Distinction between print & digital is artificial: HT’s Sukumar Ranganathan

For print media to stay relevant and impactful in the long run and build subscription-based businesses at scale, publishers need to know what people would pay for, said Hindustan Times Editor-in-Chief Sukumar Ranganathan in a fireside chat with BW Businessworld & exchange4media Chairman & Editor-in-Chief Dr Annurag Batra at the e4m English Journalism 40 Under 40 Summit and Awards.

He insisted that people want to have access to curated, filtered, and credible content that print players must be working on.

Ranganathan also addressed the debate between the quality of print vs digital journalism. “Each generation of journalists claims that the generation next to them ruined the quality of journalism. People tend to forget that there is a lot of good journalism happening in the country right now. This distinction between print and digital is artificial, I believe. The real distinction that has always been and will continue to be is between good and bad journalism.”

He added that a certain section of journalists has really turned into activists these days, “They keep pointing out the mistakes to an extent that it has become almost unfashionable to say both sides of the story. You may not like what other people are doing but you need to respect that they are being, hopefully, honest to their work and what they believe in.”

Ranganathan emphasised that the journalist community needs to have some professional courtesy between themselves as he gave an example from his early days in media, “I was a young reporter covering business back then and wanted to cover something about MRF, which really doesn’t talk to journalists. And I somehow found out that the editor of Malayala Manorama was related to the promoter at MRF. So, I dropped the editor a message that I want to talk and he came back to me sharing important details about the shareholding at MRF, which we ended up printing. He told me that his brother would hate him for this but as a journalist, he owes to me that courtesy of sharing information.”

“I think professionals today should have similar courtesy and respect not just for other reporters but also for journalism as a profession. I see a lot of young people bad-mouthing the industry but they need to take pride in what they are doing,” Ranganathan quipped.