Alan Rusbridger, Editor, The Guardian, delivers a lecture on "Do newspapers have a future?" at a function in Chennai on Saturday. _ SHAJU JOHN

CHENNAI: As competition for attention grows, newspapers will have to try harder to persuade young people of the value of serious journalism, however delivered, "on screen, on plastic paper or on old fashioned dead trees," the Editor of The Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, said at a lecture organised by The Hindu on Friday.

Readers will want some say on important questions about the market and regulation in relation to news which, they felt, was too important to be left to journalists. "That, in itself, will force media companies to be more open and transparent and responsive — all the things we've lectured other people about for generations," he said while speaking on the theme "Do newspapers have a future?"

``Not all blogs are reliable''

While almost everything else would change, journalism itself would still matter, he said. Though the blogosphere was now growing at a rate of over a million blogs a month, not all the news on the blogs was reliable. "Trust is everything," he said. While some retrenchment was inevitable in the face of a doubtful economic future, too much of cutting back could endanger what newspapers did well in the new media jungle. Readers wanted analysis and context.

Pointing out that serious journalism was an expensive business, he said developed countries were witnessing a dip in the circulation and revenue of mainstream newspapers. But websites without any editorial content, which posted advertisements that were free for both the buyer and the seller, were making big profits with small annual turnovers.

Link with advertising

For 200 or 300 years, newspapers made money from a combination of cover price and advertising. While there might be little or no connection between the advertising and the editorial, advertisers were keen to reach the people who were reading the news stories. Commercial advertising also ensured the independence of newspapers from the government and the politicians. But now, web entrepreneurs were threatening the links between advertising and journalism. From property to cars to travel to jobs there were would-be dot.com millionaires working away at dismembering newspapers into smaller and smaller fragments, each of them potentially lucrative in its own way, he said.

Noting that the internet allowed readers to answer back — almost instantaneously — and to discuss the newspaper among themselves, he said millions of people were hooked up to their own mini-publishing systems. After centuries when the rich and the powerful had an overwhelming monopoly on the means of publication and distribution, it was fantastically liberating that those with access to an internet café could now express themselves to billions of people.

Newspapers' role

But newspapers would continue to have a role. For generations there had been a quiet understanding about what newspapers were for: primarily to tell a society about itself, to act as a pollinator of information and to be a conduit between subjects and rulers, citizens and legislators, legislators and citizens, citizens and citizens. This was essential for the sustenance of a liberal democracy, he said.

In this context he referred to the Iraq war as an instance of newspapers fulfilling the role of the opposition. When the checks and balances of the British Parliament system did not work, newspapers got out the most troubling issues out in the open for debate.

Readers' concerns

Taking questions at the end of the lecture, he said newspapers that were distant from the concerns of the readers would fade out. Absence of proportional representation and a weak local government could engender voter apathy, which could lead to reader apathy, he added.

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