Organization Structure & Behavior Project Report On I-Next: The Youth’s Paper Submitted to: Submitted by: Dr. Rahul Verman Naman Purwar (11448) Professor, IME Dept. Vivek Jaiswal (11817) IIT, Kanpur Abhishek Srivastava (12033) Nilay Jain (12449) Vinay Kumar (12806) Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur Organization Structure and Behavior Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Focus of Study 3. Methodology of Collecting Data 4. Organizational Structure 5. Process of News Flow 6. News Coverage through Reporters 7. Functioning of Editorial Team 8. Example of “Jyoti-Murder Case” 9. Inferences from the “Jyoti-Murder Case” 10. Conflict of Interests 11. Contingencies 12. Strategy of Differentiation of I-Next 13. Organizational Culture 14. Organizational Politics 15. Learning from the organization Annexure: News Clippings from I-Next related to “Jyoti Murder Case” 2 Organization Structure and Behavior Introduction One of the most enduring symbols of world is the newspaper man who makes his daily round, come rain or shine. For centuries, the Newspaper has been the source of information for people and has played a crucial role in the world’s socio- economic development. Media is regarded as the fourth pillar of Democracy. I-Next, a venture of Jagran Prakashan Ltd, is a bilingual tabloid which has come up with a new and innovative concept of attracting dynamic and quirky readers and has captured significant market in major cities of Hindi-speaking states in India in the last eight years. I-Next was initiated with the purpose of being a ‘Target Group’ oriented newspaper. Unlike broadsheet newspaper with the motive of informing the general public, I-Next targeted the Urban Upper and Middle class, youth and student age groups while launching. As I-Next evolved, the management realized the importance of catering to other reader groups also whom they never thought about while publishing paper like mango citizens up to age group of 40 whether poor or rich. Thus, I-Next expanded its ‘Target Group’ and started publishing news catering to the extended reader groups too, which led to its massive popularity. A comprehensive study of I-Next elaborates how a media company gathers information and present it to the public, with an aim of maximizing profit and minimizing cost following the strategy of differentiation. 3 Organization Structure and Behavior Focus of Study Indian media is the huge industry whose services are consumed every day. To decide focus area we started developing questions. How does an incident happening around us reaches media and how do they decide what to publish what to not? How does media industry earn profits while selling the paper at such marginal costs? What kind of organizational structure does it have? How decision making takes place? How exactly news flow takes inside the organization once reporter reports news? How do they decide on the news? What are the challenges and contingencies they face? To find answers to these questions in this organization we decided to understand deeply the process of news flow from place of news source to printing space on the newspaper. We tried to follow a trending incident that happened in Kanpur that is “Jyoti murder case” and made efforts not only to understand various aspects of news coverage but also various attributes of news editing to news printing. We tried to understand how the complex phenomena of news printing via this organization and also tried to analyze its competitive advantage. Studying it’s day to day functioning; we tried to find answers to above questions. Our analysis of the company comprises the study of functioning mechanisms of various units and inter-relational operations among them. We tried to analyze in depth and relate to theory that we have learned during the course of, Organizational structure and behavior. 4 Organization Structure and Behavior Methodology of Collecting Data First of all we started collecting data online about I-Next. In online media we tried to collect as much data as possible. We accessed the large amount of data available on Jagran Prakashan Ltd. and I-Next’s official website. However, for the information about actual happenings, which was the main input for our analysis, we have no other option than visiting the head office of I-Next, Kanpur. During our visits, we got warm and co-operating response. People in the office showed interest in our project related talks unless they were not busy with their work. As our first task was to get knowledge of end to end process that how ordinary news flow works. For this initially we scheduled our meeting with the Reporting team,which comprises of Mr. Pankaj Tripathi, Mr.Vishnu Tiwari,Mr. Manoj Khare,Mr. Abhishek Mishra. Our reason for being there was very different from their day to day working, and everyone was busy in his/her work. But as soon we reached the premises we were greeted very