV by 2010. In this situation, if American porn moviemaking is outsourced to India, one may well imagine the havoc it will cause. In spite of our nuclear bombs we will be defenseless.
America has a multi-billion pornographic moviemaking industry. It turns out on an average around 4,000 films every year, which yield revenue of $13 billion. Thousands of people are engaged in it from its production to distribution. With the advent of the Internet, its range of distribution has become worldwide and is ever expanding. Not only adults, but adolescents too watch them without any effective restrictions. In America, "Almost all of the national cable providers offer a pornography channel, millions of sex videos are sold each year and 50% of hotel guests watch pornography on pay-per-view channels."
This industry, however, is facing a grave threat to its very survival. The main reason for the crisis is the growing incidence of HIV/AIDS. Within less than fortnight 3 porn movie performers have tested positive for the virus that causes the fatal disease AIDS. This has created panic so much so that major producers of porn films have downed their shutters for 60 days. Meantime, industry will think of ways and means to revive its fortune.
Sharon Mitchell, the founder as well as executive director of Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation says "This is not over." Her organization screens movie performers for sexually transmitted diseases. Though she refused to identify the woman found on April 29 to be afflicted with HIV, Mitchell did confirm that this star had sex with 5 male performers who have since been barred from acting till necessary tests are carried on them and they are found to be free from any HIV. By the end of April as many as 53 stars were quarantined, compelling dozens of producers halting their activities. It needs to be noted that Mitchell herself was an actress in the porn films and knows the ins and outs of the industry. Seeing the appalling conditions prevailing there, she has set up her organization with a clinic after earning her master's degree in public health.
The porn film industry based in the San Fernando valley, on the outskirts of Los Angeles city has been trying hard to ward off the danger of closure by making regular tests and certification compulsory. The Los Angeles County Department of Health is not convinced that these steps are sufficient. On April 19, 2004 it ruled that male actors must wear condoms just as building workers put on hard hats to protect themselves. In the case of the former, it is all the more necessary because they put not only their lives but also of those with whom they come into contact in danger. This regulation is being resisted by producers who "argue that the actors are independent contractors, and thus not covered by the regulations. What they really mean is that films with condoms sell less well than films without, hence only two of some 200 production houses in southern California are "condom only", and less than one-fifth of the industry's 1,200 performers regularly use condoms." Mitchell confirms: "Filmmakers believe that viewers prefer the "reality" of unprotected sex. But the reality of unprotected sex is risk of HIV infection."
To get over these problems and reduce costs, there is a serious thinking on the part of the industry to outsource it. Already a number of Hollywood producers are making their non-porn films outside America. Newspapers report that talks are going on between them and the Bollywood people to cooperate so that American films may be made in India. This will benefit both the Hollywood producers and India. The former will reduce their costs and increase their profits while the Indians will get work and the government tax revenue. If this is so, the porn movie making can also well be outsourced to India. Both moral and other objections can be overcome and people can be persuaded to see reason! Has it not happened in the case of opening the doors to foreign print media? If Brazil has allowed American porn moviemakers to outsource their activities to it, how can India stand on the moral postures inherited from bygone eras? Look at Vatsyan's Kama Sutra and the temples of Khajuraho besides vivid depictions Ratikriya in our Sanskrit literature and then decide whether there is anything morally objectionable in filming such scenes and earning revenue as well as providing jobs to our young men and women. Just like export processing zones that do not allow country's labor as well as other laws to operate because we earn money and get jobs for our people, we can also create special zones where porn moviemakers from America can carry on their activities without any hindrance from either the laws and judicial institutions of the country and so called morality police. The American moviemakers will get performers at much lower wages and the infrastructure at reduced rates. They will get talented performers and highly skilled workers to help produce the films. Both sides will benefit and mutual cooperation between the two countries will deepen.
There are, however, two big snags. Proposal may not take off because what havoc outsourcing porn moviemaking has caused to Brazil is no longer secret. Though the Indian press has, by and large, ignored it, the Western press is full of details. Let us refer to just one report. The Miami Herald (April 29, 2004) informs from Sao Paulo: "Flush with dollars, American porn film directors swoop into Brazil for its exotic and uninhibited women, dazzling tropical backdrops and cheap production costs phenomenon that has turned South America's largest country into a prime destination for adult film outsourcing. But the infection of an American porn star with HIV last month after shooting unprotected sex scenes with more than a dozen Brazilian women is sending shock waves through the industry's California heartland and prompting Brazilian performers to criticize their American counterparts.
It goes on to add: "At Sao Paulo's eighth annual Erotica Fair last week, Brazilian porn actors said American directors often bring in their own male talent but usually hire Brazilian actresses who often moonlight as prostitutes and are also willing to have sex without condoms. "The Brazilians make about $175 for sex scenes with condoms, but can double their pay working actors not wearing them."
Second, globally, India is second only to South Africa so far as the incidence of HIV/AIDS is concerned. As many as six laks people are afflicted with AIDS and 45 laks 80 thousand carry the virus that causes the disease. The Economist (April 17, 2004), quoting the CIA, editorially states that as many as 90 laks Indians will get infected by HIV by 2010. In this situation, if American porn moviemaking is outsourced to India, one may well imagine the havoc it will cause. In spite of our nuclear bombs we will be defenseless.
Monday, February 06, 2006
Respond instead of Reacting
by Azim Premji
I am very happy to be here with you. It is always wonderful to be with young people. The funny thing about life is that you realize the value of something only when it begins to leave you. As my hair turned from black, to salt and pepper and finally salt without the pepper, I have begun to realize the importance of youth.
At the same time, I have begun to truly appreciate some of the lessons I have leant along the way. I hope you will find them useful when you plan your own career and life.
The first thing I have learnt is that we must always begin with our
strengths. From the earliest years of our schooling, everyone focuses on what is wrong with us. There is an imaginary story of a rabbit. The rabbit was enrolled in a rabbit school. Like all rabbits, it could hop very well but could not swim. At the end of the year, the rabbit got high marks in hopping but failed in swimming. The parents were concerned. They said, "Forget about hopping. You are anyway good at it. Concentrate on swimming." They sent the rabbit for tuitions in swimming. And guess what happened? The rabbit forgot how to hop! As for swimming, have you ever seen a rabbit swim? While it is important for us to know what we are not good at, we must also cherish what is good in us. That is because it is only our strengths that can give us the energy to correct our weaknesses.
The second lesson I have learnt is that a rupee earned is of far more value than five found. My friend was sharing me the story of his 8 year-old niece. She would always complain about the breakfast. The cook tried everything possible, but the child remained unhappy. Finally, my friend took the child to a supermarket and brought one of those ready-to-cook packets. The child had to cut the packet and pour water in the dish. After that, it took two minutes in the microwave to be ready. The child found the food to be absolutely delicious? The difference was that she has cooked it! In my own life, I have found that nothing gives as much satisfaction as earning our rewards. In fact, what is gifted or inherited follows the old rule of come easy, go easy. I guess we only know the value of what we have if we have struggled to earn it.
The third lesson I have learnt is no one bats a hundred every time. Life has many challenges. You win some and lose some. You must enjoy winning. But do not let it go to the head. The moment it does, you are already on your way to failure. And if you do encounter failure along the way, treat it as an equally natural phenomenon. Don’t beat yourself for it or any one else for that matter! Accept it, look at your own share in the problem, learn from it and move on. The important thing is, when you lose, do not lose the lesson.
The fourth lesson I have learnt is the importance of humility. Sometimes, when you get so much in life, you really start wondering whether you deserve all of it. This brings me to the value of gratitude. We have so much to be grateful for. Our parents, our teachers and our seniors have done so much for us that we can never repay them. Many people focus on the shortcomings, because obviously no one can be perfect. But it is important to first acknowledge what we have received. Nothing in life is permanent but when a relationship ends, rather than becoming bitter, we must learn to savor the memory of the good things while they lasted.
The fifth lesson I learnt is that we must always strive for excellence. One way of achieving excellence is by looking at those better than ourselves. Keep learning what they do differently. Emulate it. But excellence can't be imposed from the outside. We must also feel the need from within. It must become an obsession. It must involve not only our mind but also our heart and soul. Excellence is not an act but a habit. I remember the inspiring lines of a poem, which says that your reach must always exceed your grasp. That is heaven on earth. Ultimately, your only competition is yourself.
The sixth lesson I have learnt is never give up in the face of adversity. It comes on you suddenly without warning. One can either succumb to self-pity, wring your hands in despair or decide to deal with the situation with courage and dignity. Always keep in mind that it is only the test of fire that makes fine steel. A friend of mine shared this incident with me. His 8-year old daughter was struggling away at a jigsaw puzzle. She kept at it for hours but could not succeed. Finally, it went beyond her bedtime. My friend told her, "Look, why don’t you just give up? I don’t think you will complete it tonight. Look at it another day." The daughter looked with a strange look in her eyes, "But, dad, why should I give up? All the pieces are there! I have just got to put them together!" If we persevere long enough, we can put any problem into its perspective.
The seventh lesson I have learnt is that while you must be open to change, do not compromise on your values. Mahatma Gandhiji often said that you must open the windows of your mind, but you must not be swept off your feet by the breeze. You must define what your core values are and what you stand for. And these values are not so difficult to define. Values like honesty, integrity, consideration and humility have survived for generations. Values are not in the words used to describe them as much as in the simple acts.
At the end of the day, it is values that define a person more than the achievements. Because it is the means of achievement that decide how long the achievements will sustain. Do not be tempted by short cuts. The short cut can make you lose your way and end up becoming the longest way to the destination. And the final lesson I learnt is that we must have faith in our own ideas even if everyone tells us that we are wrong.
There was once a newspaper vendor who had a rude customer. Every morning, the customer would walk by, refuse to return the greeting, grab the paper off the shelf and throw the money at the vendor. The vendor would pick up the money, smile politely and say, "Thank you, Sir." One day, the vendor’s assistant asked him, "Why are you always so polite with him when he is so rude to you? Why don’t you throw the newspaper at him when he comes back tomorrow?" The vendor smiled and replied, "He can’t help being rude and I can’t help being polite. Why should I let his rude behavior dictate my politeness?
In my youth, I thought of myself as a rebel and was many times, a rebel without a cause. Today, I realize that my rebellion was another kind of conformity. We defied our elders to fall in line with our peers!
Ultimately, we must learn to respond instead of reacting. When we respond, we evaluate with a calm mind and do whatever is most appropriate. We are in control of our actions. When we react, we are still doing what the other person wants us to do. I wish you all the best in your life and career.
I hope you achieve success in whatever way you define it and what gives you the maximum happiness in life. Remember, those who win are those who believe they can.
I am very happy to be here with you. It is always wonderful to be with young people. The funny thing about life is that you realize the value of something only when it begins to leave you. As my hair turned from black, to salt and pepper and finally salt without the pepper, I have begun to realize the importance of youth.
At the same time, I have begun to truly appreciate some of the lessons I have leant along the way. I hope you will find them useful when you plan your own career and life.
The first thing I have learnt is that we must always begin with our
strengths. From the earliest years of our schooling, everyone focuses on what is wrong with us. There is an imaginary story of a rabbit. The rabbit was enrolled in a rabbit school. Like all rabbits, it could hop very well but could not swim. At the end of the year, the rabbit got high marks in hopping but failed in swimming. The parents were concerned. They said, "Forget about hopping. You are anyway good at it. Concentrate on swimming." They sent the rabbit for tuitions in swimming. And guess what happened? The rabbit forgot how to hop! As for swimming, have you ever seen a rabbit swim? While it is important for us to know what we are not good at, we must also cherish what is good in us. That is because it is only our strengths that can give us the energy to correct our weaknesses.
The second lesson I have learnt is that a rupee earned is of far more value than five found. My friend was sharing me the story of his 8 year-old niece. She would always complain about the breakfast. The cook tried everything possible, but the child remained unhappy. Finally, my friend took the child to a supermarket and brought one of those ready-to-cook packets. The child had to cut the packet and pour water in the dish. After that, it took two minutes in the microwave to be ready. The child found the food to be absolutely delicious? The difference was that she has cooked it! In my own life, I have found that nothing gives as much satisfaction as earning our rewards. In fact, what is gifted or inherited follows the old rule of come easy, go easy. I guess we only know the value of what we have if we have struggled to earn it.
The third lesson I have learnt is no one bats a hundred every time. Life has many challenges. You win some and lose some. You must enjoy winning. But do not let it go to the head. The moment it does, you are already on your way to failure. And if you do encounter failure along the way, treat it as an equally natural phenomenon. Don’t beat yourself for it or any one else for that matter! Accept it, look at your own share in the problem, learn from it and move on. The important thing is, when you lose, do not lose the lesson.
