FORUM (Spotlight Weekly)

Classification Of Newspapers And Magazines In Nepal

By YUBA RAJ PANDEY

There are different ways of classifying newspapers and magazines in different countries. In most countries, only circulation figures matter. In Nepal, newspapers and magazines are evaluated on the basis of criteria that give importance to many other areas. Circulation receives 40 percent weightage.

The audit committee of circulation of newspapers and magazines consists of the following members, according to Article 10 of the Press Council Act 1992 and the tradition developed by government decisions made after the adoption of this act:

i) Press Registrar (presently, director-general, Department of Information) -- chairman

ii) Representative, Ministry of Information and Communications -- member

iii) Representative, Press Council Nepal -- member

iv) Representative, Auditorsí Association -- member

v) Representative, Nepal Association of Advertising Agencies -- member

vi) Representative, Nepal Chamber of Commerce -- member

vii) An official designated by the Press Council -- secretary

The nomination of representatives of the Auditorís Association, Nepal Association of Advertising Agencies and Nepal Chamber of Commerce as members of the committee has become a tradition following decisions made by the government. Similarly, the president of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists is requested to attend the committeeís meetings.

The followings are the functions, duties and power of this committee:

i) To determine the number of publications on the basis of the circulation of newspapers and magazines and keep up-to-date records.

ii) To classify newspapers and magazines on the basis of specific criteria, including the circulation or number of publications.

According to Rule 17 of the Press and Publications Regulation 1993, the classification of newspapers and magazines is made on the basis of reports submitted by the Office of the Press Registrar and Press Council Nepal. The following is the procedure for classification.

a) The audit committee of circulation evaluates and classifies the publications and gives its report to the Press Council.

b) The Press Council approves the report and sends it to the Ministry of Information and Communications through the Department of Information for the governmentís approval.

Criteria of Evaluation or Auditing:

The audit committee of circulation evaluates newspapers and magazines on the basis of criteria developed by the committee itself. This criteria was first made public in 1998 by the committee. If the criteria has to be changed, then the committee has to take a decision for the necessary changes. But such changes are not made during the period of evaluation. If the evaluation has begun, then any change in the criteria is not made before the completion of the work being evaluated.

Evaluation is made in the full marks of 100, which have been allocated in the following way:

Sphere/Area Mark Allocated Guidelines for marking

Part I (60 marks): This part of the evaluation is made by the secretariat.

Circulation: (40) -- 2 marks for each 100 copies. Papers that publish more than 19,000 copies per issue get 40.

Code of conduct (10) -- One mark is deducted for every breach of the code of conduct.

Regularity: (5) -- One year of regular publication in not less than the number of issues stated in the regulation gets one mark.

Pages: (5) -- Each additional page over the minimum pages required according to the law receives one mark.

Part II (40 marks) -- This part is evaluated by examiners appointed by the committee. The examiners are often appointed from among people having made contributions in the field of journalism.

Subject matter: (10) -- Balance in news, diversity, newsbreaks, analysis of the subject, reliability, originality, coordination of advertisements, relation of heads and subheads, investigativeness are 10 elements that get equal value.

Language: (10) -- Word use, sentence structure, language fluency, editorial and grammatical correctness are five elements that get equal value.

Layout: (5) -- Presentation of letters, pictures, columns and highlights are four elements that receive equal importance.

Printing: (5): Out of 5 marks, 2 is allocated for printing techniques and 3 for quality. Letterpress printing receives 1 and offset-press printing 2. Errorlessness, clarity and size as well as the pace between words and sentences are three equally important elements in measuring the quality.

Article: (5) Originality, structure, investigativeness, diversity and the relation of heads and subheads each get 1 mark.

Photos: (5) -- color, place, originality, human interest and cotextuality get equal value.

If newspapers and magazines are available on the Internet, they receive an additional four marks. For example, if a newspaper gets 63 marks out of 100 and that publication is also available on the Internet, then its total reaches 67.

Similarly, if the code of conduct monitoring sub-committee of the Press Council finds that certain papers are violating the basic norms and values of journalism, then it may recommend the subtraction of a maximum of 10 marks from total obtained by such newspapers. The classification is based on the reduced marks.

Newspapers and magazines are classified into four classes on the basis the marks they obtain. The minimum marks required for each class are:

a) Group A (Ka) 65 percent

b) Group B (Kha) 50 percent

c) Group C (Ga) 35 percent

d) Group D (Gha) Less than 35 percent

The following additional conditions should also be fulfilled:

a) At least 10,000 copies per issue must be published to be included in Group A.

b) Fulfillment of conditions on minimum size and page numbers as defined by Rule 7 (1) of the Press and Publication Regulations 1993 is mandatory for Group A and B.

c) Fulfillment of at least one condition -- either size or page number -- is necessary for Group C.

Fulfillment of the conditions of publishing the minimum issues in one year as defined by Rule 7 (2) of the Press and Publication Regulations, 1993 is mandatory for evaluation and placement in Group D. Daily newspapers are required to publish at least 300 issues and weekly newspapers have to publish at least 40 issues in a year. Half-monthly, monthly and bimonthly papers or magazines have to publish 20, 10 and 4 issues respectively.

People in developing countries think every system adopted in developed countries is better than their own . That is why many in the profession want to borrow the western system of auditing circulation. However, this tendency is also what keeps developing countries away from new inventions and contributions. When I was in India last year, Ajit Bhattacharya, chairman of the Press Institute of India and Editorís Guild of India, was found to have been influenced by our system of classifying newspapers.

There are certainly some merits in our system and we should recognize them in the process of improving the system. The tendency to regard a system as good only when it satisfies oneís needs and wishes has become a culture in our country. If we are able to pull ourselves out of this culture, the evaluation system can also become more objective and reliable.

Pandey is Director-General of the Department of Press Information