When a newspaper joke gets lost online

Every newspaper worth its salt has an online presence. Which is fantastic. And probably obligatory. But a print media company is doing more harm than good to itself if its system automatically uploads print articles to the internet.

Because print simply doesn't translate well online.

The art to page layout - using large headline fonts and pictures, and top to bottom positioning to denote news prioritisation - is lost when even the tiny 8-inch long story buried in the bottom left corner of the page gets its own web address.

And missing context can ruin what the paper stands for.

Take the example of this unfortunate article on The Hindu.  It appeared, presumably as a small column with a thumbnail in the lifestyle supplement of the paper, part of a regular 'how to' section, which is usually formatted to indicate that it's a light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek, humorous column.

While the humour in this piece is admittedly questionable for any medium, the point is completely lost on online visitors, who see an absurd, grammatically incorrect headline ("...get any girl to go out with you") amidst stories of drought and politicking.

Isn't that shooting yourself in the foot when the whole point of your recent marketing campaign was about how The Hindu "stays ahead of the times" without dumbing down news?

Being part of the team that's put in a lot of work into the print edition, it's a real pity to see the message lost in translation.

Privacy 1, Rubbish news 0

An oft repeated statement about social networking sites is that putting up any personal information online is an automatic renunciation of privacy.

"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place," former Google CEO Eric Schmidt famously said.

However, using the many benefits of sites that encourage sharing personal information does not automatically translate into non-existent expectations of privacy.

So, I'm glad that there's been a recent ruling that's a definite shot in the arm for privacy in India, especially given recent possible erosions of the same.

Details of the case against TV9 Hyderabad brought in front of the News Broadcasting Standards Authority of India have been explained in detail at that link. To summarise, TV9 accessed the photographs and personal details of members of a networking site for gay men and splashed the same all over the tele in their hour-long report about "rampant gay culture" in Hyderabad, claiming that the information was easily accessible and in the public domain.

The absolutely juicy part of the ruling against their argument:

“While the names, particulars and photographs etc of individuals may be available in the.. members-only section, it cannot be said that such names, particulars and photographs are therefore available in the public domain”

As paraphrased:

Justice Verma seems to be saying, merely because one volunteers to publish information about oneself on a social networking site, one has not thereby foregone all of one’s rights to privacy against the world. Social networking sites are thereby construed as private spaces and decidedly not “public” ones.

Meet the Star

Look who got a cool 500 words to write about herself in the paper. 

Education Times Bangalore, The Times of India, 2 Nov, 09.

Note that I also got not one, but two pictures. Neither of them embarrassing. (Have a friend who picked one for me and Photoshop that did the rest, to thank for that.)

Also note the quote that makes the headline.

 I'll admit - it's not just Mum that thinks I'm a natural at this stuff. I'm a Me fan too.

*Bows*

(The link to the page, pdf format.)

News and Hash-tag activism

In journalism school, one of the first of the inexact sciences we learn is the prioritisation of news.

There's local, national, international, sports and entertainment news to juggle (with breaking news of Madonna's divorce of course changing everything).

I've spent a lot of time this past year hearing about how the future of the media is in local, highly personalised news. Reams have also been devoted (in media that nobody apparently cares about anymore) to lamenting the lack of international news in mainstream media.

#IranElection however very reassuringly shows that people still care very much about what happens in the rest of the world and it would be myopic of news organisations to assume otherwise.

CNN was asked to pull up its socks and Twitter rescheduled its down time rather than break the flow of information coming in from Iran.

Who says people don't care.