TV news is obsessed with big stories, they no longer have range: Sukumar Ranganathan, HT

"We live in an age of peak information," said Sukumar Ranganathan, Editor-In-Chief, Hindustan Times at the e4m English Journalism 40 under 40 conference.

He further explained that it started almost around the early 90s, with the popularisation of the internet.  "When the internet first emerged, some of us thought that the internet would replace perfect information, we just made sure that everyone got information in real-time," he added.

In 2023 we are discovering that we live in an age of perfect misinformation, Ranganathan believes.

"There is so much news out there that we don't realise what is authentic, what is not authentic, you don't understand the real context. Journalism needs to present information in the right context," he said.

He also shared that we live in a time where everyone is obsessed with digital. "Most organisations tend to categorise journalists as maybe print, multimedia or digital, and they are given certain characteristics," Ranganathan pointed out

Every medium has its unique characteristics and unfortunately unique weaknesses, he said.

Explaining the same, he shared that TV has the ability to show you what is happening. "But TV news is obsessed with big stories, they no longer have range. It means that there are vast parts of the country that go uncovered. You have the same talking heads talking about the same things," he said.

A lot of this is forced on the medium by the TV channels' business models, especially news TV channels. Ranganathan says that in truth, if you look at the entire space, news media accounts for around 4% of the entire industry in terms of revenue. Within that English news media accounts for even less.

Speaking about digital, he said "Every newsroom has a digital operation. There is not too much substantive stuff on there. The business model is based on the inventory model -- the advertising and clicks based model."

There is so much more to journalism, Ranganathan believes. "It is important for big news media to answer questions about scale, profitability and content. The journey has to start from many places at once."

He added that it is equally important for journalists to question why they are doing what they are doing, when they are working in a TV channel or digital newsroom.

"Most digital and tv newsrooms are bubbles in themselves. They have a certain narrative that they believe in and every news that they give you is tailored around that narrative. That is not a healthy place for young journalists to give their best. A lot of people want to enter journalism because they want to make a difference," he concluded.