Will corporatisation harm news?

The third session on Day 2 of the Media Rumble was News as Investment, with Bala Srinivasa, Rajeev Chandrashekhar, Siddharth Nautiyal and Siddharth Yog with moderator Abhinandan Sekhri. The panel opened with a discussion on why businesses invest in news.

Nautiyal, an investment partner at Omidyar Network, said that media is a classy industry for innovation and investment. The panel agreed that the future of news was investments in digital media. Plus, argued Nautiyal, the trend towards digital also had a lot to do with its personalised and interactive nature, which lured in more consumers.

Talking from experience, Chandrasekhar, a two-time Member of Parliament to the Rajya Sabha, spoke about news as a source of revenue. Profitability, Chandrasekhar said, is the best way of keeping a company focused and the media needs to get out of the mindset that news is not profitable.

Chandrasekhar also questioned the myth that news becomes less pure when money is involved. “Why assume that going to the markets will automatically affect the purity of news?” he asked.

Srinivasa, a partner at Kalaari Capital and Yog, a global investor and serial entrepreneur, also chimed in on the subject. You can watch the entire session here: