The online as offline

The print medium is not the same as the web-based medium, but we still have a tendency to approach the two as if they were the same when it comes to information communication. More specifically, in many newspaper offices in India, the internet and print editions are managed similarly to the point of expecting to reap equal profits from both (at least, that's how the management is modeled). In fact, because the internet does not have space restrictions as stringent as those imposed by a newspaper, and because stories can be uploaded as and when they happen as opposed to having to wait for a day, editors actually believe that such freedoms could only work to the publication's advantage.

Eventually, when the results come in reflecting the newspaper's poor performance on the web, the editors' first reaction is to question the editorial team responsible for managing the internet-desk. If that doesn't work, money is seen to be the problem: the page is redesigned, more funds are pumped in to spruce up the looks and navigation, and the amount of interactive content is increased. All these are fine initiatives, but unfortunately they aren't solutions. They do to the newspaper what taking longevity pills will do to a patient of cancer: he might live longer, but the blight will continue to spread until its death-grip is complete. At this juncture, many people also think that if they took a few steps back, reanalysed the problem, decided to just drop the unlimited space and instant-post assumptions, and rolled out the web edition thereon, things would be fine.

They wouldn't. We forget the effects of mismanagement in the interim period. Misguided decisions introduce their own set of problems into the machine, problems that are more systematic and resilient than the problems caused by assuming there's a lot of space and a lot of time. This mismanagement could manifest in the attitude toward web-based journalism, in the fashion of structuring the editorial team, or in thinking the way the internet-desk communicates with other departments in the newspaper is the way the print-desk does it, too.

Looking at it broadly, the attitude toward web-based journalism and the way the organization is structured become coincidental when those calling the shots are the misguided ones. The web-based medium serves an audience quite different from the one served by the written medium. Knowing that that is so, what sense does it make to have an editor for the internet edition who works as though he's working with the print edition? Because of the limitation on space being absent, for instance, the consequence has been the overloading of web-pages with content - as if it's an online newspaper with a hundred pages.

Very few editors in India decide to leave the sub-standard stories that didn't make the cut to the newspaper alone and instead turn their attention toward enhancing the impression of existing stories. Very few editors use the extra space available to serve every newspaper's original goal: to get the news across. And if ever they fail to do that effectively, it won't matter what else they get right. It's like reducing expenditures by eliminating needs only to buy something that will never be used simply because it comes at a heavily discounted price. If you want to continue to help your cause, use extra space to maximise the benefits arising from good journalism. Don't try to maximise the channels of revenue by exposing readers to the products of sub-standard work.

This matter of benefit-maximisation - while situated in the print framework - matters more on content than on anything else. This is because the most that can be done to a newspaper in terms of its design is to remove it from the way of easy reading as much as is possible. On the web, however, benefits can be maximised by more than just making the reading area less cluttered. There's not only more space but there are also other forms of data-expression. Now, journalists don't just have to choose between using an image or writing some 200 words to convey an idea: they have to pick between interactive infographics, videos, images, and audio clips to convey the message most effectively.

Subsequently, a collateral advantage of publishing on the web is that it gives the publishers an option to capitalise on multi-form content: the more elaborate the news delivery is, the costlier it could become to access it. All such aspects of online publishing have to be managed using a single voice of authority at the helm because their mismanagement is tied in closely with the failure of news-delivery. If the writing, editing, accounts, and web design departments operate autonomously with sizeable communication gaps between them, the reading-the-newspaper-online experience is going to be fragmented and as scatter-brained an affair as the logic behind the divided support driving the initiative.



The internet comes with a host of opportunities and that remains the biggest reason yet for publishers to move to the web to push their content. However, it seems shortsighted and in poor judgment that the people who decide to move online forget that so many opportunities can only come with so many chances for making mistakes. And they make those mistakes frequently and, more worrying, increasingly systematically. The important thing is to not let mismanagement off the hook all that easily - they leave a Yeti-sized footprint behind that must be erased completely before beginning to make way for a new working model.

[caption id="attachment_23041" align="aligncenter" width="529"] The Times of India is one Indian newspaper that seems to have taken to online publishing well. Their internet publishing mechanism seems well-oiled, and their articles, well-chosen (albeit from the pool of articles they have to choose from). Most importantly, auxiliary systems such as a self-administered payment gateway, smart pagination and a proliferation of their online services that moved at a pace more to their comfort than of the offline edition ensured that users received a an all-round sense of satisfaction when they logged on and off the ToI website.[/caption]

Comparative analysis of media literature on PSA testing in the USA

Ever since the Food and Drug Administration approved the deployment of PSA testing to check for prostate cancer amongst men over the age of 50, the project has morphed into a public health disaster. In fact, consequences of its improper administration have resulted in one of its most noted former advocates, Richard J. Ablin, distancing himself from it.



