Kalli Purie's Live the Story mantra pays off, TV news leader AajTak is No. 1 website too
Aajtak.in, the digital avatar of Aaj Tak news channel, has now become the No. 1 Hindi news website. According to the latest ComScore data, Aajtak.in leads with over 4.1 million unique visitors (desktop) in March 2017.
The India Today Group has retained the No. 2 position in the News and Information category over 11.5 million unique visitors desktop. This is beside Aajtak.in, the digital avatar of Aaj Tak news channel, which has become the No. 1 Hindi news website as per the latest ComScore data.
As per the data, Aajtak.in leads with over 4.1 million unique visitors (desktop) in March 2017.
The India Today Group has also won big at the 6th Asia Pacific Customer Engagement Forum and Awards (ACEF) for its engaging and credible content on new media platforms.
The ACEF recognises the best creatives, campaigns and activities done by brands, agency and media across the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.
The recognition comes to a team of digital journalists led by the new media visionary Kalli Purie, the brain behind India Today Group's Broadcast & New Media initiatives.ABOUT KALLI PURIE
India Today Group's Editorial Director (Broadcast and New Media) Kalli Purie is acknowledged in the media industry for her vision of synergising and convergence of excellence in conventional journalism with the reach and innovations of new media.
She believes that in this age of overload of information, it is not about how much information one can get, but what one gets out of it. "It is about knowing what is important and what is just crowding your brain's inbox," she says.
Kalli Purie firmly believes that it is a time when one needs a media like India Today which helps distill the information, not just as a magazine but in other forms - on stand, on air and online. This is how India Today sets the gold standard of journalism.
ORGANIC JOURNALISM
It goes to Kalli Purie's credit to popularise the concept of organic journalism. Since 1975, the India Today Group has been surveying the readers, viewers, users, bloggers and tweeters. Pure, simple and unadulterated news is being told with conviction.
She strongly believes that stories are well told when the people telling it live it, not just repeat what they hear. One can only tell a story if one truly lives somebody else's truth.
"Our newsroom is filled with passionate reporters who literally fight to get their hands dirty in the dust and grime and in the unmade miles of India. They line up to willingly go amidst bullet line danger and to get deep in the heart wrenching reality of stories", she says.
Kalli Purie further says about journalists that the line between thrill and fear for them is forever blurred. "It is the reason you will always see us in the centre of the story. Not just in the prime time but at all times. Whether it is reporting from the violence of Jammu and Kashmir or from the frenzy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's campaign, or standing in lines at far rural ATM or explaining the intricacies of demonetisation or risking the anger of authorities with hard hitting stings or doing 11,000 km in 40 days to cover the election or sticking our neck out with election poll, which by the way we got right, or being in the thick of campaign with our new mobile camera kits," she says.
BOLD AND EMPATHETIC JOURNALISM
For Kalli Purie, there is one more litmus test for gold standard of journalism - asking questions, all kinds of questions. "A nation should always be a work in progress and a constant conversation. If you start disqualifying people who ask uncomfortable questions, eventually you get the chilling silence of compliance. The questions stop, conversation ends and the progress halts," Kalli Purie told an industry meet recently.
She is convinced that tomorrow is all about technology. However, she has a word of caution. "As we get multi-device enabled and hyper connected, our world of interest gets large. But our views must not. Our attention span gets shorter but our due diligence prospects must not. Our speed of delivery gets faster but our conclusions must not."
Also read | Kalli Purie leads AajTak.in to numero uno spot in Hindi news websites