Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Apr 9: National Associations of Journalists have expressed utter dismay and took serious umbrage at the suggestion of AICC President Sonia Gandhi to the Prime Minister to ban advertisements to media as part of austerity measures in order to make available adequate funds in fight against COVID 19 pandemic.
Press Association (PA), Indian Journalists Union (IJU), National Union of Journalists (NUJ-I) and Working News Cameramen’s Association (WNCA) said on Thursday that this measure will undermine the role of the media at this crucial hour and this coming from Mrs Gandhi was shocking.
In a statement, the associations termed the suggestion as completely myopic and lacking in reason. “The effects of the ravaging pandemic has put the media industry, particularly print media under severe financial stress and several newspapers have already suspended printing. Many journalists across the country have lost jobs due to this crisis. Stopping advertisements to the media at this juncture would blow death knell to the industry, the role of which is very crucial in the fight against the deadly infection,” they said.
The associations said the present crisis has given rise to a vicious mill of fake news and mainstream media is the only answer for this situation. “This calls for aiding and helping media industry for the good of the country, in these testing times instead of cutting the finances by banning advertisements,” they said and added that, in fact, small newspapers need a revival package from the Government.
The signatories to the statement include Jaishankar Gupta, C K Nayak, President and General Secretary of PA; K Sreenivas Reddy, Balwinder Singh Jammu, President and Secretary General of IJU; Rasbihari, Prasanna Mohanty, President and Secretary General of NUJ-I and SN Sinha, Sondeep Shankar, President and General Secretary of WNCA respectively.
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