The fourth lesson I have learnt is the importance of humility. Sometimes, when you get so much in life, you really start wondering whether you deserve all of it. This brings me to the value of gratitude. We have so much to be grateful for. Our parents, our teachers and our seniors have done so much for us that we can never repay them. Many people focus on the shortcomings, because obviously no one can be perfect. But it is important to first acknowledge what we have received. Nothing in life is permanent but when a relationship ends, rather than becoming bitter, we must learn to savor the memory of the good things while they lasted.
The fifth lesson I learnt is that we must always strive for excellence. One way of achieving excellence is by looking at those better than ourselves. Keep learning what they do differently. Emulate it. But excellence can't be imposed from the outside. We must also feel the need from within. It must become an obsession. It must involve not only our mind but also our heart and soul. Excellence is not an act but a habit. I remember the inspiring lines of a poem, which says that your reach must always exceed your grasp. That is heaven on earth. Ultimately, your only competition is yourself.
The sixth lesson I have learnt is never give up in the face of adversity. It comes on you suddenly without warning. One can either succumb to self-pity, wring your hands in despair or decide to deal with the situation with courage and dignity. Always keep in mind that it is only the test of fire that makes fine steel. A friend of mine shared this incident with me. His 8-year old daughter was struggling away at a jigsaw puzzle. She kept at it for hours but could not succeed. Finally, it went beyond her bedtime. My friend told her, "Look, why don’t you just give up? I don’t think you will complete it tonight. Look at it another day." The daughter looked with a strange look in her eyes, "But, dad, why should I give up? All the pieces are there! I have just got to put them together!" If we persevere long enough, we can put any problem into its perspective.
The seventh lesson I have learnt is that while you must be open to change, do not compromise on your values. Mahatma Gandhiji often said that you must open the windows of your mind, but you must not be swept off your feet by the breeze. You must define what your core values are and what you stand for. And these values are not so difficult to define. Values like honesty, integrity, consideration and humility have survived for generations. Values are not in the words used to describe them as much as in the simple acts.
At the end of the day, it is values that define a person more than the achievements. Because it is the means of achievement that decide how long the achievements will sustain. Do not be tempted by short cuts. The short cut can make you lose your way and end up becoming the longest way to the destination. And the final lesson I learnt is that we must have faith in our own ideas even if everyone tells us that we are wrong.
There was once a newspaper vendor who had a rude customer. Every morning, the customer would walk by, refuse to return the greeting, grab the paper off the shelf and throw the money at the vendor. The vendor would pick up the money, smile politely and say, "Thank you, Sir." One day, the vendor’s assistant asked him, "Why are you always so polite with him when he is so rude to you? Why don’t you throw the newspaper at him when he comes back tomorrow?" The vendor smiled and replied, "He can’t help being rude and I can’t help being polite. Why should I let his rude behavior dictate my politeness?
In my youth, I thought of myself as a rebel and was many times, a rebel without a cause. Today, I realize that my rebellion was another kind of conformity. We defied our elders to fall in line with our peers!
Ultimately, we must learn to respond instead of reacting. When we respond, we evaluate with a calm mind and do whatever is most appropriate. We are in control of our actions. When we react, we are still doing what the other person wants us to do. I wish you all the best in your life and career.
I hope you achieve success in whatever way you define it and what gives you the maximum happiness in life. Remember, those who win are those who believe they can.
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Wanted: A Public Editor
By Dasu Krishnamoorty
A blogger detected that on April 23, 2004, the city supplements of the country’s leading English daily the Times of India (both of Mumbai and Kolkata) carried a story titled "Sex and the City" on their front pages. The text of the story and the heading were the same. Since the metros changed, the names of the characters also changed: Ryan in Bombay Times became Raghav in Calcutta Times, Amit Patil (23) became Amit Datta (23) and social psychiatrist Dr.Anjali Chhabria became psychiatrist Dr.Shiladitya Ray and so on. That is not the end of the comedy. Though Anjali Chabbria became Shiladitya Ray in the first paragraph of the Calcutta Times story, in the next paragraph she forgot to change her disguise and remained Anjali. Nobody knows whether the entire story is fictitious or only the characters.
This is a clear breach of the unwritten compact between the newspaper and its readers. It is not known if the Times of India had apologized to the readers or, at least, acknowledged the unethical practice. An admission of this journalistic malfeasance would have helped increase the readers’ trust. Trust is an important factor in determining the manner in which readers realize media content. To resume faith and loyalty, readers do not want retribution but a frank admission of acts of omission and commission in the newsrooms.
That is where the relevance of an ombudsman who is now increasingly known as a public editor, comes in. Ombudsman is a generic term. Since trust is becoming more important than ever in the consumption of news and other matter, a public editor will be of great help in maintaining reader affiliation. If the Times of India had a public editor, he/she would have detected this crime and apologized to the readers. Even the minimum courtesy of a correction was not forthcoming. Daniel Okrent, first public editor of the New York Times, says, "To the editors, the corrections reflect the paper’s determination to convince its readers that it takes accuracy seriously."
For the New York Times, it took a crisis to appoint a public editor. In the beginning, NYT’s managing editor Bill Keller opposed the entry of an ombudsman.. "We believe the top editors of the paper, and the department heads, need to be personally accountable for what we print - accountable to our readers, to the broader public and to those we write about. Accountable, too, to our staff, for the way in which we evaluate their work and, on occasion defend it. Historically, we have believed that an ombudsman or similar reader representative, formally designated, would represent a dilution of those relationships," Keller said. But after the Jayson Blair fiasco, NYT had to appoint Daniel Okrent as the public editor.
Public editors in America are not an overnight phenomenon. In 70's, the National News Council, similar to our press council, had to close shop with the New York Times leading the attack against it. All because journalists like A.M. Rosenthal of the New York Times, Walter Cronkite and others believed that it would stifle a free press. Rosenthal said that in order to have National News Council you have to have regulations, and "I am against regulation of the press, including self regulation except within each individual newspaper or broadcast station." No wonder in1995 January, U.S. News & World Report said, "The public these days does not merely dislike the press - it hates it." Okrent said on assuming charge, "I want to be able to let you know what I know- to remain a reader, even if a reader with an all-access backstage pass. I never want to be in the position of saying, "I know they did this right, but I'm not allowed to tell you why." Okrent’s appointment is an acknowledgement of the need for self-criticism as alternative to a news council.
The Organisation of News Ombudsmen chief Yavuz Baydar describes the role of ombudsman as opening a window on the inner working of news organizations. As a concept, it began in America as early as 1913 when the New York World started a bureau of accuracy and fair play. But the first ombudsman came only in 1967 with Courier-Journal of Louiseville, Kentucky. appointing one. NYT’s first public editor Daniel Okrent is among 38 other ombudsmen in the US print media. For the thousands of newspapers in the world there are only 80 public editors (number from The Organisation of News Ombudsmen) highlighting a medieval and short sighted opposition to even self-regulation. The NYT continues to be the butt of derision even today as a result of Judith Miller’s reporting of WMDs in Iraq. Gloria Cooper, writing in the Columbia Journalism Review says, " Late in 2003, against all inclinations but desperate to exorcise the ghost of Jayson Blair, NYT cracked open its door to the alien presence of a public editor."
A public editor helps build credibility for his newspaper. The omdusman institution itself is a response to "the public’s alarming disaffection with an unaccountable press." The appointment of a public editor improves the performance of the journalists while it is a way of showing respect to reader sentiment. The public editor mediates between his newspaper and its readers, telling the editors what the readers need and explaining to the readers why mistakes occur in a newspaper. As Ian Mayes, public editor of the Guardian, writes in the British Journalism review, "the principle is a simple one: news organizations that, almost by definition, constantly call others to account should be more readily accountable and open themselves."
In Britain, the Guardian, the Observer, the Independent on Sunday, the Sun and the Daily Mirror have public editors who have devised ways in which to ensure transparency. All of them publish corrections while the two Sunday papers discuss issues raised by their readers. The Daily Mirror tells its readers how to contact the Press Complaints Commission, Britain’s media watchdog, while the Guardian provides a low cost telephone line to its readers to convey complaint or comment. On its home page, the Guardian provides a link to corrections published by it.
At the Guardian, Ian Mayes has a fulltime job, has complete independence and has built a unique database of feedback from readers. The editor has no veto on what Mayes writes nor can he dismiss him. It is the Scotts Trust, the owner of the paper, alone that can sack him. The terms of appointment for the public editor are on the Guardian website for all to see. If readers have any complaints against him, Mayes advises them on how to reach the Press Complaints Commission. He favors high visibility and easy accessibility to improve interaction with readers.
Nicholas Kristof, one of NYT’s well-known columnists, wrote last month an article (A slap in the face) where he talked of the declining faith of the public in the American media and said, "We will have to work much, much harder to win back our credibility with the public. Stressing the need for taking much bolder steps to reconnect with the public, he called for "more openness, more ombudsmen and more acknowledgement of failings." The article evoked feedback that demonstrates how informed and critical readers can be.
If some editors in India are not comfortable with external scrutiny and regard it as a drag on their independence, they may emulate their counterparts in the West and welcome an ombudsman or a public editor. In fact, the Times of India, in the forefront of opposition to the press council, had an ombudsman as a showpiece for a while. Nobody outside the Times House had an idea of what Justice P.N. Bhagavathi did for the while he was with the Times of India. No one has an idea of what a judge could do in a newspaper office. I know of no other newspaper in the country appointing a public editor to represent the interests of the readers.
Sometime in September 1999, the editor of the Hindustan Times V.N. Narayanan wrote a column in his paper. "Of its 1,263 words, 1,020 were identical to those in an article of mine published in The Sunday Times Magazine in February under the headline "No time like the present". Of its 83 sentences, 72 were mine," wrote Bryan Appleyard pointing out that Narayanan's column was a replication of the article he wrote for The Sunday Times. In exasperation Appleyard wrote, "Narayanan would have lost nothing by rewriting my article in his own words and giving me credit." B.N. Uniyal, a former chief of bureau at Patriot, detected this act of plagiarism and wrote an article about it in the Pioneer. Narayanan's plagiarism caused embarrassment not only to himself and his paper but also to Indian journalism. For the Hindustan Times, that was the time to appoint a public editor who would keep a watch on shortcuts journalists adopt when they run short of stories to report.
Long ago, India Today (its North American edition) carried a story by Tunku Varadarajan with the following heading: "Desis Crib Despite Fairer Press Coverage of India" The first paragraph read like this: " We were at a dinner party recently and I was talking to a Typical Desi Whiner: you know, the sort who lives in America, profits from it, yet can rarely find a kind word for the land which gave him new life and bounty." The writer criticized rightly the tendency of some American Indians to attack India-baiters in the US though they themselves feel free to run down the country of their origin. But the article repeatedly used the word whiners implying the existence of a community of Desi whiners. That may be proper in American journalism but most Indian newspapers and their readers find it difficult to digest such freedom of expression.
There is no doubt that India Today’s North America desk was intimidated by the credentials of Varadarajan who is Times of India, London, correspondent in the US and bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal. A public editor/ombudsman would certainly have pulled up the desk for its pusillanimity. In his article, Kristof says, "If one word can capture the public attitude toward American journalists, I’m afraid it’s ‘arrogant.’ This is no less true of Indian journalists at all levels.
The ugly face-off between some editors of English newspapers and the Press Council of India when Justice P.B.Sawant was its chairman yielded from the editors a grudging endorsement of the need for self-regulation. Press councils throughout the world are an acknowledgement of the importance of keeping a watch on public and private conspiracies to weaken the role of the media and also to ensure that media performance is in consonance with the needs of their audiences.
Self-criticism is the first step to self-regulation. In the absence of either, the media invite the prying eyes of readers and critics and barbs from media sentinels (owls) like The Hoot. Not that readers ever matter or that they ever mattered with some of our editors. But an occasional inversion of the searchlight will strengthen the bonds of mutual trust between readers and the media. Many readers are not subscribers, who generally are uncritical consumers. Unaffiliated readers are more searching and probing than the subscriber-reader. Both categories are bound, however, by the content they consume that in the end becomes the agenda for public discourse. As a process, this agenda formation is not noticeable because of the intervention of time/space disparities in content consumption. But readers are a force that deserves to be respected and given space as reflecting the communication urges of content providers.
