Deemed as one of the few multi-platform journalists at the top echelons of India’s journalism, BV Rao, Group Editor of TV9 Network, led newsrooms in print, broadcast and digital, in multiple news brands of India – The Times of India, The Indian Express, India Today Group, Delhi Mid-Day, Star News, Zee News, Sahara Samay, Network18 and TV9 Network.
In his current role, Rao is impressively overseeing a major expansion of the TV9 brand into the digital news space.
The Journey of Making Firstpost the Esteemed Standalone Digital Brand in India
Rao reminisced about the origin of Firstpost in being one of the leading Indian News and Media websites, that it is today. He stated that Firstpost was launched when one of the leading and earliest all-web media and news portals, Rediff, “wound-down… (And) lost its steam”.
According to Rao, the difference between Firstpost and all the digital arms of other existing brands like The Times of India, The Indian Express, Dainik Jagran, Dainik Bhaskar and others, which are “legacy brands”, is that they originated from a more traditional platform. Further adding, these “legacy brands” were re-using the contents from their original platforms and “cut-pasting” contents, while Firstpost’s primary objective is to bring content created for “digital, by digital journalists” which is one of the biggest reasons of setting Firstpost apart from dominating legacy brands like The Times of India, The Indian Express and Hindustan Times, which “had circulations and brand-presence” of 182, 88 and 96 years, respectively.
Rao iterated that the distinctive feature of Firstpost was that it didn’t derive its news content from other news sources under Firstpost’s parent organisation, Network 18’s umbrella. Rao said, “This is because Firstpost was conceived as India’s first viewspaper and not Newspaper, so we were very heavy on opinions and analysis, and telling people the why, what, how and what next”.
Rao praised his predecessor, R. Jagannathan, the founding editor of Firstpost and stated that “the character and branding that it (Firstpost) ultimately acquired…” can be owed to Jagannathan.
Rao further stated his contribution to Firstpost since Jagannathan was that he “worked on making the branding much stronger”, “In the initial years though we were very well known, we were nowhere near the reach of these legacy brands”. He expressed that he was proud that since the last four to five years, they “rub shoulders” with these leading brands and mentioned that the “even now if there’s any big news happening and you search Google, Firstpost articles are sure to pop-up (in the lead).”
He reiterated that it is due to their focus on digital-media centric content which they “gave a definite shape and personality (to the content)”.
Speaking on Firstpost’s “democratic approach”, Rao remarked that the approach was termed “360-degree approach” where unlike many other publications that present only one side of a political scenario and stand, while others take the “diametric-opposite” stand and do not allow contradictory opinions on their websites.
Rao cited Firstpost’s unbiased approach to political reporting as their reason for standing-out in that niche, “Firstpost was decided to be (politically) neutral (since its conception), but not weak neutral…neutral doesn’t mean that we wouldn’t have opinions, rather it means we’d have multiple opinions…”, he added. According to him, “digital space” is infinite, and thus multiple (valid) opinions can be published, where publications would not have to be “Kanjoos (miser)” about the reporting space.
Speaking about his approach for leading Firstpost, Rao stated that he was looking at one aspect of a business in a big group (Network 18) whereas on TV9, where Rao is the group editor of all the publication, where he is working on News9, an English city news channel, into a national English web TV, while also simultaneously focusing on building TV9’s “Digital properties” in the next three to four months, further mentioning that TV9 group is also planning to hire future-employees even in this global economic recession.
He stated that “Firstpost is where I took a built-product and built to a stronger one for 4.5 years, whereas in TV9, (I’ve) a chance to build something from scratch, and that’s always very exciting”.
Rao gave a few suggestions for a new, up and coming digital journalism platform to be credible enough to garner more audience”, Rao advised, “Credibility is automatic and you don’t have to work on it (if you) just (maintain) the journalistic ethics and objectivity.” He further added, “In my book, there’s only one thing (one) needs to look at and that’s fairness, if you’re fair, every other thing that ensures credibility is taken care of…be fair to people you’re writing about, the people you’re praising, criticizing, be fair to the facts that come to you, do not maul the facts, do not twist it nor distort it.”
Speaking about how there seems to be no difference between Government Media and Private Media, Rao expressed that the comparison is being made because the Government-owned media is praising Government and if the Private Media replicates that as well without criticizing the government that means that the “We (Private Media) are not doing a good job”, he added, that he does not think that ‘all’ media channels are doing ‘that’.
“You cannot broad-base Private Media and say that they have all become Government Media..” as there are Private media houses that criticize Government when it’s necessary and stand by the Government if its deemed necessary.
Rao stated that if it’s for public good then “we’ll not be bothered if we’re (Private Media) with the Government or against it, we’ll be with the people and if we practice that then we’ll be fine”.
Talking about the ways students can cope with nurturing their abilities in the context of digital media, without necessarily relying on digital equipment, Rao said that he himself has been involved in traditional media and digital media and didn’t have any problem transitioning to a digital space.
He further added, “TV will have a specific format of stories and print will have its own, and so does digital, but all of them has the basics of journalism as the common principle, the story is the same, just the story-telling is slightly different…so, there’s nothing to re-learn except for learning to respect the medium and how you could milk it to the best.”
Speaking about the skills that the Media and digital-journalism employers would look for in freshers and what skill-sets might be considered, Rao expressed that 24 years or younger are preferred by employers in the digital media by employers but the problems that these employers are facing is the lack of experience.
He concluded his point by advising students to diversify their skills, to hone their multi-linguistic prowess, while expanding their bandwidth by being “convergent with what’s happening in the world, reading newspapers (either digital or physical) and analyzing news and debating” is needed to boost the understanding of news amongst future-employees of digital media.
The author, Abhirup Sengupta is associated with Adamas University Media School.
