The more things change, the more some things must stay the same

In its 40-year journey, Frontline has evolved with changing times while steadfastly preserving its commitment to critical, investigative journalism.

Published : Dec 25, 2024 12:00 IST – 9 MINS READ

N. Ram, former Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu and Frontline, is currently a Director in THGPPL.

At a bus stop in Delhi in on January 6, 2019. Print media in India is still growing, but faces stiff challenges from new age media. | Photo Credit: V.V. Krishnan

Worldwide, professional journalism and the news industry are struggling to defend and, where possible, to reassert their relevance and value under profoundly changed and changing circumstances. Media transformation in this digital age is being powered and continuously challenged by new and rapidly developing technologies, platforms, and tools. The technology companies with their tremendous search, social networking, and messaging firepower have been engaged in a seemingly irreversible process of hegemonising the media ecosystem. With the accompanying changes in audience behaviour and news consumption, especially among the young, the big challenge for the news media industry and professional journalism is engagement of the audience that is getting away. Related to this, the revenue and business model that served the news media industry so well in the second half of the 20th century has come under intense and often overwhelming pressure, where it has not collapsed.

Another challenge is the nature and enormity of the problem posed by disinformation, especially online disinformation, which does not respect national borders. Scaled up and weaponised on the search, messaging, and social networking platforms owned and operated by the technology companies, disinformation causes great harm to democracy, to media freedom and credibility, and, in charged sociopolitical settings, to human life and welfare as well.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a profound impact on the news media, as it had on lives, health, the economy, and social and cultural life across the world. It disrupted the operations of the media, especially the legacy media. It took a heavy toll on journalist lives, livelihoods, and welfare. It slashed revenues, especially advertising revenues. But the crisis also underlined the trustworthiness, the relevance, and the value of professional journalism—wherever it was not suborned or turned propagandistic.