A blogger detected that on April 23, 2004, the city supplements of the country’s leading English daily the Times of India (both of Mumbai and Kolkata) carried a story titled "Sex and the City" on their front pages. The text of the story and the heading were the same. Since the metros changed, the names of the characters also changed: Ryan in Bombay Times became Raghav in Calcutta Times, Amit Patil (23) became Amit Datta (23) and social psychiatrist Dr.Anjali Chhabria became psychiatrist Dr.Shiladitya Ray and so on. That is not the end of the comedy. Though Anjali Chabbria became Shiladitya Ray in the first paragraph of the Calcutta Times story, in the next paragraph she forgot to change her disguise and remained Anjali. Nobody knows whether the entire story is fictitious or only the characters.
This is a clear breach of the unwritten compact between the newspaper and its readers. It is not known if the Times of India had apologized to the readers or, at least, acknowledged the unethical practice. An admission of this journalistic malfeasance would have helped increase the readers’ trust. Trust is an important factor in determining the manner in which readers realize media content. To resume faith and loyalty, readers do not want retribution but a frank admission of acts of omission and commission in the newsrooms.
That is where the relevance of an ombudsman who is now increasingly known as a public editor, comes in. Ombudsman is a generic term. Since trust is becoming more important than ever in the consumption of news and other matter, a public editor will be of great help in maintaining reader affiliation. If the Times of India had a public editor, he/she would have detected this crime and apologized to the readers. Even the minimum courtesy of a correction was not forthcoming. Daniel Okrent, first public editor of the New York Times, says, "To the editors, the corrections reflect the paper’s determination to convince its readers that it takes accuracy seriously."
For the New York Times, it took a crisis to appoint a public editor. In the beginning, NYT’s managing editor Bill Keller opposed the entry of an ombudsman.. "We believe the top editors of the paper, and the department heads, need to be personally accountable for what we print - accountable to our readers, to the broader public and to those we write about. Accountable, too, to our staff, for the way in which we evaluate their work and, on occasion defend it. Historically, we have believed that an ombudsman or similar reader representative, formally designated, would represent a dilution of those relationships," Keller said. But after the Jayson Blair fiasco, NYT had to appoint Daniel Okrent as the public editor.
Public editors in America are not an overnight phenomenon. In 70's, the National News Council, similar to our press council, had to close shop with the New York Times leading the attack against it. All because journalists like A.M. Rosenthal of the New York Times, Walter Cronkite and others believed that it would stifle a free press. Rosenthal said that in order to have National News Council you have to have regulations, and "I am against regulation of the press, including self regulation except within each individual newspaper or broadcast station." No wonder in1995 January, U.S. News & World Report said, "The public these days does not merely dislike the press - it hates it." Okrent said on assuming charge, "I want to be able to let you know what I know- to remain a reader, even if a reader with an all-access backstage pass. I never want to be in the position of saying, "I know they did this right, but I'm not allowed to tell you why." Okrent’s appointment is an acknowledgement of the need for self-criticism as alternative to a news council.
The Organisation of News Ombudsmen chief Yavuz Baydar describes the role of ombudsman as opening a window on the inner working of news organizations. As a concept, it began in America as early as 1913 when the New York World started a bureau of accuracy and fair play. But the first ombudsman came only in 1967 with Courier-Journal of Louiseville, Kentucky. appointing one. NYT’s first public editor Daniel Okrent is among 38 other ombudsmen in the US print media. For the thousands of newspapers in the world there are only 80 public editors (number from The Organisation of News Ombudsmen) highlighting a medieval and short sighted opposition to even self-regulation. The NYT continues to be the butt of derision even today as a result of Judith Miller’s reporting of WMDs in Iraq. Gloria Cooper, writing in the Columbia Journalism Review says, " Late in 2003, against all inclinations but desperate to exorcise the ghost of Jayson Blair, NYT cracked open its door to the alien presence of a public editor."
A public editor helps build credibility for his newspaper. The omdusman institution itself is a response to "the public’s alarming disaffection with an unaccountable press." The appointment of a public editor improves the performance of the journalists while it is a way of showing respect to reader sentiment. The public editor mediates between his newspaper and its readers, telling the editors what the readers need and explaining to the readers why mistakes occur in a newspaper. As Ian Mayes, public editor of the Guardian, writes in the British Journalism review, "the principle is a simple one: news organizations that, almost by definition, constantly call others to account should be more readily accountable and open themselves."
In Britain, the Guardian, the Observer, the Independent on Sunday, the Sun and the Daily Mirror have public editors who have devised ways in which to ensure transparency. All of them publish corrections while the two Sunday papers discuss issues raised by their readers. The Daily Mirror tells its readers how to contact the Press Complaints Commission, Britain’s media watchdog, while the Guardian provides a low cost telephone line to its readers to convey complaint or comment. On its home page, the Guardian provides a link to corrections published by it.
At the Guardian, Ian Mayes has a fulltime job, has complete independence and has built a unique database of feedback from readers. The editor has no veto on what Mayes writes nor can he dismiss him. It is the Scotts Trust, the owner of the paper, alone that can sack him. The terms of appointment for the public editor are on the Guardian website for all to see. If readers have any complaints against him, Mayes advises them on how to reach the Press Complaints Commission. He favors high visibility and easy accessibility to improve interaction with readers.
Nicholas Kristof, one of NYT’s well-known columnists, wrote last month an article (A slap in the face) where he talked of the declining faith of the public in the American media and said, "We will have to work much, much harder to win back our credibility with the public. Stressing the need for taking much bolder steps to reconnect with the public, he called for "more openness, more ombudsmen and more acknowledgement of failings." The article evoked feedback that demonstrates how informed and critical readers can be.
If some editors in India are not comfortable with external scrutiny and regard it as a drag on their independence, they may emulate their counterparts in the West and welcome an ombudsman or a public editor. In fact, the Times of India, in the forefront of opposition to the press council, had an ombudsman as a showpiece for a while. Nobody outside the Times House had an idea of what Justice P.N. Bhagavathi did for the while he was with the Times of India. No one has an idea of what a judge could do in a newspaper office. I know of no other newspaper in the country appointing a public editor to represent the interests of the readers.
Sometime in September 1999, the editor of the Hindustan Times V.N. Narayanan wrote a column in his paper. "Of its 1,263 words, 1,020 were identical to those in an article of mine published in The Sunday Times Magazine in February under the headline "No time like the present". Of its 83 sentences, 72 were mine," wrote Bryan Appleyard pointing out that Narayanan's column was a replication of the article he wrote for The Sunday Times. In exasperation Appleyard wrote, "Narayanan would have lost nothing by rewriting my article in his own words and giving me credit." B.N. Uniyal, a former chief of bureau at Patriot, detected this act of plagiarism and wrote an article about it in the Pioneer. Narayanan's plagiarism caused embarrassment not only to himself and his paper but also to Indian journalism. For the Hindustan Times, that was the time to appoint a public editor who would keep a watch on shortcuts journalists adopt when they run short of stories to report.
Long ago, India Today (its North American edition) carried a story by Tunku Varadarajan with the following heading: "Desis Crib Despite Fairer Press Coverage of India" The first paragraph read like this: " We were at a dinner party recently and I was talking to a Typical Desi Whiner: you know, the sort who lives in America, profits from it, yet can rarely find a kind word for the land which gave him new life and bounty." The writer criticized rightly the tendency of some American Indians to attack India-baiters in the US though they themselves feel free to run down the country of their origin. But the article repeatedly used the word whiners implying the existence of a community of Desi whiners. That may be proper in American journalism but most Indian newspapers and their readers find it difficult to digest such freedom of expression.
There is no doubt that India Today’s North America desk was intimidated by the credentials of Varadarajan who is Times of India, London, correspondent in the US and bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal. A public editor/ombudsman would certainly have pulled up the desk for its pusillanimity. In his article, Kristof says, "If one word can capture the public attitude toward American journalists, I’m afraid it’s ‘arrogant.’ This is no less true of Indian journalists at all levels.
The ugly face-off between some editors of English newspapers and the Press Council of India when Justice P.B.Sawant was its chairman yielded from the editors a grudging endorsement of the need for self-regulation. Press councils throughout the world are an acknowledgement of the importance of keeping a watch on public and private conspiracies to weaken the role of the media and also to ensure that media performance is in consonance with the needs of their audiences.
Self-criticism is the first step to self-regulation. In the absence of either, the media invite the prying eyes of readers and critics and barbs from media sentinels (owls) like The Hoot. Not that readers ever matter or that they ever mattered with some of our editors. But an occasional inversion of the searchlight will strengthen the bonds of mutual trust between readers and the media. Many readers are not subscribers, who generally are uncritical consumers. Unaffiliated readers are more searching and probing than the subscriber-reader. Both categories are bound, however, by the content they consume that in the end becomes the agenda for public discourse. As a process, this agenda formation is not noticeable because of the intervention of time/space disparities in content consumption. But readers are a force that deserves to be respected and given space as reflecting the communication urges of content providers.
Seven Deadly Sins and the Sinners
By SR Ramanujan
Should there be a "Lakshman Rekha" for Media and if the answer is "yes", who should draw this "Rekha"? This was the subject of a round-table organized recently by Andhra Pradesh Press Academy in collaboration with the Delhi-based Center for Media Studies in Hyderabad. There was a good collection of media honchos both from the print and television for round table. Except one or two participants like Rajdeep Sardesai of India Broadcast News, there was a chorus in favor of "self-code" from the top dogs of the media like Ramoji Rao of Eenadu group, MJ Akbar of Asian Age and Deccan Chronicle and the old war horse Kuldip Nayar.
As if setting the cat among the pigeons, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister S Jaipal Reddy, in his inaugural address, announced that the government might set up a media regulatory authority. This should not have been a revelation for the participants at the round table since it has been in the air for quite some time and the minister unsuccessfully tried to introduce the bill in the last parliament session. But there was a howl of protest and the redoubtable Nayar said in a threatening tone "I will go to the Supreme Court if you constitute it".
The round table, in fact, exposed how hollow the editors and media barons are despite the grand-standing they do on various issues in their columns and editorials. Akbar suggested to the media-men covering the proceedings "Look gentlemen, here is your lead story for tomorrow". He did not stop at that. He urged the Minister to clarify whether such a body was being set up. Apparently, Akbar mistook it for an omnibus body covering both newspapers and television channels. The Minister had to intervene to say that there was nothing new about it and the bill has been pending from the days of NDA. He also clarified that the proposed Authority will not go into the news content, but only monitor obscenity in the channels, since some other participants also thought that the Regulatory Authority might as well pry into the print.
Though the market leaders of the media like Ramoji Rao were vehemently opposed to any regulation from the government as it would only bring back the Emergency days, none was clear as to how to evolve the "self code". Who will take the initiative to bring together all the media men for this exercise? The Minister said as a "Nehruvian liberal" he would have nothing to do with such an exercise and the government would keep a safe distance. Sardesai was quite emphatic that in these days of cut-throat competition for TRPs and ABC figures, it would be difficult to have a "self code".
Even if the media develops a "self code" who is going to monitor the violations and who will award punishments for violation of the code? It is only the government that can take punitive action against channels like India TV for showing pornographic clippings during the prime time by canceling the license or some such thing. In Tamil Nadu, both the important channels- SUN TV and Jaya TV- are nothing but propaganda tools for DMK and AIADMK respectively. What sort of code will bind them? First of all, will they sit together to evolve a code? Journalistic ethics is something that both the channels have kept at a respectable distance.
There was also a talk of autonomous body to draw the "Lakshman Rekha". But, who will constitute this body? Will it be like the Censor Board or Prasar Bharati which are also autonomous bodies, but the composition changes with the change of government. Rao was firm. There should be no government hand in this. The Chairman of the Press Council, Justice JN Ray was quite candid. He said that the media had shied away from constituting a regulatory authority.
Akbar was in his element despite his ignorance of the Ramayana which is understandable. He attributed the "Lakshman Rekha" to the ‘dhobi’ who questioned the integrity of Rama. That is beside the point. He listed out 7 sins routinely committed by media-men which is eroding the credibility of the media. He posed an interesting question: When "Sita" (journalists) has already been abducted by Ravana (Proprietors), where is the need for a "Lakshman Rekha"? This is in keeping with Akbar’s inimitable style. But, let us come to the sins he listed though he was also guilty of committing some of the sins: * Media owners, journalists becoming players in the game of business and politics. * Bias in various guises *Pomposity of journalists * Seriousness generating boredom in readers * Triumph of trivia * News on sale * Ignorance
The Hyderabad round table is not the first of its kind to discuss the "Lakshman Rekha". There were many in the past and many more will be there in future. But the "self-code" will be as elusive as the mythical "Mareecha"!
