The Great Wall and other tales

How Business Standard swam against the media tide to create a unique identity for itself

What is the purpose of a business? If it is simply to make money, one can set up any kind of company.

But the purpose of a media company is to inform, educate, and entertain. These are the three driving forces of editorial operation.

"If that is your mission, then that is what drives you, and you do not sacrifice that for money," TN Ninan, former editor and publisher of Business Standard, said. He was speaking at the opening session of Business Standard Manthan, a two-day event that started in New Delhi on Wednesday to present a road map for India to attain the status of a developed nation by 2047.

Ninan joined the newspaper in 1992 as a consultant and soon became its editor as the newspaper shed its tag of being a business paper for eastern India and started its Delhi edition. And he stuck to his belief of having the so-called Chinese wall a notional but insuperable barrier between the editorial and business operations.

"I insisted on absolutism on that," Ninan said.