TRENDS IN SECTIONAL NEWS

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this essay are personal and strictly for educational purposes.

Newspapers are weighty in substance and content. They typically contain different types of information catering to diverse audiences with varied interests. An essential element of editing, thus, remains categorically identifying and locating jumble of news content in different sections of the newspaper.

The content analysis of newspapers has shown several trends which can be described as new kinds of application in Print Media.

Maximum number of subjects are now being covered by newspapers. Newspapers are giving information about health, education, science, environment, crime, accident, culture, tourism, literature, information technology, religion, spiritual etc. Maximum number of events are being covered by newspapers. The combination of various elements of design has been so dynamic, that it comes to give a striking resemblance to a TV programme. Supplements of newspaper have become an important and regular part of newspaper. All newspapers are now giving additional pages covering certain areas of daily life. Similarly, newspapers also give weekly magazines covering health, beauty, house decoration, designing, health, food habits and modern lifestyles.

The following are the various types of sections a newspaper lays hold to:

• General News – This is usually the most important news in both local and abroad. These are usually found on the front page of the paper. The title of the news is printed in big, bold letters called “banner headline”
• Local and Foreign News Section – Contains news from towns and cities of the nation and abroad.
• Editorial Page – This section contains articles called editorials. Editorials give views or opinions of the editor or publisher on certain issues or events.
• Sports Page – This section contains news on events containing sports from in and out of the country. This section also contains well-known people in the sports world.
• Classified Ads Section – Contains advertisements that fall under the categories like “Help”, “Wanted”, “For Lease / For Sale”, and “Wanted To Buy”.
• Business and Finance Section – Contains businessmen and people interested in business with information on banking. foreign exchange rates, imports and exports, and prices of prime commodities.
• Entertainment Section – Contains info about movies, radio, television and other activities for entertainment.
• Home and Culture Section – Provides info about budgeting, food preparation, house improvement, etc.
• Society Page – Contains news about important people who are celebrating special events in a particular place
• Travel and Tourism Section – Contains a guide to travel and directs tourists to a scenic vacation spots and gives information on the activities in these places.
• Announcements and Obituary Page – Provides info on the activities of different religious sections and also lists people who recently died and the time and place of their burials.

The most important of these remains that of national/regional news with a fixed slot to accommodate this type of news. Most of the space in this category is filled with political issues. Usually, news of national importance is in the inside pages of the newspaper, which comes right after city and regional sections. Then comes the editorial section which contains the editorial of the newspaper along with opinion pieces and columns written by experts, along with editorial cartoons. The Editorial section is typically followed by the business or world page, both of which have been increasing in importance in terms of both readership and content matter in the last two decades. The Sports section, which follows, accommodates sports news and is designated for the last pages of the newspaper.

A New Organisational Style

There are different ways of organization and presentation as far as print media is concerned. The specific organization adopted by a newspaper reflects the personality of the publication. Readers also become accustomed to the organization, and a make-over is rarely done for this reason. It can also be noted that the online versions of these newspapers do not have the breadth and scope of the paper versions.

News stories, features, graphics are certainly being given in TV style of presentation. For example, they give brief story on front page and detail on inner pages. The design of the page is done in such a manner so the advertisement and news text blend with each other. This is given just to make audience view the advertising and to avoid their negligence towards advertising materials. The number and space of advertisement has certainly increased. Nature of competition among newspapers can also be a reason for the new trend in presentation. This is evident from the practice where every newspaper claims to give the most exclusive news. There are several occasions in which newspapers like to bring up their achievements in terms of old reportage that acted as a catalyst for administrative action in the past. These stories are distinguished by others by use of special logo and symbolic graphics.

Sectional Trends

Strong readership is a key aspect of print media industry. A high proportion of this readership can be achieved by laying focus on the best coverage of regional and local issues. In most newspapers, city and regional news sections come right after the front page, explaining how important they are for both the newspaper industry and the readers wishing to read about issues most immediate to them first. Unlike sections containing national news which are heavily dependent on news agencies and outsourcing of information, news in regional/local sections is reliant entirely on local reporters, requiring an efficient regional bureau as the backbone of a newspaper house.  Newspapers are covering local issues much more than before. Earlier the local coverage was given in two or three pages. Now news of other districts is in a very small quantity. This trend is seen in all newspapers ranging from Dainik Jagran, Hindustan, Amar Ujala, and Rashtriya Sahara newspapers, all of which are giving eight to nine pages to local or city news. Some critics comment that this trend deprives people from laying equal emphasis to news of national and/or global importance, but this can be balanced by a substantial coverage of the latter categories in tandem with the subject matter raised in local and regional news sections.

Crime and accident stories are given high priority. The Economic page covers mainly investment, loan, insurance, purchase. Coverage of commonplace issues with a general tonality to suit all regions of the country has also been accepted as a mode to gain wider traction.

Cultural reporting has acquired a very prominent place in newspapers. All newspapers are not only giving text material but also supplementing it with visual representation. In fact, photojournalism has become a common feature for the best coverage of cultural issues. As new cultures emerge and as citizens become active participants in the media industry, cultural activities and events have become one very important area of reporting. The content, headlines, photographs, articles, features, all have an orientation towards increasing consumerism, modern social values, and culture.

