Since newspapers stabilized and became a regular feature in Europe, their uses were largely commercial. There would be stories of distant wars since reports from the country of publication were not allowed, but they did not have any great public good in mind. The early papers did not necessarily have a democratic market place of ideas in mind they were addressing; there were no concerns for proper governance. Their task was simple. Inform their readers, largely traders in the European port cities, about the movement of ships, typically their arrival, and the kind of merchandize they were carrying. Such information was crucial to the interests of the traders. The commercial classes had great interest in the well being of the newspaper, which were supplying information that they could use and profit.
Not much has changed since then. The business papers essentially serve the same function. Markets are often said to be inefficient if there is an information asymmetry. And yet it is largely information asymmetry, the availability of information with some parties to a transaction and not others, that allows for gains in transactions. Market or business intelligence, competitor information, business scenario are just different appellations for the same abstract product, news. The business newspapers and channels attempt to provide information that may be utilized by the readers/viewers for profit and hence, even if marginally, remove information asymmetry. If one notices the brand promise of the business news channels, the tag lines they use, or the advertisements of business dailies, they keep telling that there are gains to be made by viewing or subscribing.
Tickers are, hence, of crucial importance to business channels, and their viewership is largely a mute mode viewership. The care with which share prices, mutual funds NAVs, and other price information are read is far higher than reading other stories in these papers. Conversations with those who read business newspapers regularly reveal that the stories that are of interest are typically those that pertain to their field of activity, and this is quite in consonance with the purpose that these newspapers serve. Why would someone in the spice trade read something in the metals sector, unless she has interests, investment or otherwise, in that sector? Hence, it is good to see newspapers serve sector and company specific information. As for macro analysis, there is always a desire to understand what is going on in the economy, which is always easier to describe than explain.
What is infuriating about these business dailies, however, is that instead of spending resources in simple, efficient, reporting, they have increasingly become interested in providing us snippets into the lives of businessmen, their homes, spouses, and pets. Presumably once the needs lower down the Maslowian hierarchy have been taken care of, these business people would be spending time on other things. But unless it tells the reader something useful, one sees little reason to inflict lifestyle choices of the rich, richer, richest on them. There is enough of this kind of gossip available elsewhere for those who want them.
While Business Standard is an otherwise serious newspaper with some excellent commodity news and good economic analyses, for some strange reason, one hopes their market research supports it, it carries a lunch with BS column that spends ink on telling us which canteen the scribe and guest retired to for an afternoon of vapid conversation. The details of that silly conversation, which sometimes includes the guest’s weltanschaung, favourite books, and the rest, are recounted. The same newspaper has decided that literature in generous doses is nostrum for the business reader’s intellect. It even went to the extent of having its technical analyst write up a column on Vonnegut and memories of his youthful encounter with that deceased writer’s work. It has also made it a habit of telling its readers what are the favourite books of one corporate denizen or the other. Honestly, one does not care about what these chaps’ favourite books are, or how they are leading their personal lives, and what painting hangs on which wall, or which potable they prefer.
Perhaps, Bhartrihari was right when he wrote, “yasyasti vittam sa narah kulinah sa panditah sa shrutivaan gunagyah, sa eva vakta sa cha darshaniyah, sarve gunah kanchanmashrayanti.” (“A man of wealth is held to be high-born, wise, scholarly, discerning; eloquent, and even handsome – all virtues are accessories to gold.” Trans. Barbara Stoler Miller). That might explain why we all have to suffer the views of the businessmen sorts on all kinds of things, from governance to polity or economics or literature or tonic. This has been an unfortunate effect of the increasing billionaire and millionaire club.
One can understand television news channels indulging in such antics. They have hours to fill and with useful news being limited, they might as well get such people to cook for them, mouth inanities from the shop floor, and show their lifestyles. But newspapers, and Business Standard is far from being the only newspaper that serves such piffle (in fact, it is a serious read save these aberrations), can save costs, choose to print less pages, save the forests, and save the reader from information that has zero utility, and which can be easily, and of a better quality, accessed elsewhere. Not to mention that their editorial head count would go down a little, and make the bottom-line healthier. Or they could replace these powder puff writers with some good researchers and reporters who would not let down the ball as evidenced by the almost regular apologies on the front page. Or may be they have decided that the business class with usually little genuine interest in literature, music and art are, well as Bhartrihari suggested, as good as animals without tails and horns (sahitya, sangita kala vihinah, sakshat pashu puchha vishan hinah). And so there is the burden of the business press; to educate and socialize them into being humans with stories of literature, music, and arts.
