Comparative analysis of newspapers: Rajasthan Patrika and The Hindu in terms of layout, design and visual presentation for journalism students to learn print media basics.

Rajasthan Patrika is a Hindi-language daily newspaper with a readership of approx. 7,665,000 according to Indian Readership Survey 2013. Printed at 33 locations across 8 states in India, Rajasthan Patrika has huge readership in major cities like Bhopal, Indore, Jabalpur, Chennai, New Delhi, Bangalore etc.

The Hindu is an English-language Indian daily newspaper with a large base of circulation in south India.   With a readership of approx. 1,473,000 according to Indian Readership Survey 2013, The Hindu is published from 20 cities at 8 states which include cities like Chennai, Coimbatore, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Noida, Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, Tiruchirapalli, Kolkata etc.

Basic layout comparison table:

	Rajasthan Patrika	The Hindu
Format	Broadsheet	Broadsheet
Size	Width: 34.5 cm, Length: 55 cm	Width: 35 cm, Length: 55 cm
Website	www.patrika.com	www.thehindu.com
Language	Hindi	English

The below comparative analysis of the two newspapers have been noted in order of their appearance on the respective newspapers’ front pages published on 26 April 2014:

1)      On Rajasthan Patrika, the top of the front page displays the Folio line running in grey color displaying the following information:

• Number of pages
• Price of the newspaper
• Barcode
• Slogan
• Website

While the top page on The Hindu’s front page has the Masthead/Nameplate appearing with the following information:

• Place, day and date of the publication according to English calendar
• Name of the newspaper and logo
• Slogan

2)      On Rajasthan Patrika, just below the Folio line, the Masthead/Nameplate was noticed displaying:

• Name of the newspaper
• Place, day and date of the publication according to English calendar
• Publication date and tithi according to Hindu calendar

Whereas on The Hindu, Folio line had:

• Regd., RNI, Volume & ISSN number
• Edition
• Number of pages
• Price of the newspaper
• Website

3)      On Rajasthan Patrika, Ears were present on both top left and top right corner; none were found on The Hindu.

4)      On Rajasthan Patrika, Puffs/Blurbs were noticed which included two color bands, green on left and blue on right side respectively; with teaser text, corresponding graphic and page number.

On the other hand, on The Hindu, 4 Puffs/Blurbs were noticed with teaser text, corresponding graphic and page number.

5)      Next on Rajasthan Patrika, a Kicker appears above the Headline; on The Hindu a Strapline amplifying the main headline appears just below the Headline.

6)      Headline appears on the page for the most important story of the day, which was easily noticeable because of its big and bold font style on both the newspapers.

7)      On Rajasthan Patrika, a 6 column layout was seen with a maximum width of 5 centimeters, whereas on The Hindu an 8 column layout with a maximum width of 4 centimeters was seen.

8)      On Rajasthan Patrika, Dateline includes name of the place from where the particular story originated and an email address for correspondence; however, on The Hindu the Dateline had only the place mentioned, which is also followed by the Byline, which includes the name of the reporter. No Byline was noticed on Rajasthan Patrika.

9)      Article/Body copy appears below explaining the most interesting story of the day and also displaying the related photo on both the newspapers.

10)   Secondary lead stories appear with supporting photo on both the newspapers.

11)   On both the newspapers, Sub-heads appears in smaller font size explaining more about the secondary lead story. However, Jump and Jumpline to read the continued page and the continuation instruction respectively were only noticed on Rajasthan Patrika.

12)   Small-ads/Lineads were noticed on the left most columns promoting businesses on both the newspapers.

13)   Editorial cartoon/Political cartoon containing a commentary relating to a current event with the artist’s name was noticed only on Rajasthan Patrika.

14)   Also, few big photos were noticed with corresponding Caption/Cutline explaining what is happening in the photograph on both the newspapers.

15)   Both the dailies had one major Display ad appearing on the second half of the newspaper’s front page, promoting a particular business or organization.

Overall observation:

While there were many similarities between the two newspapers, The Hindu was no doubt more appealing in its overall layout, visual representation, better usage of white spaces and paper quality. Many of the the graphics appearing on Rajasthan Patrika were low in quality and blurry, whereas graphics on The Hindu had far superior images. Hopefully this article will be of some help for journalism students to learn few print media basics.