Use of Agency materials in broadsheet dailies of Nepal

Abstract

The increase in broadsheet dailies in Nepal after the liberalization of media market in 1990s marked the change in the media content - a shift from earlier mission journalism to professionalism. Consequently, international news became the important feature of the dailies. Now, each Nepalese broadsheet daily has at least one page for the coverage of the international news obtained mainly through the news agencies: AP and AFP. In addition, large portion of sports, entertainment and biz stories come from these agencies. The corpus is enough to hint the importance of agency news. However, the subject matter has attracted very few researchers in Nepal. Only two studies are found on foreign news coverage in Nepali media (Adhikary, 2002, December 11; Kshetri, 2006). Acknowledging Nepali media's effort to localize and present separate but related news stories on few instances, Adhikary observes, "the general trend in presenting international news in Nepali media is just copying news stories from international agencies." The latter study, based on one week's frequency and breadth of international news in Nepali broadsheet dailies (in a particular week after US invasion in Iraq), found that the news from there made almost 70% of the total coverage of the international news. In this study, I incorporate larger corpus and analyze the finding using the concept advanced by Franklin (2005), and discuss if the result, in anyway, can be taken as a prospect for McJournalism. DOI: 10.3126/bodhi.v3i1.2811 Bodhi Vol.3(1) 2009 p.44-52