Traditional media—newspapers, TV stations, magazines—live under the assumption that the current drift away from them towards new media is something that will get corrected as the consumer begins pining for “credibility”—stuff they can trust!—and once he does so, they can start charging for content which will bring their businesses back on track.

India is still some distance away from this reality, of course, but how realistic are these assumptions even for a country like the United States?

The Nieman Lab has released numbers that in the words of one Indian new media player are “fairly startling figures”.

# The total “Active Digital Media Universe” (Neilsen’s term for total US unique visitors online during the month, both at home and at work): 195,974,309.

# Of these, 70,340,277 or 35.89 per cent visited a newspaper web site. (On the other hand, 64 per crent got their news elsewhere.)

# The average member of the Active Digital Media Universe visited 2,569 web pages per month. That adds up to 503,457,999,821 page views.

# Of those 503 billion page views, 3,468,549,698 (3.5 billion) went to newspaper web sites. That’s less than 1 per cent of all page views or 0.69 per cent to be exact.

# Neilsen says the average page view (in that univere of 503 billion) lasted 57 seconds. That translates into 7,971,418,330 hours spent online or 40 hours, 40 miutes and 33 seconds per person.

# Of those 7.9 billion hours spent online, time spent at newspaper web sites was 45,022,485 hours. That’s less than 1 per cent of all time spent online, or 0.56 per cent.

How differently can two journalists of the same house and the same media house think on the same issue at the same time, said issue being West Bengal governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi’s stand on violence in the State?

Exhibit A is Rajdeep Sardesai, editor-in-chief of CNN-IBN, seven hours ago from the web.

Exhibit B is Sagarika Ghose, senior editor of CNN-IBN, seven hours ago from the web.

For sceptics of the media who suspect a grand liberal conspiracy behind everything that English language media houses do, M/s Sardesai & Ghose are husband and wife.

Sundeep Dougal*, who follows the couple on Twitter and sent us these links, says the two Tweets landed exactly one after the other on his Twitter feed, with not a single twit in between!

Also read: Should journalists be on Twitter? No, say NYT readers

Will journalism soon be Twitterature in a hurry?

Every journalist’s essential guide to Twitter

* Disclosures apply

It’s the season for the redesign of websites. In just the last three weeks, Rediff.com, The Times of India and Hindustan Times have gone in for a overhaul of their home pages.

Outlook*, the weekly newsmagazine published from Delhi, has just joined the pack. Above is the new home page created by editor Sundeep Dougal and his team*; below is the old one.

Gone is the old, uneven, cluttered four-column grid with ads spilling out of smaller screens. In its place is a more modular, customisable homepage with clear demarcations of categories, and lots of white space.

* Disclosures apply

India’s pioneering news, views and e-commerce portal, rediff.com, has unveiled a brand-new, minimalist home page that is a far removed from its earlier “busy” homepage (screenshot below), and is almost a replica of the beta version of its world homepage.

The NASDAQ-listed site, founded in 1996 by adman and entrepreneur Ajit Balakrishnan, is edited by Nikhil Lakshman, the former editor of The Sunday Observer, The Indian Post, Mid-Day and Sunday Mid-Day, and a top editor at The Illustrated Weekly of India.

Rediff also publishes the New York weekly newspaper, India Abroad.

Also read: ‘Indian journalists take themselves too seriously’

The Ramnath Goenka Memorial Foundation is inviting entries for the 2008 Excellence in Journalism awards.

The awards are open for both print and broadcast journalists in 17 categories with cash prizes and scholarships on offer. The last date for entries is 31 August 2009.

Visit www.expressindia.com/rngf for further details.

Email: rngf@expressindia.com

Also read: 2009 India Press Photo awards invites entries

How should journalists use Facebook? Joe Grimm, visiting journalist at Michigan State University school of journalism, has three tips:

1. Be cautious about what kind of personal information you put out.

2. Add friends to your network, not strangers.

3. Don’t “friend” sources on your beat.

Read the full article here: How should journalists use Facebook?

Visit Joe Grimm’s website: News Recruiter

Dozens of journalists have written on the leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Velupillai Prabhakaran, whose death was announced to the world by Sri Lanka on Tuesday, May 18.

On rediff.com, Athimuthu Ganesh Nadar writes of his encounter with Prabhakaran seven years ago when he was among 350 international journalists who attended a press conference in Killinochi.

“I and several others had their hands raised for the entire hour. Nothing happened! Only the BBC, CNN, and The New York Times took turns asking questions.

“”I lost my head, I jumped up and screamed in Tamil, “Ungalukku vellaikaran rombu pedichirndal engalaya yen kuptinga, nangallum kadalay thandi, naady thandi vandu erukkirom. (You like only white people, why did you invite us? We too have crossed the ocean, crossed borders to meet you).”

“Luckily I screamed in Tamil. I believe that is the only reason the LTTE did not shoot me.

“Prabhakaran did not react. [LTTE ideologue] Anton Balasingham came to his feet, “Sorry, sorry please don’t be upset, please ask your question.”

“I forgot to introduce myself, I forgot to tell them my organisation’s name. I managed to ask in a faltering voice, “There are 240 countries in the world, why Norway?”"

Read the full article: The day I met Prabhakaran

Twitter, twitter everywhere.

Journalists are signing up to the micro-blog site. News organisations are launching Twitter feeds. Events are being covered live on Twitter.

But what precisely can journalists achieve with Twitter?

What are other journalists reading, writing and following on Twitter? Who are the journalists who are using Twitter around the world? How can you hook up with them? Need some help with a story? How can you keep track of the torrent of Tweets? Can you receive an alert if something of your liking is Twittered?

And WTF is hastag?

Read The journalist’s guide to Twitter

A screenshot of The Economist’s advertising on the Indian TV station NDTV’s relaunched website, NDTV.com.

The other advertisements take the attention away somewhat, but the English headlines in a Russian-looking font (“Journalists stopped by Great Wall of China”, “Indian children increase unemployment in China,” “Russian billionaires in debt to Kremlin”) grab the eye while underlining the magazine’s international appeal.

Also read: How to get from Point B to A

Funny joke from a balding journo-blogger

Salil Tripathi in the Far Eastern Economic Review:

“Most Indian businesses are growing accustomed to criticism from bloggers. Yet there are still some that, instead of mounting a PR offensive, send in their lawyers and try to stifle speech on the Internet. What they’re finding is that this approach is counterproductive—they may succeed in silencing an individual blogger, but a hundred more then take up the cause. Like Western companies before them, Indian companies must learn that trying to stifle speech instead of winning debates is a losing strategy.”

Read the full article: Learning to live with bloggers

Also read: Will NDTV and Barkha Dutt sue Facebook next?