Should there be a "Lakshman Rekha" for Media and if the answer is "yes", who should draw this "Rekha"? This was the subject of a round-table organized recently by Andhra Pradesh Press Academy in collaboration with the Delhi-based Center for Media Studies in Hyderabad. There was a good collection of media honchos both from the print and television for round table. Except one or two participants like Rajdeep Sardesai of India Broadcast News, there was a chorus in favor of "self-code" from the top dogs of the media like Ramoji Rao of Eenadu group, MJ Akbar of Asian Age and Deccan Chronicle and the old war horse Kuldip Nayar.
As if setting the cat among the pigeons, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister S Jaipal Reddy, in his inaugural address, announced that the government might set up a media regulatory authority. This should not have been a revelation for the participants at the round table since it has been in the air for quite some time and the minister unsuccessfully tried to introduce the bill in the last parliament session. But there was a howl of protest and the redoubtable Nayar said in a threatening tone "I will go to the Supreme Court if you constitute it".
The round table, in fact, exposed how hollow the editors and media barons are despite the grand-standing they do on various issues in their columns and editorials. Akbar suggested to the media-men covering the proceedings "Look gentlemen, here is your lead story for tomorrow". He did not stop at that. He urged the Minister to clarify whether such a body was being set up. Apparently, Akbar mistook it for an omnibus body covering both newspapers and television channels. The Minister had to intervene to say that there was nothing new about it and the bill has been pending from the days of NDA. He also clarified that the proposed Authority will not go into the news content, but only monitor obscenity in the channels, since some other participants also thought that the Regulatory Authority might as well pry into the print.
Though the market leaders of the media like Ramoji Rao were vehemently opposed to any regulation from the government as it would only bring back the Emergency days, none was clear as to how to evolve the "self code". Who will take the initiative to bring together all the media men for this exercise? The Minister said as a "Nehruvian liberal" he would have nothing to do with such an exercise and the government would keep a safe distance. Sardesai was quite emphatic that in these days of cut-throat competition for TRPs and ABC figures, it would be difficult to have a "self code".
Even if the media develops a "self code" who is going to monitor the violations and who will award punishments for violation of the code? It is only the government that can take punitive action against channels like India TV for showing pornographic clippings during the prime time by canceling the license or some such thing. In Tamil Nadu, both the important channels- SUN TV and Jaya TV- are nothing but propaganda tools for DMK and AIADMK respectively. What sort of code will bind them? First of all, will they sit together to evolve a code? Journalistic ethics is something that both the channels have kept at a respectable distance.
There was also a talk of autonomous body to draw the "Lakshman Rekha". But, who will constitute this body? Will it be like the Censor Board or Prasar Bharati which are also autonomous bodies, but the composition changes with the change of government. Rao was firm. There should be no government hand in this. The Chairman of the Press Council, Justice JN Ray was quite candid. He said that the media had shied away from constituting a regulatory authority.
Akbar was in his element despite his ignorance of the Ramayana which is understandable. He attributed the "Lakshman Rekha" to the ‘dhobi’ who questioned the integrity of Rama. That is beside the point. He listed out 7 sins routinely committed by media-men which is eroding the credibility of the media. He posed an interesting question: When "Sita" (journalists) has already been abducted by Ravana (Proprietors), where is the need for a "Lakshman Rekha"? This is in keeping with Akbar’s inimitable style. But, let us come to the sins he listed though he was also guilty of committing some of the sins: * Media owners, journalists becoming players in the game of business and politics. * Bias in various guises *Pomposity of journalists * Seriousness generating boredom in readers * Triumph of trivia * News on sale * Ignorance
The Hyderabad round table is not the first of its kind to discuss the "Lakshman Rekha". There were many in the past and many more will be there in future. But the "self-code" will be as elusive as the mythical "Mareecha"!
Friday, February 03, 2006
Every Text has a Context
By SR Ramanujan
A major criticism against media is that it distorts news, takes quotes out of context and sensationalizes the headlines. The charge was found to be having some substance in reporting LK Advani’s tribute to Jinnah. Neither Advani’s speech at Katasraj temple or his lecture in Karachi nor his entry in visitors’ book at mausoleum of Pakistan founder Jinnah, made a mention of the expression that is used in the present controversy that "Jinnah was a secular leader".
True, Advani said that Jinnah was a great leader, man who created history rather than being part of history and that he envisioned a secular Pakistan. But, what got stuck because of the headlines was that "Advani calls Jinnah secular, great". Subsequent developments like Advani’s resignation that was written while in Karachi, its withdrawal under pressure, his call for a debate on Jinnah might justify the headlines. But you don’t anticipate a development and write the headlines.
The question is to what extent the headline writers, who have become a specialized tribe in some of the regional newspapers, can take liberty with headlines? Can they interpret the news or editorialize the news in headlines? Admittedly, bland headlines will not appeal to the readers and they have to be drawn to the news item with some creativity in headlines. It is certainly an art. But can it distort the spirit of text? This is the grouse of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Dr. YS Rajasekara Reddy against the local newspapers; the headlines have nothing to do with the text of the news.
Fine, politicians are bound to have complaints against the media. But there are certain realities which cannot be brushed aside. The problem is print media is trying to compete with the sound byte soldiers so that readers have something different in the headlines. When you thrust the mike on Togadias and Singhals you come out with explosive stuff just like the militant outfits or those holding street dharnas go hysterical when they see the television cameras. There were occasions when television reporters asked such people to enact a "drama" before the camera. On many an occasion tragedies were trivialized for the sake of camera effects.
Before Advani episode could subside, we have Yasin Malik who is also accusing the media of distorting his comments. No doubt, politicians make this charge whenever things go out of hand or not in their favor, but let us look at the headlines carried by different newspapers on the same day reporting the same event while Malik was in Pakistan.
"Yasin says Pak minister set up terrorist camps" (Deccan Chronicle - page l)
"Malik thanks Pak Minister for terror camp" (The New Indian Express - page 9)
''Sheikh Rashid Ran Camp For Jehadis'' (The Times of India - page 1 second lead)
"Media distorted my comments, says Yasin Malik'' (The Hindu - page 12)
"I did not support terrorism: Rashid" (The Hindu - page 12)
The Hindu report is different because the daily subsequently spoke to Yasin Malik when he said: "I fail to understand the mention of militant camps in Pakistan when I never talked about it. Representatives of so many television networks were present at a photo exhibition organized by Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) when I made the speech. "All I said was I met Mr. Rashid when I crossed over from the other side in 1998 and he was hospitable to fellow Kashmiris. It is a matter of record and could be verified by anyone."
According to 'The Hindu', the controversy was triggered following publication of a report in a Pakistan daily quoting Mr. Malik as saying that at the peak of militancy in Kashmir Mr. Rashid’s camps trained 3500 Kashmiri fighters. "Sheikh Rashid has played a great role for Kashmiris’ liberation. He used to support the frontline jehadis but very few people know about his contribution", the daily quoted Mr. Malik as saying at the function where the Minister was also present.
Sheikh Rashid Ahmed is Pakistan’s Information and Broadcasting Minister and he is a Kashmiri. He is the most visible face in the Indo-Pak peace process. It may be a fact, as revealed by Malik himself, that he extended all possible help to jihadis at the peak of the movement in the 90's. The Pak daily may also be privy to the fact that he was instrumental in setting up training camps in PoK. Does that give liberty to attribute something to Malik that he did not say and enable headline writers to make headlines quite juicy.
The Indian government has taken a serious note of Malik’s revelations and what would be its impact on the peace process is a different story. But the delicious irony cannot be missed. Advani recalled Jinnah’s past and said he was a great leader. He invited trouble from his own partymen alright, but pleased Pakistan. Malik recalled Rashid’s past in helping the jihadis and embarrassed Pakistan though Pakistan went out of the way to humor these separatist leaders.
Trivialization of news is another scourge afflicting the media. Suryanarayana Reddy alias Suri is the accused in the Penukonda MLA Paritala Ravi’s murder case. During the run-up to the by-polls, Election Commission ordered that he be shifted out of Anantapur and so he was taken to Vizag jail. After the by-elections, he was shifted back to Anantapur and it is a routine process. ETV placed its camera team in front of the Vizag jail and was shooting all the vehicles that were coming out of the jail for more than 5 minutes and even recording the natural sound when the vehicles passed through the gate. As if to be one up above, TV9, another Telugu news channel brought its reporter live on the screen and the anchor did not know what to ask. She said : "Tell me X, what all you know about Suri’s shift?" That is the level of television reporting!
A major criticism against media is that it distorts news, takes quotes out of context and sensationalizes the headlines. The charge was found to be having some substance in reporting LK Advani’s tribute to Jinnah. Neither Advani’s speech at Katasraj temple or his lecture in Karachi nor his entry in visitors’ book at mausoleum of Pakistan founder Jinnah, made a mention of the expression that is used in the present controversy that "Jinnah was a secular leader".
True, Advani said that Jinnah was a great leader, man who created history rather than being part of history and that he envisioned a secular Pakistan. But, what got stuck because of the headlines was that "Advani calls Jinnah secular, great". Subsequent developments like Advani’s resignation that was written while in Karachi, its withdrawal under pressure, his call for a debate on Jinnah might justify the headlines. But you don’t anticipate a development and write the headlines.
The question is to what extent the headline writers, who have become a specialized tribe in some of the regional newspapers, can take liberty with headlines? Can they interpret the news or editorialize the news in headlines? Admittedly, bland headlines will not appeal to the readers and they have to be drawn to the news item with some creativity in headlines. It is certainly an art. But can it distort the spirit of text? This is the grouse of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Dr. YS Rajasekara Reddy against the local newspapers; the headlines have nothing to do with the text of the news.
Fine, politicians are bound to have complaints against the media. But there are certain realities which cannot be brushed aside. The problem is print media is trying to compete with the sound byte soldiers so that readers have something different in the headlines. When you thrust the mike on Togadias and Singhals you come out with explosive stuff just like the militant outfits or those holding street dharnas go hysterical when they see the television cameras. There were occasions when television reporters asked such people to enact a "drama" before the camera. On many an occasion tragedies were trivialized for the sake of camera effects.
Before Advani episode could subside, we have Yasin Malik who is also accusing the media of distorting his comments. No doubt, politicians make this charge whenever things go out of hand or not in their favor, but let us look at the headlines carried by different newspapers on the same day reporting the same event while Malik was in Pakistan.
"Yasin says Pak minister set up terrorist camps" (Deccan Chronicle - page l)
"Malik thanks Pak Minister for terror camp" (The New Indian Express - page 9)
''Sheikh Rashid Ran Camp For Jehadis'' (The Times of India - page 1 second lead)
"Media distorted my comments, says Yasin Malik'' (The Hindu - page 12)
"I did not support terrorism: Rashid" (The Hindu - page 12)
The Hindu report is different because the daily subsequently spoke to Yasin Malik when he said: "I fail to understand the mention of militant camps in Pakistan when I never talked about it. Representatives of so many television networks were present at a photo exhibition organized by Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) when I made the speech. "All I said was I met Mr. Rashid when I crossed over from the other side in 1998 and he was hospitable to fellow Kashmiris. It is a matter of record and could be verified by anyone."
According to 'The Hindu', the controversy was triggered following publication of a report in a Pakistan daily quoting Mr. Malik as saying that at the peak of militancy in Kashmir Mr. Rashid’s camps trained 3500 Kashmiri fighters. "Sheikh Rashid has played a great role for Kashmiris’ liberation. He used to support the frontline jehadis but very few people know about his contribution", the daily quoted Mr. Malik as saying at the function where the Minister was also present.
Sheikh Rashid Ahmed is Pakistan’s Information and Broadcasting Minister and he is a Kashmiri. He is the most visible face in the Indo-Pak peace process. It may be a fact, as revealed by Malik himself, that he extended all possible help to jihadis at the peak of the movement in the 90's. The Pak daily may also be privy to the fact that he was instrumental in setting up training camps in PoK. Does that give liberty to attribute something to Malik that he did not say and enable headline writers to make headlines quite juicy.
The Indian government has taken a serious note of Malik’s revelations and what would be its impact on the peace process is a different story. But the delicious irony cannot be missed. Advani recalled Jinnah’s past and said he was a great leader. He invited trouble from his own partymen alright, but pleased Pakistan. Malik recalled Rashid’s past in helping the jihadis and embarrassed Pakistan though Pakistan went out of the way to humor these separatist leaders.
