The Hindu Business Line : `Core values under pressure'

Warm welcome: MR N. RAM, Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu, receives Mr Raghunath Prasad Goenka, Chairman, RPG Group, during the launch of the Kolkata edition of Business Line in the city on Thursday. Mr R.S. Lodha (extreme right), Chairman, Birla Corp, looks on. — Sushanta Patronobish

Kolkata , Oct. 26

Mr N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu Group of Publications, expressed concern over the "new combination of pressures on the core values of journalism, pressures generated by intensifying competition, by business success, by communal attitudes and prejudices, and by direct political ambition and manipulation".

Speaking at a function held here to mark the launch of the Kolkata edition of Business Line on Thursday, Mr Ram said that in the name of `omnipotent market', a new kind of demand was being made for manipulating news, analysis and opinion to suit the financial and political interests of the owners concerned. "Price wars and other aggressive practices tremendously strengthen these pressures. There is also, if the truth be told, creeping corruption in Indian journalism," he said.

Integrity, Quality

According to him, the only effective answer to all this is journalism of integrity and high quality. "To flourish, such journalism must go hand-in-hand with good state-of-the-art business practices. Newspapers with a soul know where to draw the lakshman rekha and how to give primacy to the editorial functions. The challenge is to internalise this knowledge in the profession of journalism. The challenge before us remains what it was when Business Line was launched on January 28,1994: how to make serious journalism more viable, influential and successful — and how to enable successful journalism to keep its soul."

Mr Ram said Business Line is the fastest-growing daily in the country and this is the outcome of "the application of The Hindu's journalistic and ethical values to business journalism".

In his address, Mr B. Muthuraman, Managing Director of Tata Steel, who was a special guest, expressed his happiness that the "best business daily of the country is coming to the best state in the country". He referred to the good investment climate in the State, which had been facilitated by the policies of the Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

Mr K. Venugopal, Joint Editor of Business Line, spoke of how the pace of business activity had picked up in West Bengal in recent months. A 50 per cent increase in passenger traffic through Kolkata airport over the past six months, compared with the corresponding period of 2005, was a clear indicator of this.

"Investments are flowing into this State in increased measure. We reckon that this is also a period when businessmen in the State will crucially need reliable and timely information from the financial, equity and commodity markets as well as about government policy-making and corporate strategy," he said, adding that the time was ripe for the launch of the Kolkata edition of Business Line.