Role of Press in Health Education

How often have you noticed the press (print, TV and online) insensitively report health-related and human interest stories?
Most of this careless reporting is due to lack of proper media sensitization and domain knowledge. Let me give you an example. Have you often read and heard the term AIDS patient in news reports? Since AIDS is not a disease but a syndrome a person cannot be termed as an AIDS patient. The right usage is HIV positive individual. This term not only addresses the person with respect but in general influences the society's attitude towards such persons.
Similarly, usage of words such as deaf, dumb, blind, retarded to address individuals should also be replaced with more respectable terms such as challenged, specially gifted etc.
Refer to the below presentation for more insights -

Role of Press in Health Education

BMM Syllabus - First, Second and Third Year

Detailed Bachelors of Mass Media Syllabus for first, second and third year.

BMM Syllabus

Magazine Journalism

Much has been written and said about the death of the magazine due to the advent of Internet. Interestingly what is emerging now is a print-digital collaborative business model.
Six online experts have reasoned out 'Why Magazines Have a Future.'

Globally, some magazines survived recession while some succumbed. Here's what Alex Lockwood has to say in an article titled 'Magazines: Can online make an industry recession-proof?' posted by on March 2, 2009 on www.journalism.co.uk.

Magazines have shown themselves to be an accurate barometer of the recession so far. Since the property market crashed and people lost jobs, car and home magazines obviously lost out on circulation. Almost every major publishing house saw its range lose circulation in the last one year.

The author argues that magazines are like cheap cosmetics during times of recession. You know it's a luxury but you still want to indulge in at least something. Magazines give people something to do during recession, states Lockwood.

News and finance titles, such as The Economist and What Investment, are also showing circulation growth, as people look to absorb credible information about the credit crunch.

It is probably true, however, that the titles with falling circulations all target younger groups who have less disposable income and are more likely to be affected by job cuts. That's certainly the case in the women's weekly market, where women are cutting back on how many magazines they buy.

But perhaps the biggest individual factor outside of the credit crunch is where consumers are looking. The move towards delivery of magazine-branded content on different platforms was, before the recession hit, the number one concern for the magazine industry: how will print survive in the age of the internet?

Isobel McKenzie-Price, editor of Ideal Home magazine, the market leader in the home styling sector, is responsible for IPC's home magazine websites, idealhomemagazine.co.uk; homesandgardens.com and livingetc.co.uk. While her ABC figures are down, she argues that her magazine is as recession-proof as any, and a lot of that is to do with being online.

So magazines can no longer be measured simply by quoting their ABC circulation figures. Nowhere is this more relevant than in the men's magazine market. IPC's Nuts, down 13 per cent year-on-year, argues that looking at print circulation is an outmoded way of judging a magazine's value: you have to look at what a title is doing and who it is speaking to, via its TV channel, website and mobile platforms.

Emotional connect of magazines and more on this story...

Trends in Online Journalism

I read an interesting piece of blog by a fellow online journalist that said that 'online journalism' is no longer a trend. The writer further stated that Online Journalism can be divided into three major areas -

Gathering the News

• Mobile Journalism
• Social Networking
• RSS Filtering
• Churnalism

Augmenting the News

• Geotagging and Maps
• Semantic Web
• Multimedia

Delivering the News

• News as a Platform
• Aggregation
• Search

This blog will make for interesting reading...

Trends in Online Journalism

View more presentations from Brett Atwood.

History of Indian Journalism

1780
The first newspaper in India was published by James Hicky in January 1780. It was called the Bengal Gazette and announced itself as “a weekly political and commercial paper open to all parties but influenced by none”.
Bengal Gazette was a two-sheet paper measuring 12 inches by 8 inches, most of the space being occupied by advertisements. Its circulation reached a maximum of 200 copies. Within six years of Bengal Gazette, four more weeklies were launched in Kolkata (then Calcutta).