Trivialization of news is another scourge afflicting the media. Suryanarayana Reddy alias Suri is the accused in the Penukonda MLA Paritala Ravi’s murder case. During the run-up to the by-polls, Election Commission ordered that he be shifted out of Anantapur and so he was taken to Vizag jail. After the by-elections, he was shifted back to Anantapur and it is a routine process. ETV placed its camera team in front of the Vizag jail and was shooting all the vehicles that were coming out of the jail for more than 5 minutes and even recording the natural sound when the vehicles passed through the gate. As if to be one up above, TV9, another Telugu news channel brought its reporter live on the screen and the anchor did not know what to ask. She said : "Tell me X, what all you know about Suri’s shift?" That is the level of television reporting!
World Press Trends: Newspaper Circulation and Advertising Up Worldwide
Circulation of newspapers in the world increased strongly last year according to the World Association of Newspapers. At the same time, newspaper advertising revenues made significant gains. Global newspaper sales were up 2.1% over the year. Unlike previous years, growth was not only driven by gains in developing markets, but increases in sales in many mature markets.
Newspapers are clearly undergoing a renaissance through new products, new formats, new titles, new editorial approaches, better distribution and better marketing. Despite the incredible competitive challenges in the advertising market, newspapers have more than held their own and their revenues are strongly on the increase again.
The new data, from WAN’s annual survey of world press trends, was released to more than 1,300 publishers, editors and other senior newspaper executives from 81 countries attending the 58th World Newspaper Congress and 12th World Editors Forum in Seoul, Korea. The main figures showed:
* Circulation grew 2.1% worldwide in 2004, taking global sales to a new high of 395 million daily.
* The total number of daily titles was up 2% in the world in 2004 and up 4.6% since 2000.
* 2004 saw the best advertising performance in 4 years, with a revenue increase of 5.3%.
* The audience for newspaper web sites grew 32% last year and 350% over 5 years.
The survey, which WAN has published annually since 1986, this year includes information on all countries and territories where newspapers are published- 215 in all. The 2005 World Press Trends report reveals:
On circulation
* The total circulation of dailies in the world climbed 2.1% in 2004. Over 5 years, it is up 4.8%.
* Sales of newspapers increased in 44% of the countries surveyed and were stable in a further 12%. 31% of those markets show a rise over 5 years.
* More than 395 million people buy a newspaper every day, up from 374 million in 1999.
* Average readership is estimated to be more than one billion people each day.
* 3-quarters of the world’s 100 best selling dailies are now published in Asia. China has overtaken Japan as the country with the highest number of publications in the top 100. The range of the top 100 goes from the Yomiuri Shimbun of Japan with its 14,067,000 copies daily to 6 newspapers- 2 in each country- in China, Thailand and Taiwan, with 600,000 daily sales.
* 5 largest markets for newspapers are: China, with 93.5 million copies sold daily; India, with 78.8 million copies daily; Japan, with 70.4 million copies daily; the United States, with 55.6 million; and Germany, 22.1 million. Sales increased in China, India and Japan in 2004 and declined in the U.S. and Germany.
* Circulation sales were up 4.1% in Asia in 2004 over the previous year, up 6.3% in South America, up 6% in Africa, down 1.4% in Europe, down 0.2% in North America and down 1% in Australia and Oceania.
* Newspapers in the European Union saw a slight 0.7% drop in circulation in 2004, but sales were only 0.4% less (or 360,000 copies) than 5 years ago.
* Circulation of US dailies fell 1% in 2004 and -2.06% over 5 years. Morning newspaper sales dropped by only 0.09% and are up by 0.25% over 5 years, while sales of evening editions declined by 6.2% and 14% respectively.
* In Japan, newspaper sales grew by +0.04% in 2004, the first increase in many years. Over 5 years, sales were down -2.13%. China newspaper sales continue to perform well, up 3.7% and 26.5% over one and 5 years.
* In Russia, the number of daily titles grew: from 472 in 2003 to 485 in 2004, an increase of +2.75%. No reliable circulation figures exists for the Russian press as a whole.
* In Latin America, where it has been difficult to obtain reliable data, Brazilian newspaper sales was up + 0.8% in 2004 but down -17.2% over 5 years; Costa Rica reported circulation losses of -2.06% in 2004 but was up 0.07% over 5 years; while Bolivia saw in increase of +1.5% in 2004.
* Indian newspaper sales increased 8% in 2004 and 14% in the 5-year period. In Pakistan, sales increased +3% last year and +13% over 5 years.
* Elsewhere in Asia, sales in Singapore were up 3% last year, Malaysian sales were up 4%, Indonesia saw a 6.5% increase and Mongolian newspapers increased sales by 31%.
* Australia recorded a decline of -1.21% in sales in 2004 and -4.83% over 5 years, while New Zealand newspaper sales were stable year-on-year and down -4.96% over 5 years.
* Norwegians and Japanese remain the world’s greatest newspaper buyers with, respectively, 651 and 644 sales per thousand population each day. Finland comes next with 522 followed by Sweden with 489.
On New Titles
* Total number of daily titles was up 2% in the world in 2004 and up 4.6% since 2000, taking the total to 6,580 dailies.
* 81% of countries for which data was available reported an increase in the number of daily titles last year. Over 5 years, 44% reported an increase in the number of dailies.
* Number of daily titles was up 4.1% in Asia; +1.3% in Europe; +1.1% in South America, +1.4% in Australia and Oceania; and up 10.4% in Africa. The number of titles declined -0.1% in North America.
On advertising
* Global newspaper advertising revenues saw their biggest increase in 5 years and were up 5.3% in 2004, following a 2% increase in 2003.
* Although newspaper advertising revenues are increasing in many markets, newspapers’ share of the world ad market declined from 30.5% in 2003 to 30.1% in 2004. But newspapers remain the world’s second largest advertising medium, after television, and are expected to retain this position for many years.
* 16 countries and regions saw newspaper advertising market share growth in 2004: Argentina, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, Kuwait, Malaysia, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.
* Over 5 years, newspapers in 19 countries and territories saw increased market share: Argentina, Belgium, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Norway, Poland, Puerto Rico, Slovenia, Taiwan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.
* Newspaper advertising revenues in USA, by far the largest newspaper advertising market in the world, increased by 3.93% in 2004, compared with 1.9% increase in 2003 and a drop the 2 previous years.
On Internet* Internet traffic grew 32% last year and 350% over 5 years for the newspaper web sites for which data is available over several years.
* Internet advertising revenues continue to grow rapidly, and were up 21% in 2004, the highest growth for 5 years.
On Free Dailies
* Size of free daily market in several countries is impressive; in Spain, free daily distribution represents a huge 40% of the market; in Italy, 29%; in Denmark 27%, and in Portugal, 25%.
In addition to providing a broader picture of the world newspaper market, the report provides a wealth of unusual and interesting facts about newspapers from around the world, such as:
* In Bolivia, only 5% of the population buys a new newspaper occasionally.
* In Bosnia, 53% of adults have no confidence in any print media.
* There is no printing press in Equatorial Guinea and newspapers are photocopied.
* Indian newspapers, published in 18 languages, include not only bi-lingual but tri- lingual publications.
* In Jordan, where dailies are obliged by law to have a minimum capital of US$700,000, there is also a legal obligation for editors-in-chief to have ten consecutive years as a journalist before they can be appointed.
* In Mozambique, the chief distribution means for dailies is by fax. These fax publications consist of 4 pages, including ads.
* Uzbek government has invented newspapers without news. Private newspapers are allowed to publish advertising, horoscopes and other features- but no news.
Newspapers are clearly undergoing a renaissance through new products, new formats, new titles, new editorial approaches, better distribution and better marketing. Despite the incredible competitive challenges in the advertising market, newspapers have more than held their own and their revenues are strongly on the increase again.
The new data, from WAN’s annual survey of world press trends, was released to more than 1,300 publishers, editors and other senior newspaper executives from 81 countries attending the 58th World Newspaper Congress and 12th World Editors Forum in Seoul, Korea. The main figures showed:
* Circulation grew 2.1% worldwide in 2004, taking global sales to a new high of 395 million daily.
* The total number of daily titles was up 2% in the world in 2004 and up 4.6% since 2000.
* 2004 saw the best advertising performance in 4 years, with a revenue increase of 5.3%.
* The audience for newspaper web sites grew 32% last year and 350% over 5 years.
The survey, which WAN has published annually since 1986, this year includes information on all countries and territories where newspapers are published- 215 in all. The 2005 World Press Trends report reveals:
On circulation
* The total circulation of dailies in the world climbed 2.1% in 2004. Over 5 years, it is up 4.8%.
* Sales of newspapers increased in 44% of the countries surveyed and were stable in a further 12%. 31% of those markets show a rise over 5 years.
* More than 395 million people buy a newspaper every day, up from 374 million in 1999.
* Average readership is estimated to be more than one billion people each day.
* 3-quarters of the world’s 100 best selling dailies are now published in Asia. China has overtaken Japan as the country with the highest number of publications in the top 100. The range of the top 100 goes from the Yomiuri Shimbun of Japan with its 14,067,000 copies daily to 6 newspapers- 2 in each country- in China, Thailand and Taiwan, with 600,000 daily sales.
* 5 largest markets for newspapers are: China, with 93.5 million copies sold daily; India, with 78.8 million copies daily; Japan, with 70.4 million copies daily; the United States, with 55.6 million; and Germany, 22.1 million. Sales increased in China, India and Japan in 2004 and declined in the U.S. and Germany.
* Circulation sales were up 4.1% in Asia in 2004 over the previous year, up 6.3% in South America, up 6% in Africa, down 1.4% in Europe, down 0.2% in North America and down 1% in Australia and Oceania.
* Newspapers in the European Union saw a slight 0.7% drop in circulation in 2004, but sales were only 0.4% less (or 360,000 copies) than 5 years ago.
* Circulation of US dailies fell 1% in 2004 and -2.06% over 5 years. Morning newspaper sales dropped by only 0.09% and are up by 0.25% over 5 years, while sales of evening editions declined by 6.2% and 14% respectively.
* In Japan, newspaper sales grew by +0.04% in 2004, the first increase in many years. Over 5 years, sales were down -2.13%. China newspaper sales continue to perform well, up 3.7% and 26.5% over one and 5 years.
* In Russia, the number of daily titles grew: from 472 in 2003 to 485 in 2004, an increase of +2.75%. No reliable circulation figures exists for the Russian press as a whole.
* In Latin America, where it has been difficult to obtain reliable data, Brazilian newspaper sales was up + 0.8% in 2004 but down -17.2% over 5 years; Costa Rica reported circulation losses of -2.06% in 2004 but was up 0.07% over 5 years; while Bolivia saw in increase of +1.5% in 2004.
* Indian newspaper sales increased 8% in 2004 and 14% in the 5-year period. In Pakistan, sales increased +3% last year and +13% over 5 years.
* Elsewhere in Asia, sales in Singapore were up 3% last year, Malaysian sales were up 4%, Indonesia saw a 6.5% increase and Mongolian newspapers increased sales by 31%.
* Australia recorded a decline of -1.21% in sales in 2004 and -4.83% over 5 years, while New Zealand newspaper sales were stable year-on-year and down -4.96% over 5 years.
* Norwegians and Japanese remain the world’s greatest newspaper buyers with, respectively, 651 and 644 sales per thousand population each day. Finland comes next with 522 followed by Sweden with 489.
On New Titles
* Total number of daily titles was up 2% in the world in 2004 and up 4.6% since 2000, taking the total to 6,580 dailies.
* 81% of countries for which data was available reported an increase in the number of daily titles last year. Over 5 years, 44% reported an increase in the number of dailies.
* Number of daily titles was up 4.1% in Asia; +1.3% in Europe; +1.1% in South America, +1.4% in Australia and Oceania; and up 10.4% in Africa. The number of titles declined -0.1% in North America.
On advertising
* Global newspaper advertising revenues saw their biggest increase in 5 years and were up 5.3% in 2004, following a 2% increase in 2003.
* Although newspaper advertising revenues are increasing in many markets, newspapers’ share of the world ad market declined from 30.5% in 2003 to 30.1% in 2004. But newspapers remain the world’s second largest advertising medium, after television, and are expected to retain this position for many years.
* 16 countries and regions saw newspaper advertising market share growth in 2004: Argentina, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, Kuwait, Malaysia, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.