respectfully. During our further visits to I-Next office we tried to meet Senior News Editor along with desk in charge team and other employees too. Employees at lower level responded very little though some of them were interested to talk with us. The reason was quite visible that they were too much busy in their work. So we tried to get some more information through observation of workplace for which we got that permission quite easily. For gathering information related to Jyoti Murder case, one of us went with the reporter to the court to understand their methodology and attitude pertaining to Jyoti Murder case. In this way we tried to collect data. We have made efforts to recreate our study, experiences and learning about I-next in next few pages. 5 Organization Structure and Behavior Number of visits to I-Next office 6 Average duration per visit 2 hours Names Roles Mr. Umang Mishra Senior News Editor, I-Next Kanpur Mr. Manoj Khare Chief Reporter, I-Next Kanpur Mr. Pankaj Tripathi Reporter Education Sector, I- Next Kanpur People met Mr. Abhishek Mishra Reporter Crime Sector, I- Next Kanpur Mr. Vishnu Tiwari Reporter Public Sector, I- Next Kanpur Others People at court while visiting with reporter, Jagran officials, Desk team of I-next, security Office guard,No. of etc.times I-Next , Civil Lines 5 Jagran Office, Rawatpur 1 6 Organization Structure and Behavior Organizational Structure Director (Jagran group) CEO/Editor in chief of I-Next Kanpur Other Edition Editions Head Head Marketing Senior News Distribution Team Editor Team Central Desk Chief Reporting Incharge Reporter Team Online Sub-editing Content Designing Education Crime Sports Public Sector team Reporter Reporter Reporter Reporter Team Organization Structure and Behavior The Organization: I-Next I-next has hierarchical structure as in figure. It claims to be dynamic in nature as every department is independent in itself. Mr. Alok Sanwal (CEO and Editor in chief) comes under the director of Jagran Prakashan Limited (JPL) in the structure. I-Next functions as a complete decentralized and autonomous unit of Jagran Group. Different independent department headed by managers/Editors reports to CEO. The city editions are autonomous in nature. Advertisement team is responsible for getting advertisements. Central reporting team covers national and International, sports and other news which are not city specific. It also collaborates with independent news agencies like ANI etc. to collect the required news. Printing and distributions are responsible for doing their own job. Printing press is same as that of Dainik Jagran as both are owned by JPL. Distribution department analyzes the exact market demand and takes care of distribution of newspaper. SNE (Senior News Editor) or NE (News Editor) or DNE (Deputy News Editor) heads the local offices that work exclusively on local issues and news. Presently Kanpur and Varanasi editions are headed by SNEs and others are headed by NEs Or DNEs. There are two teams under SNE/NE. One is reporting headed by chief reporter. Another is Desk headed by Desk In charge. Function of desk include designing the layout of paper, managing e-paper and website of newspaper, and editing news to fit the available spaces on the paper. Both work independently. Reporters covering different things like crime, education, Nagar Nigam, Local administration etc. are part of Reporting team. They have their own sources for covering news and stories. Desk decides the available space for news to be put on the paper with marketing team and then selects the news, which fits the available space on the newspaper. There are around 40 people in Kanpur Office. The employees in I-next are younger in age to their counterpart in other newspapers. When it comes to experience, I-next prefers people with medium experience and avoid people with much more experience who are not supposed to fit its young and dynamic organizational culture. Decisions are taken in morning and evening meeting on the ideas, agenda, goals and coverage for the day. The opinion of SNE/Editor is preferred. To complete these goals, Reporters and Desk people are supposed to take decisions at their level independently and use their experience, contacts and skills to give their best efforts. 10 Organization Structure and Behavior Process of News Flow Sources Reporters Chief Reporter Editor Desk-in-charge Printing Distribution In the 10 am meeting, reporters discuss the stories and events they are willing to cover with editors. Editors approve or reject these ideas. Finally, reporters gather facts from site and sources and report to the Chief Reporter in the evening. Editors, Reporters team and Desk-in-charge hold second meeting in the evening where they discuss the reports and stories of the reporters. They discuss which stories can be taken forward based on the importance of the issue and the availability of space for Editorial.