dna is 9, going on 10. No paper is likely to have had the kind of roller-coaster ride dna has had. But as the youngest and, arguably, the most vibrant paper in India looks to the future, the possibilities are immense. All over the world, the print industry is in crisis, thanks to the onslaught of online means of communication. What should print do then to stay alive and relevant?
The nature of online journalism, with a few exceptions, is that it tends to be crowd-sourced. Stories break on FB, WhatsApp, Twitter. Everybody is a broadcaster. Social media bloggers try to be useful to their followers by posting links to stories that they think are of interest. In general, new net and app-oriented journalism tends to be aggregator rather than segregator.
Online, with exceptions again, suffers from the danger of homogeneity of news, which, users believe, should be free. If you put a dime on any Indian news web, tears will be shed.
The advantage of the print is that a newspaper can still be the physical hub of talent and expertise, a structural advantage. In terms of actual depth, a newspaper is likely to have more of it simply because of its legacy of the past; the average age of people working in print, in my experience, is more than that of a news portal, for instance. And in these days of 140 characters, memory might actually be a specialist trade; and a vertical all by itself.
Read more about dna's 9th anniversary celebrations
As it enters its 10th year, dna strives to make use of both the young and the reasonably old; a fusion of energy and experience. The last one year, it has been the effort of this paper to be as exclusive as possible, so it goes away from the beaten path of aggregation and repetition.
Indian print journalism tends to be driven by the agenda of the TV. The leading papers in English, illustrious as they are, are in effect, giving the reader news that has been broken by righteous-sounding TV anchors the evening before. dna tries its best not to go that way. The exclusives we have broken (see dnaindia.com) are a matter of pride for this paper and its journalists. So are its out-of-the-box cover stories on J(ust)B(efore)M(onday), the Sunday magazine section of the paper, which is one of the best Sunday reads in the country.
dna realises perhaps more acutely than any paper that we are all living in the time of disrupted communication. The route map is message, disruption, distraction and back to message. To help the reader navigate, we have introduced, for the first time in India, stories as executive summaries and FAQs. This brings the gist of the story upfront, and the reader can at one glance see what the report is all about.
I'm proud to present the 9th anniversary edition of dna, whose theme is Insights. In city, business, and entertainment, we feature writers and experts who give us a clear idea of where Mumbai is heading. The authors are luminaries in their respective fields. One way or the other they all talk about how this great city works its way into the imagination of the millions powering it. This issue is for keeps.
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