* Over 5 years, newspapers in 19 countries and territories saw increased market share: Argentina, Belgium, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Norway, Poland, Puerto Rico, Slovenia, Taiwan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.
* Newspaper advertising revenues in USA, by far the largest newspaper advertising market in the world, increased by 3.93% in 2004, compared with 1.9% increase in 2003 and a drop the 2 previous years.
On Internet* Internet traffic grew 32% last year and 350% over 5 years for the newspaper web sites for which data is available over several years.
* Internet advertising revenues continue to grow rapidly, and were up 21% in 2004, the highest growth for 5 years.
On Free Dailies
* Size of free daily market in several countries is impressive; in Spain, free daily distribution represents a huge 40% of the market; in Italy, 29%; in Denmark 27%, and in Portugal, 25%.
In addition to providing a broader picture of the world newspaper market, the report provides a wealth of unusual and interesting facts about newspapers from around the world, such as:
* In Bolivia, only 5% of the population buys a new newspaper occasionally.
* In Bosnia, 53% of adults have no confidence in any print media.
* There is no printing press in Equatorial Guinea and newspapers are photocopied.
* Indian newspapers, published in 18 languages, include not only bi-lingual but tri- lingual publications.
* In Jordan, where dailies are obliged by law to have a minimum capital of US$700,000, there is also a legal obligation for editors-in-chief to have ten consecutive years as a journalist before they can be appointed.
* In Mozambique, the chief distribution means for dailies is by fax. These fax publications consist of 4 pages, including ads.
* Uzbek government has invented newspapers without news. Private newspapers are allowed to publish advertising, horoscopes and other features- but no news.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
New Strategies on Brand Building
Seminar by Al and Laura Ries
1. The fundamental law of Marketing is the Law of Leadership. It is better to be first than to be better. Microsoft launched in 1981 while Apple launched in 1984. Apple is better in hardware, software and other areas but has only 3% share while Microsoft has 94% share.
2. If first is perceived to be the best, then automatically the company will attract good people, good distributors and so on. The key is to create the perception in the mind that being first means being the best.
3. To win the battle in market one needs to win the battle in mind. Xerox invented laser printer. But did not enter the market. HP was the first. Red Bull was the first energy drink. Coca cola introduced KMX energy drink. Red Bull outsold KMX 20:1. Last leader brand produced by Coca cola was ‘Sprite’. Their strategy has predominantly to be better.
4. Instead of trying to build a better product win the ‘better perception’.
5. Another Law of Marketing is the Law of Mind. First in the market is nothing. First in mind is everything. Duryea was the first car in the market but Ford’s Model T was first in mind. Yuengling was the first beer in market but Budweiser was first beer in mind. Similarly, first bookstore on Net was Powell’s.com but Amazon.com is first in mind.
6. First search engine was Alta Vista. But the first search engine in mind is Google. Focus gets one into the mind. Alta Vista turned itself into a portal. It lost its focus and was ultimately sold to Overture and then to Yahoo. Today, Google is the leading Search Engine. Not enough to be first but need to be first in the mind.
7. The Law of Leadership is the Law of PR. Building buzz makes news. Being first in a new category makes news. Not being better than your competitors.
8. Law of Profits. You can sell anything if it’s cheap enough. To make money you need a brand.
9. Motorola invented the cell phone. But Motorola put its name on a variety of products. In last 10 years, Motorola has achieved sales of $289 bn. And a net profit margin of less than one half of one percent. It is now in the process of getting focused. It has sold its satellite and other businesses. Nokia too once made everything including paper. But it decided to focus on cell phones and has now dominated this market. Nokia, in last 10 years, achieved sales of $193 bn. And a net profit margin of 11%.
10. What makes India successful today? High intelligence and low wages. Success will turn the low wages into high wages. As a result business will move from India to China, USA. Is a country with medium intelligence and high wages? It is successful because it has powerful brands. India will not become powerful if it does not have powerful brands. If Indian brands don’t go global, global brands will come here and take over.
11. Law of Line Extension. You can’t stand for something if you put your name on everything. In the Japanese electronics market, everybody makes everything. It’s a line extension society. Nobody builds a brand. Everybody sells on price. Nobody makes money. The total consumer electronic industry in Japan, over last 10 years, has made revenues of $3 trillion but its net profit margin has been just 0.2%. Whereas in America the revenues of top 500 companies, in last 10 years, has been $7 trillion and net profit margin 6%. Automobile market in Japan is more focused.
12. Japan has everything. Intelligent workforce, world-class production facilities and so on. But no Marketing. In last 15 years, Japanese stock market has gone down by 59% while the American stock market has risen by 378%. The same thing will happen in Korea. They too will put their name on everything and fail to build brands. IBM too put its name on everything. It suffered a mainframe mentality. Did not capture the position in mind for PCs. In the last 23 years has lost $15 bn. on PCs. It has now sold out to Lenovo. The leader in PCs is Dell. Ironically, the 2nd year student of the University of Texas was pitted against the world’s largest viz. IBM and the student won because Dell had one product, one market, one distribution channel and has had an outstanding stock market performance.
13. Law of Divergence. As time goes on every category will diverge. Telephones will branch out into becoming regular telephones, cordless telephones, walkie-talkies and cell phones. Similarly, television will diverge into Broadcast television, Pay-per-view television, Cable television and Satellite television. TV sets branch out into becoming Cathode-ray tube (CRT), Liquid-Crystal display (LCD), Liquid crystal on Silicon (LCOS), Digital Light Processing (DLP), Plasma, Organic light-emitting diode (OLED). Hotels will diverge into being expensive, medium price, low price, motels, low price motels, suite hotels, weekly hotels.
14. Divergence comes from Darwin who has explained the concept in ‘The origin of Species’. The panthera tree has a lion, a jaguar, a tiger and a leopard. Humanoid tree has the Gorilla, Chimpanzee, Orangutan and the Human being. Man did not evolve. He diverged. Evolution is gradual change. Divergence is abrupt change.
15. Today, all the hype is about convergence. Nicholas Negroponte predicted convergence. ‘The Wall Street Journal’ on July 14, 1993 carried the following report: “Shock is a common feeling these days among leaders of 5 of world’s biggest industries: computing, communications, consumer electronics, entertainment and publishing. Under a common technological lash–the increasing ability to cheaply convey huge chunks of video, sound, graphics and text in digital form–they are transforming and converging.”
16. Companies never give up. First interactive TV was launched in 1977. It failed to take off. First Web TV was launched in1997. It didn’t take off. Microsoft is now working on a Media center TV. Every time a new technology arrives the shout for convergence goes up.
17. Apple iPod sold 14 mn pcs. And, with all the hype around smart phones which are equipped with 3-G networks and have a game player and a TV and a credit card and so on has not been such a hit. ‘Trea’ the brand of such a convergence device has sold just 602,000 pcs.
18. Average life of a cell phone is 18 months. Will one sell off a smart phone so soon? In a scenario of divergence there will be people who will opt to pay $5000 for a smart phone inasmuch as there will be people who will want a simple cell phone.
19. TVs are getting bigger and PCs are getting smaller and heavier. But everybody is running around trying to combine things. McDonald’s has gone to the extent of opening a hamburgher hotel. As if people who stay in a hotel are interested only in eating hamburgers.
20. Convergence was invented by the Swiss army knife. Convergence can work where convenience is an issue. For instance having a convenience store next to a gas station. It will not take over the grocery market but satisfies the convenience value.
21. George Santayana stated that ‘those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ Sears Roebuck had a catalogue which had convergence products listed in it and they did not take off. One of them was a Food processor and Pleasure vibrator. In sports they have tried to have the same stadium work as a Football stadium and a Baseball stadium. It is good at neither. Single sports stadiums have prospered.
22. Bad ideas never die. Combination of an airplane and a car. Or a combination of a boat and an automobile. The resultant amphicar drives like a boat and floats like a car. It does neither well. A flying car is too light for the road and too heavy for the sky.
23. Law of Expansion. If a brand name is put on everything it weakens the brand name. Chevrolet is a large, small, cheap, expensive, car or truck. It is everything and yet nothing. Volkswagen, after tasting success through its Beetle, expanded to think big, think fast, think smart and think ahead and came out with different types of cars. It failed. Mercedes moved down the market. And expanded into bringing out a cheaper version, a sports car, mini van, mini truck, mountain bike, and a baby Benz. Initially, it sold well but in the long run it has destroyed the brand.
24. Saturn was the only brand with one model, one price. It was very successful. In 1994, it was no.1 car in terms of vehicles sold per dealer. Then it decided to expand and go upscale. In 2004, it was in 12th position in terms of number of vehicles sold per dealer. One doesn’t buy the same brand of car. When one is young and single then one buys a Saturn. When one gets promoted possibly a BMW. After marriage buy a Volvo and when one gets divorced a Ferrari. One moves according to the ladder of life.
25. Law of Contraction. When a brand focuses it succeeds. Howard Schultz’s Starbucks sells only coffee. Willie’s coffee shop sold everything. Starbucks has succeeded while nobody hears of Willie’s. Narrow the focus. Subway sells only one type of sandwich viz. the submarine sandwich. The conventional way of growing a store is to sell as many things as possible. But 'Toy r Us' sells only toys and is hugely successful. With a few kilowatts of power but converted into a laser beam through narrow focusing can achieve immense power. Rolex means an expensive watch. Zara means just-in-time fashion.
26. The secret of success is if you want to be rich, you have to do what rich people did before they became rich. If you want to have a successful company, you have to do what successful company leaders did before they became successful. Don’t look at them now when they have become successful and do what they are doing now. Do what they did before becoming successful. Emery freight was into everything. Fred Smith narrowed the focus-small packages overnight. The fastest growing city in USA with only one industry is Las Vegas.
27. Law of Opposites. Need to be the opposite of what got in mind first. Instead of trying do what the leader does and do it better try to do it differently. Red Bull was the first energy drink. Everybody copied Red Bull. There were 37 different brands of energy drinks–all in 8.30 oz. cans. ‘Monster’ came in and launched a 16 oz. can. Today, Monster is no. 2 brand. It took an opposite position to Red Bull. The largest selling pickle is Vlasic. It is sold from shelves. ‘Claussen’ came in and occupied the position of being ‘crisp’ pickle. And, was sold from the refrigerated section of the Mall. Being sold from this section automatically got associated with ‘crispness’. The opposite position. Similarly, candy bars are associated with being for kids. ‘Snickers’ is the first candy bar for adults. The leading operating system is Microsoft but it is proprietary. Linux took the opposite position of being a free operating system. Coca Cola was established in 1886. It was associated with old generation. Pepsi came in and got itself associated with ‘New Generation’.
28. Along the same lines Listerine was leading Mouthwash but it was bad tasting. Many other brands were launched which were also ‘bad tasting’. ‘Scalp’ was a brand which took the opposite position of being ‘good tasting’. ‘Wal Mart’ is cheap. But Target is ‘cheap chic’. New York is the largest city and is on the East Coast. Los Angeles is 2nd largest and is on the West Coast. Marlboro is no.1 brand. It is Western and Macho. No.2 brand is ‘Newport’ which is Eastern and Menthol. Hertz is no.1 car rental for businessmen. So, they have their outlets located outside the airport. ‘Enterprise’ took opposite position of having outlets in suburbs and serving the common man. Barbie dolls are good looking while Bratz dolls are ugly.
29. Law of the mushy middle. Nature favors the extremes. The perception is that the sweet spot lies in the middle of market. Reality is that the center is the wrong place to be in. In airlines industry, the extremely expensive airlines are doing well. At bottom end, with absolutely no frills, airlines are doing well. But ‘Delta’ and ‘American Airlines’ in the middle are doing badly. As the market diverges the extremes do well. ‘Wal Mart’ is cheap, Target is cheap chic. Both are doing well. But ‘K Mart’ which tried to occupy the middle position failed. Every category diverges to create opportunities at the extreme but not in middle. There are cheap laptops and expensive full-feature laptops but no market in the middle.
30. Law of Patience. It takes time to build a brand. Like a plane which slowly gathers speed and takes off. Unlike the rocket launcher. Tylenol was introduced in 1956. In 2000, it became the largest selling single drug in USA and its sales crossed $500 mn. One needs 110% of power to take off but at 30000 feet one throttles back to 70% of power. It took 17 years to build the Taj Mahal. Rocket launches turn into fads. Cabbage dolls and hula-hoops are examples.
31. Law of Exceptions. There are exceptions to every law. The law will not work 100% of the time. For instance Virgin puts its name on everything. But Virgin is headed by Branson who is a PR genius. If one’s company has such a genius then one can think of branding everything with same name. Instead of basing strategies on exceptions base them on consensus work.