1782
Madras Courier was launched in 1782.

1791
Bombay Herald was launched in 1791.

1792
Bombay Courier was launched in 1792. It published advertisements in English and Gujarati.

1799
In 1799, the East India administration passed regulations to increase its control over the press.

1816
The first newspaper under Indian administration appeared in 1816. It was also called Bengal Gazette and was published by Gangadhar Bhattacharjee. It was a liberal paper which advocated the reforms of Raja Ram Mohan Roy.
Raja Ram Mohan Roy himself brought out a magazine in Persian called Mirat-ul-Ukhbar. He also published The Brahmanical Magazine, an English periodical to counteract the religious propaganda of the Christian missionaries of Serampore.

1822
In 1822, the Chandrika Samachar was started in Bengal.
At the same time, Bombay Samachar was started by Ferdunji Marzban. It gave importance to social reform and commercial news in Gujarati.

1826
The first Hindi newspaper Oodunt Martand was published in 1826 from Bengal. However, it could not survive long because of its distant readership and high postal rates. Its place was soon taken by Jami Jahan Numa, a newspaper that was pro-establishment.

1832
In 1832, Bal Shastri Jambhekar launched at Anglo-Marathi newspaper from Pune.

1830-1857
A large number of short-lived newspapers were brought out in this time. Some were in Indian languages like Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Urdu and Persian.

1857
The Uprising of 1857 brought out the divide between Indian owned and British owned newspapers. The government passed the Gagging Act of 1847 and the Vernacular Press Act in 1876.
After 1857, the pioneering efforts in newspapers shifted from Bengal to Mumbai. Gujarati press made great progress under the efforts of Ferdunji Marzban and Kurshedji Cama.
Marathi journalism followed close behind with a distinctive educational bias.

1861
In 1861, Mr Knight merged the Bombay Standard, Bombay Times and Telegraph and brought out the first issue of Times of India.

1875
In 1875, the same Mr Knight with the backing of rich merchants from Kolkata started Indian Statesman which was later called as Statesman.
Around the same time, Amrita Bazar Patrika was able to establish itself in Kolkata. Starting out as a vernacular paper, it was constantly in trouble due to its outspokenness. In order to circumvent the strict provision of the Vernacular Press Act, Amrita Bazar Patrika converted itself overnight into an English newspaper.
Amrita Bazar Patrika inspired freedom fighter Lokmanya Tilak to start Kesari in Pune. He used Kesari to build anti-cow killing societies, Ganesh mandals and reviving the Chhatrapati Shivaji cult. He used mass communication as a powerful political weapon.

1905
By 1905, the English and vernacular press had become pretty professional. Political leaders and social reformers were regular contributors to newspapers. Some prominent writers of the time were C Y Chintamani, G A Natesan, N C Kelkar, Phirozshah Mehta and Benjamin Horniman.
Indian news was supplied by special correspondent and government hand-outs (press releases), international news was supplied by Reuters, an international news agency.

1920s and 1930s

• Newspapers in this period started reflecting popular political opinion. While big English dailies were loyal to the British government, the vernacular press was strongly nationalist.
• The Leader and Bombay Chronicle were pro-Congress.
• The Servant of India and The Bombay Chronicle were moderate.
• The Bande Mataram of Aurbindo Ghosh, Kal of Poona and Sakli of Surat were fiercely nationalist.
• In 1918, Motilal Nehru started the Independent of Lucknow as a newspaper of extreme Indian opinion.
• The Home Rule Party started Young India, which later became Mahatma Gandhiji’s mouthpiece.

As more and more Indians started learning English, many became reporters, editors and even owners. The Anglo-Indian press began to lose ground except in Bombay and Calcutta.

In 1927, industrialist G D Birla took over Hindustan Times and placed it on a sound financial footing.
In the same year, S Sadanand started the Free Press Journal, a newspaper for the poor and the middle-class in Mumbai.

Ref: Mass Communication - A Basic Study by Aspi Doctor, Sheth Publishers