Meanwhile, the reporters’ days are getting much longer because they are supposed to multi-task and write for the Internet and make a video and do a TV interview and then write their story and revise their story for the late edition. So there’s less time for reporting.

•COOMI KAPOOR: Has television taken over the role of a newspaper’s reporting team?

No, no, television is sort of over. It’s between the Internet and newspapers now. Only newspapers still maintain large reporting organisations but even the New York Times had to announce cuts of over a 100 journalistic positions. They have a staff of over a 1,000 journalists and a large a foreign staff. A website tends to have half a dozen reporters, a couple of websites have a dozen or so reporters, but there’s not one that has a 100 reporters or even 50. So, the new media draws on the content of the old media and if the old media fade away, the new media will not have the robustness to maintain that kind of reporting.

•SANDEEP SINGH: Don’t you think newspapers have failed to engage with people? And why can’t the old and the new media tie up?

I was talking about the amount of reporting going on in the world. And the new media does very little reporting. They don’t break stories. Of all the things that journalism does, I place the highest value on getting the information out, breaking stories, opening new subjects, and so I am concerned about where the reporting is going to come from as newspaper reporting diminishes.

... contd.