32. Law of 2nd brands. Introduce another brand for a different category. Toyota introduced a Lexus in an up market segment. It became the largest selling luxury brand in America. Customers don’t buy a Lexus because it is made by Toyota but in spite of it being made by Toyota. When Levis wanted to go casual they first created Levis ‘Tailored Classics’ which failed miserably. Levis then launched the range under the name ‘Dockers’. It became a successful $1 bn. Brand. Gillette’s most successful brand is ‘Mach 3’. Now, Gillette is coming out with a 5-blade shaving system. It will be branding it with a different name viz. ‘Fusion’. Motorola too has now started using a different brand name for its cell phone viz. ‘Razr’.
33. Given that all cameras are going digital and PCs are turning digital, if one looks at Kodak and Kodak is associated with film, in order to save the company one could evaluate keeping Kodak as a film brand and launch a second brand for digital market. To save the brand one could look at moving the brand name to digital market. From a marketing perspective it means moving the name from one point in brain to another which is very difficult. Kodak is associated with film and not the digital market even though it invented digital cameras. Kodak entered the digital market with brand name Kodak and lost its leadership. One can claim the caterpillar to be a flying caterpillar but actually they are 2 separate entities. Barnes & Noble is the largest bookstore in America. B&N tried to move the name on to Internet and failed. Amazon a new company succeeded.
34. Brands are built in a blaze of publicity or PR. Botox was built totally on PR over a period of 9 years. It launched its first ad campaign 9 years after its launch. Viagra was built on PR which was followed by an ad plan. PR gets the idea into the mind. It is the nail. Advertising entrenches the idea in mind. It is like a hammer. Volkswagen was launched in1950. It was PR that built up the brand. It was only in 1960 that the ad campaign was launched. Ad campaign helped it to reach the 500 mn. Unit sale figure. Harry Potter was built by PR. Cheesecake factory is a restaurant which is no.1 restaurant chain in America. It never advertised in 28 years.
35. If one wants to make one’s company famous then one can make one’s CEO famous. Jeff Bezos, Steve Ballmer, Michael Dell, Herb Kellegher, Linus Torvalds. Trump is the King of PR.
36. Advertising has little credibility in the mind. What you say about yourself has little credibility. The percentage that think advertising is honest is going down. PR has credibility in the context of ‘Third Party Effect’. Oprah Winfrey picked 48 books. Each one of them made it to the NYT list. There is a book titled ‘East of Eden’-John Steinbeck. It had sold 50,000 books but then Oprah Winfrey picked it and its sales touched 1 mn. copies. What we need is PR oriented advertising. PR establishes credibility of the brand. Advertising reaffirms the brand’s credibility. Advertising Agencies focus on creativity. This is wrong. You can’t have advertising trying to make advertising famous. What advertising industry believes in is PR not advertising. They seem to be interested only in awards.
37. Advertising can be effective if message is right. Find out what’s in the mind and reinforce the idea in mind. Any advertising that touches an idea or concept that is already embedded in the prospect’s mind is the right message. Especially, if that idea or concept contains a motivating reason to buy the brand.
38. Advertising is like a good joke. Best jokes don’t communicate, they just take advantage of what’s already in the mind.
39. Law of Advertising. It maintains your brand. Many established brands don’t spend enough on advertising. Can’t rely on PR forever. The belief can’t be that once a brand is established then its market share is mine forever. So let’s spend our ad dollars on line extensions, new flavors, new market segments. Nothing decays as surely as a brand unsupported by advertising.
40. Law of the Word. Volvo looks at ‘safety’. It invests in ‘safety’. But then it lost its focus and came out with a convertible. Its sales dipped. Owning a word leads to profits. Brands are built in the mind. To find that word and own it one has to sacrifice and give up the rest of the market and focus. Nokia gave up the rest and focused on cell phone. Movado is a museum watch. Zippo is a wind-proof lighter. Among B-Schools, Northwestern is known for Marketing, Chicago for Quantitative Analysis and Harvard for Management.
41. After studying the competition decide on the position opposite and own the word. For instance, most fitness clubs are for men and women. ‘Curves’ is a fitness club only for ‘Women’. Marlboro threw out the cowgirls and began to own cowboys. Competition for United Jersey bank is Chase and Citi. Impression is that big banks are slow. So United Jersey bank became the fast bank.
42. The American Cancer Association advertises the 7 danger signals of cancer. Nobody remembers one. ‘3 signs of heart attack’, ‘5 rules for a healthier heart’. Too much information. Basically the heart is a pump. It is the same size no matter what the size of the person. So if a person starts bloating the pump starts struggling. So focus only on obesity. The 3 biggest sports in America are breakfast, lunch and dinner.
43. Leaders own the category. One thinks of the leader. One may not buy it. Where consultants are concerned, Drucker owned ‘Management’, Porter owned ‘Strategy’, Tom Peters ‘Excellence’, Michael Hammer ‘Reengineering’. Movie stars too own a word. John Wayne became a Man’s man, Marilyn Monroe, the sexy woman, Julia Roberts, the pretty woman, Arnold Schwarzenegger the ‘Terminator’.
44. If you can own one attribute in the mind, the prospect will give you many others.
45. Guatemala in Central America does not own a word in people’s minds and therefore even though it has the capacity of being a world-class tourist destination it is not. The Mayan ruins of Guatemala are one of the richest archaeological sites in world. And just as Taj Mahal is associated with India and the Great Wall with China, there is no such association of the Mayan ruins with Guatemala. Tourism is just 1% of GDP. In order to get that association one can think of changing Guatemala to Guatemaya. India is famous for its ‘intellectual capital’–its PhDs and engineers and so on-and yet one doesn’t project it that way.
46. Law of the negative. See if one can turn it into a positive. Volvo turned ugliness into reliability.
47. Law of focus. Every company needs to resist the temptation to keep adding products and services. As categories grow and opportunities appear as forks on the pathway, the tendency is to take both forks. In airline industry, the 2 forks could be illustrated as Passengers or cargo, business or tourist, domestic or international, high or low prices, full service or no frills, first class or coach and so on. Southwest however took only one fork. Business destinations only. Coach class service only. Domestic only, no international flights. Only one type of aircraft in comparison to delta which as 8 different types of aircraft. The result is that Southwest Airlines, over the last 10 years, has earned a revenue of $44 bn. And a net profit margin of 8 percent. While the 5 largest airlines in USA have together earned $657 bn. And, a net income loss of $646.
48. Law of Borders. No borders for a brand. The future belongs to brands. Anywhere in the world the bar contains the same brands. But the global brand needs to come from somewhere. Coca Cola is from America. Lexus is from Japan even though it is made in America. Brand needs to be consistent with the country of origin. Italy with fashion, Switzerland with watches, India with intellectual capital. If one is strong in one country then one can move the strength to another country. Siemens, no.1 brand in Europe now no.1 in USA. A global brand has to be acceptable worldwide.
49. Law of consistency. Success is measured over a period of time. In a constantly changing world we don’t.
50. Law of singularity. A car that’s safe. An expensive watch.
1. The fundamental law of Marketing is the Law of Leadership. It is better to be first than to be better. Microsoft launched in 1981 while Apple launched in 1984. Apple is better in hardware, software and other areas but has only 3% share while Microsoft has 94% share.
2. If first is perceived to be the best, then automatically the company will attract good people, good distributors and so on. The key is to create the perception in the mind that being first means being the best.
3. To win the battle in market one needs to win the battle in mind. Xerox invented laser printer. But did not enter the market. HP was the first. Red Bull was the first energy drink. Coca cola introduced KMX energy drink. Red Bull outsold KMX 20:1. Last leader brand produced by Coca cola was ‘Sprite’. Their strategy has predominantly to be better.
4. Instead of trying to build a better product win the ‘better perception’.
5. Another Law of Marketing is the Law of Mind. First in the market is nothing. First in mind is everything. Duryea was the first car in the market but Ford’s Model T was first in mind. Yuengling was the first beer in market but Budweiser was first beer in mind. Similarly, first bookstore on Net was Powell’s.com but Amazon.com is first in mind.
6. First search engine was Alta Vista. But the first search engine in mind is Google. Focus gets one into the mind. Alta Vista turned itself into a portal. It lost its focus and was ultimately sold to Overture and then to Yahoo. Today, Google is the leading Search Engine. Not enough to be first but need to be first in the mind.
7. The Law of Leadership is the Law of PR. Building buzz makes news. Being first in a new category makes news. Not being better than your competitors.
8. Law of Profits. You can sell anything if it’s cheap enough. To make money you need a brand.
9. Motorola invented the cell phone. But Motorola put its name on a variety of products. In last 10 years, Motorola has achieved sales of $289 bn. And a net profit margin of less than one half of one percent. It is now in the process of getting focused. It has sold its satellite and other businesses. Nokia too once made everything including paper. But it decided to focus on cell phones and has now dominated this market. Nokia, in last 10 years, achieved sales of $193 bn. And a net profit margin of 11%.
10. What makes India successful today? High intelligence and low wages. Success will turn the low wages into high wages. As a result business will move from India to China, USA. Is a country with medium intelligence and high wages? It is successful because it has powerful brands. India will not become powerful if it does not have powerful brands. If Indian brands don’t go global, global brands will come here and take over.
11. Law of Line Extension. You can’t stand for something if you put your name on everything. In the Japanese electronics market, everybody makes everything. It’s a line extension society. Nobody builds a brand. Everybody sells on price. Nobody makes money. The total consumer electronic industry in Japan, over last 10 years, has made revenues of $3 trillion but its net profit margin has been just 0.2%. Whereas in America the revenues of top 500 companies, in last 10 years, has been $7 trillion and net profit margin 6%. Automobile market in Japan is more focused.
12. Japan has everything. Intelligent workforce, world-class production facilities and so on. But no Marketing. In last 15 years, Japanese stock market has gone down by 59% while the American stock market has risen by 378%. The same thing will happen in Korea. They too will put their name on everything and fail to build brands. IBM too put its name on everything. It suffered a mainframe mentality. Did not capture the position in mind for PCs. In the last 23 years has lost $15 bn. on PCs. It has now sold out to Lenovo. The leader in PCs is Dell. Ironically, the 2nd year student of the University of Texas was pitted against the world’s largest viz. IBM and the student won because Dell had one product, one market, one distribution channel and has had an outstanding stock market performance.
13. Law of Divergence. As time goes on every category will diverge. Telephones will branch out into becoming regular telephones, cordless telephones, walkie-talkies and cell phones. Similarly, television will diverge into Broadcast television, Pay-per-view television, Cable television and Satellite television. TV sets branch out into becoming Cathode-ray tube (CRT), Liquid-Crystal display (LCD), Liquid crystal on Silicon (LCOS), Digital Light Processing (DLP), Plasma, Organic light-emitting diode (OLED). Hotels will diverge into being expensive, medium price, low price, motels, low price motels, suite hotels, weekly hotels.
14. Divergence comes from Darwin who has explained the concept in ‘The origin of Species’. The panthera tree has a lion, a jaguar, a tiger and a leopard. Humanoid tree has the Gorilla, Chimpanzee, Orangutan and the Human being. Man did not evolve. He diverged. Evolution is gradual change. Divergence is abrupt change.
15. Today, all the hype is about convergence. Nicholas Negroponte predicted convergence. ‘The Wall Street Journal’ on July 14, 1993 carried the following report: “Shock is a common feeling these days among leaders of 5 of world’s biggest industries: computing, communications, consumer electronics, entertainment and publishing. Under a common technological lash–the increasing ability to cheaply convey huge chunks of video, sound, graphics and text in digital form–they are transforming and converging.”
16. Companies never give up. First interactive TV was launched in 1977. It failed to take off. First Web TV was launched in1997. It didn’t take off. Microsoft is now working on a Media center TV. Every time a new technology arrives the shout for convergence goes up.
17. Apple iPod sold 14 mn pcs. And, with all the hype around smart phones which are equipped with 3-G networks and have a game player and a TV and a credit card and so on has not been such a hit. ‘Trea’ the brand of such a convergence device has sold just 602,000 pcs.
18. Average life of a cell phone is 18 months. Will one sell off a smart phone so soon? In a scenario of divergence there will be people who will opt to pay $5000 for a smart phone inasmuch as there will be people who will want a simple cell phone.
19. TVs are getting bigger and PCs are getting smaller and heavier. But everybody is running around trying to combine things. McDonald’s has gone to the extent of opening a hamburgher hotel. As if people who stay in a hotel are interested only in eating hamburgers.