PSA stands for protein-specific antigens, which are produced by the prostate gland in the human body. When the protein level in the blood, as a result of the secretion, crosses 4 ng/mL, it is indicative of prostate cancer. However, in the last 17 years since the test was approved, only 3.8 per cent of the men tested turned out to have prostate cancer even though thousands underwent painful surgeries as a result of false positives. This has resulted in widespread debates on the subject emerging in the USA as well as in other countries that use the PSA test regarding its risks and cost benefits.

The issue was covered comprehensively by the mass media and especially by three publications in the United States: The New York Times, LA Times and the Washington Post. NYT also carried an essay by Ablin last year (dated 9 March, 2010). However, while the focus in all three publications was on the emerging dissatisfaction amongst test subjects, urologists and policy-makers, each of the newspapers focused on one distinct and important aspect of the story.

[caption id="attachment_20488" align="aligncenter" width="397" caption="Richard J. Ablin"][/caption]

The NY Times article evaluated the test and presented a series of numbers that highlighted its failure to be comprehensive, robust and reliable. Quoting the results of a study undertaken by the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), the article stresses on the test's inability to influence healthcare positively and the onus it places on the Ministry of Health to substitute it with one that works. Furthermore, the article also argues against the test's obsession with simply the symptoms of the cancer and its inability to discern the precise causes of those symptoms as being a significant contributor to its failure.

In doing so, it sidesteps the cost-versus risk conflict that has arisen as a result and instead, by condemning the technique, does not offer any judgment on the need to administer the test by the FDA. At the same time, the article fails to mention the absence of any urologists on the panel and, therefore, loses the balance it could have otherwise retained. Whether this was done deliberately to restrict the readers' attention to the shortcomings of the test or not is unknown.

The Los Angeles Times article went another way and evaluated the consequences of the administration of the test. While the debate on its administration perseveres, that the consequences are responsible for its happening in the first place were here brought to light. With a number like 3.8 per cent, the first thing that comes to mind is not the apparent commonality of the disease but the incredible failure rate - which is compounded by the painful implications of a prostatectomy.

When the prostate gland is removed, a man's capability to produce semen, or for that matter to get or sustain an erection, is severely reduced. Given the thousands of men tested since 1994, it arises that for every 48 people tested, 1 is diagnosed successfully with prostate cancer while 47 have unnecessary trouble staying out of the bathroom for long. In fact, a randomized study, where test subjects were divided between one group that received yearly PSA tests and another that received "usual care", reported in the same article highlights the disparity: 50 from the special group died over the course of 10 years as opposed to 44 from the "usual care" group.

In hindsight, this forces men to make tough choices post-testing, choices that can make or break a family in many cases. That this test is forcing such choices to be made is the point of condemnation and not the ineffectiveness of the test itself, argues the LA Times. If anything, the socio-economic outcome seems unconstitutional. As the writer puts it, it is "his prerogative, his prostate."

As the NYT article fails to point out, as Ablin argues in his essay for the NYT, as the LA Times post suggests, a small shift in the target demographic could yield far better results. Men in the age-group of 50 to 75 are "much more likely to die with prostate cancer and much less likely to die of prostate cancer". This is because the disease develops very slowly. Therefore, instead of getting every man older than 25 tested, it would make much more sense to not destroy the lives of most young men in all probability.

The third publication, the Washington Post, evaluated the options presented by the test. This is not to say that it didn't consider the test itself or its dire consequences. On the contrary, it has presented them in a way as to be balanced so its readers could judge their relevance based on the options that the test presented to those who underwent it.

In the last 17 years, the administration of the test has cost $3 billion, not to mention the costs of those who underwent surgeries and subsequent treatment. For someone who has read only the NYT and LAT articles, the presence of such a number instantly forces the conclusion that the test has to go. However, what about those whose lives were saved simply because of the test? How do you argue with them? This is the most important line of thought taken up by the WP, a line that has been missing from the other two newspapers. The lack of suggestions is made up for by increasing the awareness of the people so that public debate becomes more informed - instead of relying solely on the judgments of doctors.

After all, heaping condemnation on the most accessible test to detect for the most prevalent disease in the USA cannot go unopposed.

This comparison reminds me of something else I've been thinking about: if you were writing this article, would you go ahead and be responsibly suggestive like NYT and LAT were or would you hold back, stay fully neutral and continue to just provide information like the WP did?