Jiya Pahade
Anytime I think about my summer vacations, I am immediately transported to my grandparents’ house in the village, where every morning we would wake up to see grandfather sitting in the veranda with his ‘Sarvamat’. Although as children, the only use we had for his newspaper was to use it to make a cone of peanuts in the evening, now I understand what that daily newspaper truly meant to him.
In a country as diverse as India, where the language changes every 50 kilometers and cultures differ in every state, a national newspaper simply cannot address the needs of all its readers. Localization of news becomes crucial for keeping communities informed about incidents and issues that are pertinent to them.
Regional newspapers play a vital role in this context. Unlike national papers that often rely on generic newsfeeds, regional newspapers are deeply invested in on-the-ground reporting. Regional news can never be the same news that everyone is covering, it is the news and the stories that relate, resonate and stay with its readers.
In the era of short attention spans, sensationalism and clickbait, localization of news truly ensures that media remains a pillar of democracy.
No responses yet