Newspapers are now giving information about all those activities which are closely associated with daily lives of common people and society, for example, the information about transport, market, various commodities. Similarly, people's problems associated with water, electricity, transport are being highlighted. It is really a very positive approach of the newspapers. They are fulfilling the need of information of various sections of people. Print Media has started to give maximum coverage to those subjects which are useful in one or other way to daily lives of common people.

The follows-up of various events have further increased. A newspaper tries its best to give a meaningful coverage of an event. The follow up of news is given more in Crime and Political subjects. The news series are more prevalent in those events which are of public importance. Many a times, newspapers even tend to launch campaigns around particular areas of interest.

Newspapers are giving active support to various academic activities which are related to youth and unemployed people. This benefits a newspaper doubly- it clears passage for the newspaper to gain positive publicity, and it also enables it to connect to the crucial sections of the population directly and widen its base. There are many occasions when the newspapers take the opinion of youth on important issues. Oftentimes, youth fair, discussion and other programmes, beyond newspaper columns is also organised by the publishing house.

Another area is the history and background of news events, which has become almost a vital element in presentation of the most comprehensive and holistic news information to people, helped by the vast availability of academic material in this regard. Special contexts such as a chronological analysis of an event is presented on specific occasions, including essential court judgements. This kind of information was presented in early newspapers; however, it has considerably increased in frequency in recent times. Infographics for events of wide public interest, such as in the outbreak of major diseases, is also essentially presented for the benefit of a large section of readers.

Another emergent trend has been that newspapers have come to depict themselves as educators, motivators and advisers, something which is unique to the present generation of print media. For instance, political coverage often includes the hows and whys of voting, technological coverage tends to employ a tone of guidance about the market, while educational news may include specific columns with experts resolving general public queries on request.

Despite these, there are some areas which are least covered by newspapers. They include information about government programmes, and development issues. Newspapers hardly cover such subjects, as per latest trends, since it is believed they do not get as much acquired readership as other areas of interest and remain limited to a very small section of affected people. However, this negative trend is seen to be neutralised as newspapers are starting to realise the essentiality of citizen journalism, and some noticeable space is being granted to areas pertinent to people.  

The onset of globalisation has also led to greater traction to news of global importance. Along the years it has been found that the economic power of countries plays a particularly crucial role in their news prominence as well as the presence of international news agencies. Thus, the US has been found to be very prominent in news mentions around the world (18%), followed by China, Western European and Middle Eastern countries (about 3-5% each).

 Sectional Readership

Among the readers of Sunday newspapers, it was found that the mean number of sections regularly read is 6.2, while the median number of sections regularly read is 4. About 16% of the readers regularly read 10 or more sections.

The most popular newspaper section is 'Local/domestic/national news' (read by 65% of the readers), followed by 'Sports' (read by 59%). The least popular sections are 'Home & Decoration' (read by 13%) and 'Letters from the Readers' (read by 12%). Newspaper sections do not arise in a vacuum, because they are there in response to consumer demands and competitive pressure. For example, there would not be a Computer section anywhere twenty years ago.Publics around the globe consume all types of news, but they are most interested in news that’s close to home. Among the four key news topics asked about, global medians of at least three-quarters say they follow news about their country (86%) or city and town (78%) closely, compared with fewer than six-in-ten who say the same when it comes to news about other countries generally (57%) and the U.S. specifically (48%).

Interest in international news varies by geographic region. Europeans are most likely to say they follow international news closely (median of 65%), while people in Latin America express the lowest level of interest in this type of news (35%). There is little variation, on the other hand, in the percentage that follows international news very closely; in all countries surveyed, no more than three-in-ten say they follow international news very closely.

There has also been a considerable segue into market-orient information in the middle of general news information. Advertisers have begun to use newspaper readers as potential consumers and tend to guide them in purchasing and marketing.

The fact that the readers seldom read all the sections have ramifications for advertisers. If different types of readers read different sections, then the sectional placement of an ad becomes an important issue. Some situations are clear: a car dealer probably wants to be in the Automobile section, a computer store wants to be in the Computer section, a travel agent wants to be in the Travel section, etc.

In other situations, the choices are less obvious. For example, think about an airline. The Travel section is one obvious place. But are there other opportunities? What about Business section for the business traveller who makes frequent trips, for example? Or think about a beverage producer. The Sports section, the Youth section and the Food section all have their special appeals.

This last thought leads us to contemplate the possibility that newspaper readers can be segmented based on their sectional readership. That is, certain readers read certain sections.

Trends in sectional news in print media are similar to most other trends in the field. It is obvious that readership patterns and market demands would continue to shape organisational patterns of a newspaper. New sections are bound to arise, and several others might be compelled to limitation.

 REFERENCES

•  Dr. Arvind Kumar Singh, Present Trends of Newspaper in India (A Qualitative Study.
• Soong, Roland, Newspaper Sectional Reading, http://www.zonalatina.com/Zldata29.htm
• The report of FICCI 2011, http://www.ficci.com/PressRelease/755/press-21mar-entertainment.pdf
• Identifying trends for the future of newspapers, http://www.wan-press.org/article16028.html
• Newspapers economics Online and offline 2010 by Hal Varian http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/coma/images/issues/201006/hal_varian_presentation.pdf 8
• Parts of a Newspaper, https://philnews.ph/2019/07/16/parts-of-newspaper/
• Pew Research on Demanded News Issues https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2018/01/11/publics-around-the-world-follow-national-and-local-news-more-closely-than-international/

By: Samridhi Chugh, BA (Hons) Journalism, Lady Shri Ram College, Batch of 2022