On July 1, Mumbai Samachar, the city’s second most circulated Gujarati paper, will reaffirm its position as the oldest surviving newspaper in Asia.
When copies of the Mumbai Samachar (MS) hit the stands on July 1, the newspaper will be making history rather than just recording it. At 192 years and running, it will reaffirm its position as the oldest surviving newspaper in Asia.
Despite being one of the costliest newspapers in Mumbai, it is the second most circulated Gujarati language paper in the city. It sells two lakh copies every day, of which 1.1 lakh are distributed in Mumbai.
Born a weekly in 1822, it became a daily in 1832. Resource crunch forced it to turn bi-weekly in 1833 but it was back on the daily route in 1855 — and has remained so till date.
In an age when traditional newspapers are under pressure to shift to digital-only editions, what keeps MS kicking? “I would say our credibility,” said Nilesh Dave, the Editor.
“Though we are reading a lot online, I feel we haven’t yet adapted to the culture of reading whole newspapers online. People still depend on newspapers for depth. Newspapers have the time to verify the credibility of the news,” said Mr. Dave. These tweet eras are just five-year trends. In the long history of this paper many such trends have come and gone. In the end, a paper survives on its strengths, the basics and credibility,” he added.
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