'Audiences now want to be informed and entertained'

From the era of news being delivered via Doordarshan and Aakashvani to the ‘Chain se sona hai toh jaag jaiye’ era of reporting, storytelling in news has evolved over the years.

At the e4m English Journalism 40 under 40 Summit and Awards, Nitin Srivastava, Senior Correspondent, BBC; Drubo Jyoti, Editor- Views, Hindustan Times; and Ruby Dhingra, Managing Editor, Newschecker, shared insights on modernising traditional news formats via innovative storytelling. Chehneet Kaur, Senior Correspondent, exchange4media, moderated the panel discussion.

Jyoti kickstarted the conversation saying, “The way in which the age demographic of the audience is changing, the way in which they are consuming news and the information too is changing. So, when we were in college, we were suddenly told ‘news isn't news. It's infotainment’. Then, news channels started doing half-an-hour shows about all the daily soaps.” 

Hindustan Times, for say, as a legacy media house is also evolving in understanding the various forms in which young people are consuming news, Jyoti said. “In that way, you would see a lot of media companies pivoting towards video formats. Traditionally print-heavy houses are also pivoting towards social media. This is because we see a lot more usage of platforms like Instagram because none of my friends buy a newspaper anymore.”

Elaborating more on why do we need to modernise traditional news formats, Dhingra said, “There is news avoidance, which means audiences now have a limited time and want to be informed, but not too much. Moreover, they want to be informed, but they also want to be entertained.”

There are many new formats that have come now and in journalism, the entire point is to inform people. “While earlier, when we focused on broadcasting, we were delivering news in a very homogeneous manner thinking that we're talking to the masses. That's not the way people want to consume information anymore,” added the Newschecker executive.  

Srivastava said earlier people wanted to know about all kinds of serious issues like what's happening with Iraq or what's happening in Bosnia, but nowadays, people also want to know what's happening next door, along with what's happening all over the world. 

When it comes to the compromise between innovative storytelling versus factual reporting that newsrooms consciously or subconsciously make, the BBC executive is of the opinion that there is no compromise at all and there can never be a compromise. “There can never be a clickbait headline to sort of sell a story.” 

Dhingra added, “I understand the compulsions but I don't agree with them on why people end up using clickbait headlines. And I suppose that there are multiple layers of checks and balances in any newsroom. So, it's not like there's a reporter who has written the headline. If a headline like that has actually gone on air, or it has been published, it means that it has the backing to follow those people who are in charge.”