Frontline at 40: Standing Guard Over Journalism’s Core Values

Published : Dec 25, 2024 12:00 IST - 9 MINS READ Worldwide, professional journalism and the news industry are struggling to defend and, where possible, to reassert their relevance and value under profoundly changed and changing circumstances. With the accompanying changes in audience behaviour and news consumption, especially among the young, the big challenge for the news media industry and professional journalism is engagement of the audience that is getting away. If I might modify the 19th century French journalist and writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr’s sardonic aphorism, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose and then stand it on its head, the proposition I have offered above should be able to serve the needs of embattled journalism and the news media industry well. The claim I would make for Frontline at 40 is that while it has not gone after mass readership, for quality, scope, insight, perspective, and social, economic, and political relevance it stands in the forefront of journalistic publications anywhere that perform the central functions and the key tasks while being firmly anchored in the core values that define contemporary journalism at its best. As the far-right Hindutva political ideology and authoritarian project, which has forged a strong nexus with big business and crony capitalism, has advanced in the sociopolitical arena, posing serious risks and threats to constitutional institutions and to secular, democratic, and progressive values, journalism and the news media in India have come under pressure and, from time to time, have been subjected to state- In parallel, as digital and video platforms have mushroomed, print magazines have come under intense pressure.