The boundless field of bringing information to the doorstep of the literati through literature produced in a hurry as it were at daybreak as well as time slots all the way upto fall of night is familiar to all as journalism. After centuries of informing people about happenings in writing, the world has moved into the zone of spoken journalism using radio and television, witnessing the emergence of devices that offer the facility of accessing info virtually effortlessly. Transmission of images, both still and in-motion has raised journalism to an irresistible calling. It being almost impossible to say journalism has one sole purpose of conveying news that may be interesting or even entertaining, readers of their favourite dailies hardly recognise its utility value in making the best possible decisions concerning their lives, not to forget that the core message in every news has its intimate connect with time as it moves according to the calendar, if not the clock.

While the terms latest and recent applied to news appearing in print are the watch-words, the readers are unaware of the sweat and toil of the workforce in the field of journalism to safeguard the meaning of the two terms. Audio-visual media may have stumped the print media to the point of hurting, but the dailies are here to stay, despite the demon of soaring costs of producing dailies and reaching the copies to the patrons on time, every time.

Whatever is said, heard and seen on the many electronic devices of audio-visual media gets erased sooner than later, barring their recorded versions, dailies, given their enduring life in archives, has prompted the expression print and be damned, attributed to the Duke of Wellington, after he reportedly received an unpleasant letter in 1824 for committing some misdemeanour. Such episodes are commonplace in our times and the managements of companies publishing dailies are required to take the consequences in their stride and carry on. To make a long story short, apart from sustaining in the delicate business of publishing a daily with a positive balance of revenue over expenses, the compulsions of meeting the aspirations of readers cannot be over-exaggerated.

Idealists are entitled to their views on quality norms to be adhered by the daily in filling its columns with news, knowledge and advertisements. But, ultimately the matter of staying power of a daily is simply a matter of media-mass mutuality.