What if a Marathi or a Tamilian wants to read ThePrint’s coverage of the US indictment of Adani in their regional language?
Well, I have good news for them and other readers like them who want their news and views in their mother tongue: Their wish has come true. Now, they can read ThePrint in Marathi and Tamil.
They will be joined, shortly, by readers of news in Bengali, Gujarati and Telugu as ThePrint gears up to launch more language platforms.
Like other news websites, ThePrint already publishes in English and Hindi. So when all these regional language portals are active, ThePrint will be available to readers in six Indian languages and English.
This is a really exciting milestone in the evolution of ThePrint as a digital news portal: We are saying to readers in the east, west and the south, don’t go anywhere, we’re coming to you, in your mother tongue. It will be a wow moment for us—we hope it will be for you, too
And, to rephrase ThePrint’s motto, on these websites, we will offer, the substance of English, the reach of regional.
So swagata, swagatam, svagate che, sbogata, varaverkiren—welcome to ThePrint.
Timeless stories
ThePrint Marathi and ThePrint Tamil went live just over a month ago, at the end of October. This was part of a staggered launch—the other three language portals will be online very soon.
Currently, the two websites carry a carefully curated selection of content from the master website. Only written material though. Sorry, no videos or podcasts yet.
They offer a mix of what Nisheeth Upadhyay, Editor, Operations, calls “timeless stories” from ThePrint’s archives. Stories that editors believe will interest readers in each state: Opinion pieces, ground reports, trend and culture stories that withstand the topicality of time. There will also be up-to-date news and opinion, on a daily basis. For example, ThePrint’s analyses of last week’s Maharashtra Assembly election results are available on the Marathi portal.
The objective is to steadily increase the number of stories put out in each language and if readers respond enthusiastically, I foresee a time when original stories of interest to regional audiences will be published on these portals. Plus, podcasts.
For now, easy does it.
Wider readership
You may well ask, what prompted ThePrint to offer its content in Indian languages? Because it’s the logical next step in our relationship with the reader.
Based on surveys and our own experience, we realised that while English-language news websites dominated online news, there was a great opportunity to tap into the growing language market—especially for the kind of editorial content offered by ThePrint.
“There’s a lot of hunger for stories from the ground, something ThePrint offers,” said Upadhyay.
We all know that audiences everywhere, now prefer to read, watch or listen to news, online, be it on mobile phones, tablets, laptops or desktops.
Readership surveys confirm this: there is a serious appetite among an ever-growing audience for online news content.
Up to 84 per cent of Indians depend on online platforms for their news, according to a survey by Reuters Institute of Journalism.
A 2023 study by data analytics company Kantar India and Google, indicated that of the 752 million internet users in India, 379 million (52 per cent) access news online in Indian languages—in other words, “1 in 2 Indian languages internet users are consumers of news’’.
And, at least 153 million online Indian language news consumers access news through apps, websites, YouTube, etc. So, there is an enormous audience out there hungry for current affairs and news websites. That would be ThePrint, right?
As Readers’ Editor, my experience is that ThePrint’s English website has many readers in the west and in the south—in fact, my most frequent correspondence is with readers in the south. And we have the analytics to back this up.
Surveys also suggest that the growth of the regional print news media is healthy and growing stronger: This Crisil report indicates that regional print media will grow by eight to nine per cent this fiscal year. Obviously, there will be a spillover to online news portals.
If ThePrint can take advantage of this opportunity, and make its brand of journalism available to a much wider audience who wish to read in their own languages, its reach would increase, and this would, hopefully, boost subscriptions and revenue.
Yes, money matters. To create good content, to report from the ground, as we do, costs money.
Also read: ThePrint opinion articles get a flood of readers feedback. Remember, ‘views are personal’
Why these languages?
The plan to publish ThePrint’s English articles in Indian languages has been in the works for more than a year—going back to March 2023. And by autumn 2024 we were ready.
There was external data to support our decision—as well as two readership surveys by ThePrint. On the basis of those, we decided to launch websites in Marathi, Tamil, Bengali, Gujarati and Telegu. Tamil and Marathi have rolled out first and the others will follow in early 2025. We chose to begin with these two languages because they were buzzing with political activity, and politics is a key focus area at ThePrint.
Before the launch, we needed a bank of stories so that when the portals went live, there would be enough content already awaiting readers. Over 100 articles were chosen for each language from ThePrint’s existing English editorial portfolio.
This was the easy part. The challenge? Translating those articles into each language. ThePrint did consider translating them in-house but that was impractical given how long each article would take to translate.
Besides, there were quicker options: We could use existing online translating services, such as the government’s translational tool Anuvaad. ThePrint hired two language experts, one each in Tamil and Marathi, to vet translated copies. However, we believed that these missed out on ThePrint’s editorial “voice’’ and “nuances”.
Through trial and error, we decided that Google Cloud Translation would be the best alternative with our language experts keeping an eye on quality.
That’s where we’re at right now. Big adventures often have small beginnings—so too is our journey into the Indian language news. The data tells us that we are on the right track but the ThePrint does need to promote its language portals, aggressively.
Other news websites such as TheWire, Scroll, Newslaundry offer content in English and Hindi. ThePrint is going places most English news portals haven’t been—wish us good luck.
Shailaja Bajpai is ThePrint’s Readers’ Editor. Please write in with your views, complaints to readers.editor@theprint.in
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)
I would very much like the Print to have a Bengali chapter. Current bengali media standards are pretty bad.