La religión y la muerte

As discussed in the previous chapter, the transition of Odisha’s newspapers from loss to

profitability—locally described as modernization and professionalization—began with changes in the mid-1980s. These changes involved shifts in technology and in the organization of labor, but neither of these would have generated profit without the new focus on circulation.

The movement of circulation to center of the newspaper industry began much earlier elsewhere in India, especially in major cities. The Audit Bureau of Circulations was established by a group of metropolitan advertisers in 1948, shortly after Independence, to produce reliable numbers of newspapers sold to help attract advertisers (see also Jeffrey 2000). ABC’s numbers are established through audits by independent, contracted accountants, and rely on member organizations maintaining records according to the ABC’s requirements. To be included in the ABC’s circulation audits, the publications must be registered with the central government and be members of the Indian Newspaper Society [INS]—only 14 of Odisha’s newspapers are members of the INS as of 2014 (Society).

One of the challenges of the Indian circulation context was the tendency of newspaper readers to read together, sometimes aloud to groups of people, and then pass the newspapers on to someone else—something that is now called the Readers Per Copy average. European and American assumptions about single or household readership did not translate into the Indian context, resulting in very low circulation numbers. To address this, two Indian advertising associations established the Indian National Readership Survey in 1970, but it was irregularly performed until its re-establishment in 1995 as a partnership of the ABC, the Indian Newspaper

Society, and the Advertising Agencies Association of India. The Indian Readership Survey [IRS] is now a performed by international market research firms with, reportedly, a sample size of approximately 200,000 (Economic Times 2004) and a comprehensive account of “over 100 categories of consumer products.” Citing biased survey techniques and insufficient Odisha coverage, Dharitri went to court in 2005 to demand removal from the IRS, and since then it has not been included in the reports. In 2008, Odia daily Pragatibadi similarly filed a case on the basis of the newspaper having already forbid the IRS from using its name and masthead in any of its materials. Pragatibadi’s argument hinged on the IRS number itself, which was lower than the ABC certified circulation number. Though the 2013 survey has provoked national complaints, the Odishan complaints echoed broader concerns about being marginalized nationally.

In Odisha, the new focus on circulation has produced a dramatic increase in both rural circulation and rural coverage, both of which have required new infrastructural developments. Nationally this trend has been called “localization,” though in Odisha it was often referred to simply as “modernization.” The infrastructure that developed has consisted, primarily, of a vast set of middlemen, but also trucks (mostly on contract), bicycles, phones, small-shop signs, and account ledgers. Newspapers manage the infrastructure differently: Dharitri, for instance, employs exclusive contracts with its distributors, who also become its local advertising sales staff; in other words, they are Dharitri agents (and are usually called “agents”). This organization encourages single agents to work on larger scales, employing and contracting with more labor for the distribution work. Among non-Dharitri agents, it is more common is for independent middlemen to contract with multiple newspapers; many do both advertising and distribution.

Typically, in rural Odisha, newspaper distributors also send local news information back to one or several of the newspapers for whom they distribute—working as “stringers”. This makes sense at the local level because the individual becomes identified with a newspaper; the individual is simply the local representative of the organization/s. Since stringers are often unpaid, this multipurpose relationship allows them to be paid through their cut of the

distribution. However, from Bhubaneswar, during my research, there was a lot of discomfort with this overlap because it meant that the advertising and news content were being generated by the same person. Some denied that it happened anymore in their own newspaper while others would just shake their heads at “our backwardness.”

One of the revolutionary shifts in Odisha’s newspapers over the last ten years is the spread of multiple editions that are printed in different locations; before that, multiple editions were printed from the main edition headquarters and shipped by train or truck across the state, arriving a day late. Now the distribution of printing presses and the ease of content sharing thanks to network technologies means that dispersed editions can be localized, printed, and circulated, so that even the regions of the state furthest from the capital have a morning newspaper delivery that reflects their own district’s events. However, there are still typically several editions printed from Bhubaneswar/Cuttack headquarters; typically those non-metro editions cover relatively nearby regions through train or truck delivery. For instance, the second-tier newspaper Bhaskar has a Berhampur edition that is printed at Bhubaneswar, in part because the train service to Berhampur is so well timed. The scheduling of multiple editions at a single press means that the shipped edition must be printed early in the evening, both so that the press is free in time for the

other editions and so that it is finished in time to meet the train; that edition’s layout is set mid- day, drawing on any immediate news submitted by the local Berhampur staff—but primarily the previous day’s news. Even among editions printed elsewhere, such as Sambalpur, Rourkela, or Vizag in Andhra Pradesh, the press typically runs before all of the current day’s news is submitted at the Metro edition. That said, the edition presses wait on an important story if it is almost finished. As a result, despite the distribution of presses at edition sites around the state, a margin-center relationship is echoed in the timelines of the Odia news: the Bhubaneswar and Cuttack editions typically have newer or faster news than the other editions. As this description demonstrates, the timing of presswork and transportation dictate much about the shape of the labor in the news offices around the state.