“Our past is our biggest challenge,” Editor Arijit Aditya stresses upon the importance of unlearning as Bartalipi hits stands

On December 5, 2020, the most successful Print Media house The Times of India announced that it will shut its supplement Pune Mirror. Not only that, but the Jains also declared a relaunch of Mumbai Mirror as a weekly. At the same time, back here in Silchar, industrialist Rudra Narayan Gupta who owns and operates Ramanuj Gupta Colleges, Green Heals Hospital… was earmarking spots where the banner promoting his new investment would rise.

The city has been painted with posters of ‘Bartalipi’ , a daily broadsheet that begins its journey from today. The Bengali daily will have Arijit Aditya as the editor. Aditya is a seasoned journalist, author and playwright, he was the former editor of Dainik Jugasankha – the largest Bengali daily in Northeast. Apart from being the editor, for the first time in his career he will don the hat of a co-owner.

Bartalipi is a registered newspaper that Arijit Aditya and Partha Bhattacharjee had acquired from Sanat Koiri in the mid-2000s. Bhattacharjee is the former news editor of Dainik Jugasankha and both of them also own a Printing Press in Silchar. “It was Partha’s willingness that got us to acquire the newspaper,” recalls Arijit Aditya. Delving deep into the nature of the transaction, Aditya reveals, “Late Sanat Koiri was in need of a computer, so we bought him one and in return, he handed over the ownership of his newspaper.”

The journey of starting from scratch reminds Aditya of his early days in journalism. “1989, when I was pursuing MA, I got associated with a new newspaper – Samay Prabaha which used to be a part of the Sentinel group. We joined in October and the newspaper started its journey in January. Each and every one of us in that team, including the editor, we were in a new system. For me journalism was new for the senior colleagues, offset was new, for some, computers were new,” says Aditya.

Adding, “In these initial days of Bartalipi, I am reliving the thrill of starting something. At the end of the day, we are in journalism because of that thrill.”

Unlike Samay Prabaha, where the people Aditya worked with were new faces to him, here in Bartalipi, it is like a massive re-union. The core team that had once established Dainik Jugasankha as the undisputed number one Bengali daily in the northeast, both in terms of circulation and shaping the general discourse has shifted to Bartalipi. “It is a team that is aware of each other’s strengths and weaknesses. It is an experienced unit that knows how to work together as a team,” the editor says about his warforce.

But the pillar that Arijit Aditya feels this team stands on is Rudra Narayan Gupta. Son of Dr. Rahul Gupta, Rudra Narayan has already established himself as a successor with a vision. What he inherited is mammoth, Dr. Rahul Gupta had his wings spread on education and health and left behind profit-making businesses. Rudra Narayan Gupta, instead of staying content with what he inherited started innovating. Higher Secondary College Ramanuj Gupta rolled out a graduation arm and this year it will celebrate two gold medalists. From Green View Hospital, Rudra Narayan engineered a move to Green Heals Hospital and that now stands tall and distinguished amidst a cluster of hospitals is Meherpur.

Ramanuj Gupta Trust’s history of turning out to be the best or at least one of the best in the business they put their foot on will come as a burden of expectations for Bartalipi. At the same time, with the hoardings, the team they have put together and the fact that they are already on their way to setting up their own printing machine have made it clear that with Bartalipi, the Guptas mean serious business.

The newspaper will compete with Dainik Jugasankha, Dainik Samayik Prasanga, Dainik Prantojyoti, Gati Dainik, Nababarta Prasanga in Barak Valley. The management has already announced that by early 2021, there will be a Guwahati edition of the newspaper too. In Brahmaputra Valley, Bartalipi is eyeing a bigger, more lucrative market. But the nature of competition has changed, believes Arijit Aditya. Newspapers don’t compete with only newspapers anymore he feels.

“People get all the news on web publications like portals, social media platforms… to remain relevant, the newspapers will have to provide more than just news,” he asserts. That explains the genesis of Bartalipi’s tagline, “Khoborer Araler Khobor” which translates to, the stories hidden in the shadow of news.

With the cover price of Rs 8 per copy, Bartalipi has hit the stands. Arijit Aditya feels, despite portals garnering popularity, there are enough and more people who are willing to pay and purchase newspapers. “We, the newspapers of Barak Valley, have failed the readers. We became a front page centric newspaper which never did justice to the money that the readers are paying. If done well, circulation is not a challenge in Barak Valley or for that matter, even in Brahmaputra Valley where there is a bigger void of a Bengali newspaper.”

Though Arijit Aditya is upbeat about the potential of Bartalipi as a print publication, when The Times of India shuts its businesses, it is an indication of darker times ahead. Mumbai or Madurai, Silchar or Saurashtra, Print as a media segment was growing at a subdued rate since the past three years. FY20 remained another unfriendly year for the sector with strong economic headwinds profoundly impacting advertisement revenue and declining circulation

In its report, “A year off the script”, global consulting firm – KPMG analysed that COVID-19 brought a complete halt to advertisement revenue from mid-March 2020 to mid-May 2020. With global lockdowns enforced to stop the spread of the virus, businesses had to take a stringent view with discretionary spends to maintain liquidity and manage cash flows.

English newspapers witnessed a significant revenue decline with FY21 revenues estimated to be 75 per cent to 80 per cent of FY20 revenues. What is encouraging sign for Bartalipi is that in comparison with English, Hindi and regional advertisement revenue had a better recovery revenue rate of approximately 20 per cent to 25 per cent in FY20 due to a wider circulation during the lockdown in Tier II and Tier III cities and inflow of local advertisements post unlock in June 2020.

Economical challenges are plenty, the portals are giving a fight, despite all of that, the Rs 29,500 crore newspaper industry of India remains the most trusted medium for news. It continues to weather the storms. In Barak Valley, most of the advertising revenue comes from the government advertisements. With only a handful of local advertisers, a market like Silchar is a challenge for the media as a whole. That is why, nobody invested in a satellite channel in this region.

With direct and indirect investments from political leaders in news publications the stories published on newspapers are often diluted and truth often remains hidden. In such a scenario, Bartalipi, because of its credible team, can be an opinion mover especially with an election due in 2021. Experts feel it won’t be easy and Arijit Aditya and team are aware of the challenges that stare at them. The rivalry will also kick in, as the rise of Bartalipi will take away the slice of some other newspaper’s pie.

“Yes, we have an experienced team, but our biggest challenge will be the baggage of our past. We will need to unlearn and relearn, the faster we do it, the better we will be positioned,” says Arijit Aditya. He shares that his vision is to make the newspaper more inclusive. “The younger generation does not read newspapers, but do newspapers have enough for them to read? We need to ask these questions to ourselves. We have made a few additions to our team keeping the sentiment of youth into account. Our newsroom is a mix of youth and experience but it needs to blend well for us to have a more inclusive newspaper, which is the aim,” Aditya concludes.