Earlier in November, Rajasthan Patrika had declared to boycott Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje in the wake of the ordinance bill introduced in September 2017. The same has apparently created a financial trouble for the newspaper.
The proposed bill suggested immunity to the retired as well as serving public officials against an investigation regarding their alleged offences without prior approval. It had also barred media from reporting on such cases until a sanction from the government is given.
Rajasthan Patrika editor-in-chief Gulab Kothari had declared that the newspaper won’t publish anything related to CM Raje until the bill is revoked. However now, it seems as if the decision of boycotting CM Raje is bearing a huge loss for Patrika.
Since BJP is all set to celebrate its completion of 4 years in the state on December 13th, a lot of advertisements regarding achievements of the government are being published in the print media. However, since Rajasthan Patrika hasn’t been publishing anything about the Chief Minister and the related work, the daily hasn’t been getting any of those ads.
Notably, all these pieces of advertisements are quite descriptive and colorful which ultimately shoots up the rate of ads is also high. In such a scenario, Rajasthan Patrika hasn’t been able to get its hands on any of these ads is proving to be a huge financial loss.
Even if we ignore the financial loss, which is quite substantial, another fact is that the bill, over which the boycott began, has already lapsed. The decision is clearly doing no good for Patrika.
Earlier reports also suggest that the state government advertisements to Rajasthan Patrika dipped to an all time low in 2016. It’s a crucial element for newspapers to have advertisements in order to sustain in the market.
As per a report published by Journalist SP Mittal, the fact that Patrika is not getting any ads for the newspaper has been creating difficulties for the daily. The journalist who holds an experience of 35 years cited it as a matter of serious concern not only for Patrika but for the readers as well.
The public completely relies on media for getting informed about what’s going on around them. If the media houses don’t behave responsibly, it may ultimately affect the readers and their perception. Since there are so many newspapers, readers clearly have a wide list of options, however, Patrika doesn’t really seem to have a choice in the current situation.
