Need to be wired to read newspapers

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Year 1982. I was rookie in media worked as a 'spaceseller' in Ananda Bazar Patrika. We kids were on an orientation to Calcutta (Kolkota now)... the big day came..interacting with the editors. I distinctly remember our interaction with MJ Akbar (editor of Sunday) and Aveek Kumar Sarkar (editor of ABP). I really don't remember the questions that were posited for their awesome presence quite intimidated us (they seemed to like doing it). But I remember the question I had asked, and this got me a lot of appreciation. The question was to Aveek Kumar Sarkar, "Sir, we know the income, age, education etc of the readers but you sure know their minds, what do you think do your readers want?". I was quite surprised by the answer, what surprised me was the speed in which the answer was given. Mr Sarkar replied "I dont know what they want, but I know what they need, I give it to them"

Quite arrogant but it made me very proud of the fact that I represent a paper like ABP. Its nearly 20 years gone by since I worked with that publication, but it occupies a very special place in my heart. I was just a space seller.

I joined the TOI, the sex appeal was too difficult to ignore. Mr Samir Jain, was dis empowering the editors. The famous statement made by the editor of Times of India, think its Dileep Padgonkar who claimed to be the powerful man in India after the President of the Country, sure did not go well with Mr Jain. Mr Jain probably did not understand this metaphor and lost it by solving it.

Yet I was very proud of the fact that a newspaper, had the power to inform, mold and influence the readers.

This is probably one of the reasons for choosing my name as 'Wordcreates'.

Its been uphill against the wind, for newspapers, world over but, for whatever reason, newspapers continue to hold sway.

After my stint with Times of India, after some clowning around in the advertising circus, I got into education. Called myself a 'Reading Evangelist' urging children to read and parents to create reading environments at home. I have been quite success full in getting some homes to pull out the TV and get the book shelf into the living room.

But I realize that the children are more and more being wired towards the visual medium and not for reading. You need to be wired to be a reader. Good Memory, Attention is very important, Processing and Sequencing skills are mandatory.

There is one thing for sure, these visually wired, post-lib babies will not get their news and opinions from the Newspaper, it will be from twitter, sms etc. But they will possess this enormous ability to process it and the challenge for the media particularly the newspapers to survive in the attention economy.
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