Hi Patrice, Regards to Diiiinooos! The issue isn't just about price. As I see it, it's more about what such low newspaper prices (Indian newspapers are already among the lowest-priced in the world, at 2 or 4 or 6 US cents for a 24 pager broadsheet!) do to the media market and journalism here.
Firstly, it pushes those newspapers that lack such deep pockets out of the market. That could seriously affect the diversity in the media, however flawed the current media operations are. Secondly, the papers become heavily advertiser-dominated (politicians have ended up paying for election-time "news" coverage, even in local papers in Goa that have been inspired by the ToI style of ultra-high profitability and "conflict-free" journalism). It brings in high salaries for journalists, but along with it comes an acute loss of freedom because of the advertiser-is-right-at-all-times and treating newspapers as just another salable product (like toothpaste or soap, forgetting the social role of the industry). Since the reader pays only a very, very tiny fraction of what it costs to put the newspaper together, the voice of the reader is not at all heard; you can imagine the impact such an approach would have. I'm not pointing only to the ToI here; papers in Goa too have been enthusiastically following this model in recent years. But with the ToI showing how "successful" it can be, I guess the situation would only get more acute. In fact, it would not be wrong to say that, all things considered, the reader is being "paid" to "buy" a newspaper. If this is the case, how can we complain when we find newspaper don't contain news, specially of a public-interest kind, anymore? I would prefer a model of citizen-journalism based even on some form of volunteer-driven public-interest journalism. Okay, it's not perfect, but it works in some ways. That political parties eager to justify their stand in cyberspace have taken getting their arguments repeatedly (through proxy or otherwise) heard over Goanet could itself be taken as a justification of sorts for this argument. So when you compare price, please also compare the role played by the newspapers concerned. FN On 19/02/2008, Patrice Riemens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Another English Daily from Goa - Times of India > > > Which also means our monthly newspaper bill will increase by another say > > Rs.115 to about Rs.410 assuming TOI is sold at Rs.3. > > My, lucky Goans! Rs 410 would buy you about just _one week_ of _one_ > newspaper in our parts, probably excluding the week-end edition (usually > Rs 125). And don't tell me yr incomes are 1/16th of ours, if you can > afford all these papers! > :-) > Cheers, patrizio & Diiiinooos! -- Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org Ph +91-832-2409490 The Goa books blog: http://goabooks.wordpress.com Goa1556 (alt.publishing.goa): http://goa1556.goa-india.org