20. Convergence was invented by the Swiss army knife. Convergence can work where convenience is an issue. For instance having a convenience store next to a gas station. It will not take over the grocery market but satisfies the convenience value.
21. George Santayana stated that ‘those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ Sears Roebuck had a catalogue which had convergence products listed in it and they did not take off. One of them was a Food processor and Pleasure vibrator. In sports they have tried to have the same stadium work as a Football stadium and a Baseball stadium. It is good at neither. Single sports stadiums have prospered.
22. Bad ideas never die. Combination of an airplane and a car. Or a combination of a boat and an automobile. The resultant amphicar drives like a boat and floats like a car. It does neither well. A flying car is too light for the road and too heavy for the sky.
23. Law of Expansion. If a brand name is put on everything it weakens the brand name. Chevrolet is a large, small, cheap, expensive, car or truck. It is everything and yet nothing. Volkswagen, after tasting success through its Beetle, expanded to think big, think fast, think smart and think ahead and came out with different types of cars. It failed. Mercedes moved down the market. And expanded into bringing out a cheaper version, a sports car, mini van, mini truck, mountain bike, and a baby Benz. Initially, it sold well but in the long run it has destroyed the brand.
24. Saturn was the only brand with one model, one price. It was very successful. In 1994, it was no.1 car in terms of vehicles sold per dealer. Then it decided to expand and go upscale. In 2004, it was in 12th position in terms of number of vehicles sold per dealer. One doesn’t buy the same brand of car. When one is young and single then one buys a Saturn. When one gets promoted possibly a BMW. After marriage buy a Volvo and when one gets divorced a Ferrari. One moves according to the ladder of life.
25. Law of Contraction. When a brand focuses it succeeds. Howard Schultz’s Starbucks sells only coffee. Willie’s coffee shop sold everything. Starbucks has succeeded while nobody hears of Willie’s. Narrow the focus. Subway sells only one type of sandwich viz. the submarine sandwich. The conventional way of growing a store is to sell as many things as possible. But 'Toy r Us' sells only toys and is hugely successful. With a few kilowatts of power but converted into a laser beam through narrow focusing can achieve immense power. Rolex means an expensive watch. Zara means just-in-time fashion.
26. The secret of success is if you want to be rich, you have to do what rich people did before they became rich. If you want to have a successful company, you have to do what successful company leaders did before they became successful. Don’t look at them now when they have become successful and do what they are doing now. Do what they did before becoming successful. Emery freight was into everything. Fred Smith narrowed the focus-small packages overnight. The fastest growing city in USA with only one industry is Las Vegas.
27. Law of Opposites. Need to be the opposite of what got in mind first. Instead of trying do what the leader does and do it better try to do it differently. Red Bull was the first energy drink. Everybody copied Red Bull. There were 37 different brands of energy drinks–all in 8.30 oz. cans. ‘Monster’ came in and launched a 16 oz. can. Today, Monster is no. 2 brand. It took an opposite position to Red Bull. The largest selling pickle is Vlasic. It is sold from shelves. ‘Claussen’ came in and occupied the position of being ‘crisp’ pickle. And, was sold from the refrigerated section of the Mall. Being sold from this section automatically got associated with ‘crispness’. The opposite position. Similarly, candy bars are associated with being for kids. ‘Snickers’ is the first candy bar for adults. The leading operating system is Microsoft but it is proprietary. Linux took the opposite position of being a free operating system. Coca Cola was established in 1886. It was associated with old generation. Pepsi came in and got itself associated with ‘New Generation’.
28. Along the same lines Listerine was leading Mouthwash but it was bad tasting. Many other brands were launched which were also ‘bad tasting’. ‘Scalp’ was a brand which took the opposite position of being ‘good tasting’. ‘Wal Mart’ is cheap. But Target is ‘cheap chic’. New York is the largest city and is on the East Coast. Los Angeles is 2nd largest and is on the West Coast. Marlboro is no.1 brand. It is Western and Macho. No.2 brand is ‘Newport’ which is Eastern and Menthol. Hertz is no.1 car rental for businessmen. So, they have their outlets located outside the airport. ‘Enterprise’ took opposite position of having outlets in suburbs and serving the common man. Barbie dolls are good looking while Bratz dolls are ugly.
29. Law of the mushy middle. Nature favors the extremes. The perception is that the sweet spot lies in the middle of market. Reality is that the center is the wrong place to be in. In airlines industry, the extremely expensive airlines are doing well. At bottom end, with absolutely no frills, airlines are doing well. But ‘Delta’ and ‘American Airlines’ in the middle are doing badly. As the market diverges the extremes do well. ‘Wal Mart’ is cheap, Target is cheap chic. Both are doing well. But ‘K Mart’ which tried to occupy the middle position failed. Every category diverges to create opportunities at the extreme but not in middle. There are cheap laptops and expensive full-feature laptops but no market in the middle.
30. Law of Patience. It takes time to build a brand. Like a plane which slowly gathers speed and takes off. Unlike the rocket launcher. Tylenol was introduced in 1956. In 2000, it became the largest selling single drug in USA and its sales crossed $500 mn. One needs 110% of power to take off but at 30000 feet one throttles back to 70% of power. It took 17 years to build the Taj Mahal. Rocket launches turn into fads. Cabbage dolls and hula-hoops are examples.
31. Law of Exceptions. There are exceptions to every law. The law will not work 100% of the time. For instance Virgin puts its name on everything. But Virgin is headed by Branson who is a PR genius. If one’s company has such a genius then one can think of branding everything with same name. Instead of basing strategies on exceptions base them on consensus work.
32. Law of 2nd brands. Introduce another brand for a different category. Toyota introduced a Lexus in an up market segment. It became the largest selling luxury brand in America. Customers don’t buy a Lexus because it is made by Toyota but in spite of it being made by Toyota. When Levis wanted to go casual they first created Levis ‘Tailored Classics’ which failed miserably. Levis then launched the range under the name ‘Dockers’. It became a successful $1 bn. Brand. Gillette’s most successful brand is ‘Mach 3’. Now, Gillette is coming out with a 5-blade shaving system. It will be branding it with a different name viz. ‘Fusion’. Motorola too has now started using a different brand name for its cell phone viz. ‘Razr’.
33. Given that all cameras are going digital and PCs are turning digital, if one looks at Kodak and Kodak is associated with film, in order to save the company one could evaluate keeping Kodak as a film brand and launch a second brand for digital market. To save the brand one could look at moving the brand name to digital market. From a marketing perspective it means moving the name from one point in brain to another which is very difficult. Kodak is associated with film and not the digital market even though it invented digital cameras. Kodak entered the digital market with brand name Kodak and lost its leadership. One can claim the caterpillar to be a flying caterpillar but actually they are 2 separate entities. Barnes & Noble is the largest bookstore in America. B&N tried to move the name on to Internet and failed. Amazon a new company succeeded.
34. Brands are built in a blaze of publicity or PR. Botox was built totally on PR over a period of 9 years. It launched its first ad campaign 9 years after its launch. Viagra was built on PR which was followed by an ad plan. PR gets the idea into the mind. It is the nail. Advertising entrenches the idea in mind. It is like a hammer. Volkswagen was launched in1950. It was PR that built up the brand. It was only in 1960 that the ad campaign was launched. Ad campaign helped it to reach the 500 mn. Unit sale figure. Harry Potter was built by PR. Cheesecake factory is a restaurant which is no.1 restaurant chain in America. It never advertised in 28 years.
35. If one wants to make one’s company famous then one can make one’s CEO famous. Jeff Bezos, Steve Ballmer, Michael Dell, Herb Kellegher, Linus Torvalds. Trump is the King of PR.
36. Advertising has little credibility in the mind. What you say about yourself has little credibility. The percentage that think advertising is honest is going down. PR has credibility in the context of ‘Third Party Effect’. Oprah Winfrey picked 48 books. Each one of them made it to the NYT list. There is a book titled ‘East of Eden’-John Steinbeck. It had sold 50,000 books but then Oprah Winfrey picked it and its sales touched 1 mn. copies. What we need is PR oriented advertising. PR establishes credibility of the brand. Advertising reaffirms the brand’s credibility. Advertising Agencies focus on creativity. This is wrong. You can’t have advertising trying to make advertising famous. What advertising industry believes in is PR not advertising. They seem to be interested only in awards.
37. Advertising can be effective if message is right. Find out what’s in the mind and reinforce the idea in mind. Any advertising that touches an idea or concept that is already embedded in the prospect’s mind is the right message. Especially, if that idea or concept contains a motivating reason to buy the brand.
38. Advertising is like a good joke. Best jokes don’t communicate, they just take advantage of what’s already in the mind.
39. Law of Advertising. It maintains your brand. Many established brands don’t spend enough on advertising. Can’t rely on PR forever. The belief can’t be that once a brand is established then its market share is mine forever. So let’s spend our ad dollars on line extensions, new flavors, new market segments. Nothing decays as surely as a brand unsupported by advertising.
40. Law of the Word. Volvo looks at ‘safety’. It invests in ‘safety’. But then it lost its focus and came out with a convertible. Its sales dipped. Owning a word leads to profits. Brands are built in the mind. To find that word and own it one has to sacrifice and give up the rest of the market and focus. Nokia gave up the rest and focused on cell phone. Movado is a museum watch. Zippo is a wind-proof lighter. Among B-Schools, Northwestern is known for Marketing, Chicago for Quantitative Analysis and Harvard for Management.
41. After studying the competition decide on the position opposite and own the word. For instance, most fitness clubs are for men and women. ‘Curves’ is a fitness club only for ‘Women’. Marlboro threw out the cowgirls and began to own cowboys. Competition for United Jersey bank is Chase and Citi. Impression is that big banks are slow. So United Jersey bank became the fast bank.
42. The American Cancer Association advertises the 7 danger signals of cancer. Nobody remembers one. ‘3 signs of heart attack’, ‘5 rules for a healthier heart’. Too much information. Basically the heart is a pump. It is the same size no matter what the size of the person. So if a person starts bloating the pump starts struggling. So focus only on obesity. The 3 biggest sports in America are breakfast, lunch and dinner.
43. Leaders own the category. One thinks of the leader. One may not buy it. Where consultants are concerned, Drucker owned ‘Management’, Porter owned ‘Strategy’, Tom Peters ‘Excellence’, Michael Hammer ‘Reengineering’. Movie stars too own a word. John Wayne became a Man’s man, Marilyn Monroe, the sexy woman, Julia Roberts, the pretty woman, Arnold Schwarzenegger the ‘Terminator’.
44. If you can own one attribute in the mind, the prospect will give you many others.
45. Guatemala in Central America does not own a word in people’s minds and therefore even though it has the capacity of being a world-class tourist destination it is not. The Mayan ruins of Guatemala are one of the richest archaeological sites in world. And just as Taj Mahal is associated with India and the Great Wall with China, there is no such association of the Mayan ruins with Guatemala. Tourism is just 1% of GDP. In order to get that association one can think of changing Guatemala to Guatemaya. India is famous for its ‘intellectual capital’–its PhDs and engineers and so on-and yet one doesn’t project it that way.
46. Law of the negative. See if one can turn it into a positive. Volvo turned ugliness into reliability.
47. Law of focus. Every company needs to resist the temptation to keep adding products and services. As categories grow and opportunities appear as forks on the pathway, the tendency is to take both forks. In airline industry, the 2 forks could be illustrated as Passengers or cargo, business or tourist, domestic or international, high or low prices, full service or no frills, first class or coach and so on. Southwest however took only one fork. Business destinations only. Coach class service only. Domestic only, no international flights. Only one type of aircraft in comparison to delta which as 8 different types of aircraft. The result is that Southwest Airlines, over the last 10 years, has earned a revenue of $44 bn. And a net profit margin of 8 percent. While the 5 largest airlines in USA have together earned $657 bn. And, a net income loss of $646.
48. Law of Borders. No borders for a brand. The future belongs to brands. Anywhere in the world the bar contains the same brands. But the global brand needs to come from somewhere. Coca Cola is from America. Lexus is from Japan even though it is made in America. Brand needs to be consistent with the country of origin. Italy with fashion, Switzerland with watches, India with intellectual capital. If one is strong in one country then one can move the strength to another country. Siemens, no.1 brand in Europe now no.1 in USA. A global brand has to be acceptable worldwide.
49. Law of consistency. Success is measured over a period of time. In a constantly changing world we don’t.
50. Law of singularity. A car that’s safe. An expensive watch.
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